Uncovered (Dev and Lee Book 4) (43 page)

Chapter 25 - Timeout (Lee)

I feel like a swarm of bees is buzzing in my chest. I can’t stand still. The timeout seems to go on forever. “What are they gonna do?” Hal asks.

He might as well have asked the question of the entire room, because everyone is answering it. “C.C.’s gonna go for the field goal right here,” someone says.

“No, they’re gonna run it for a few more.”

“They can’t run it, they don’t have enough clock. They’ll pass it.”

“They can’t pass it, that’s too risky. They’re just going to go for it.”

“What’s Chevali doing? What a dumb timeout, letting C.C. set up their offense.”

“No, it’s smart. They’re setting up their defense.”

I bite my lip and then chew one of my claws. If I were Crystal City, I would do a short out to the sidelines. Quick pass, low risk. That’s what the announcers are saying. If it gets them a few extra yards, makes the field goal easier, great. The key thing is to throw it to the outside of the receiver so that if he doesn’t catch it, the defender can’t.

I hope Crystal City isn’t that smart. I happen to think it’s a pretty good timeout for Chevali. Gets the Sabretooths out of their rhythm, gives the defense a chance to settle down and prepare for what’s coming. I want to tell Dev how much I believe in him.

Peter comes over. “Hell of a game! Think your boys gonna pull it off?”

Or maybe he says, “Think your boy’s gonna pull it off?” I’m too excited to parse it correctly.

“Don’t know.” I stop biting my claw and squeeze my paws together. “I’m just happy they made it such a good game.”

“Ha,” he says. “Better if they win, though, right?”

I look at him and he just laughs. “Right,” he says, and points at the screen. “I’ll shut up.”

Chapter 26 – Big Blitz (Dev)

We trot back out onto the field just like it’s any other time in any other game. “You heard Coach,” Gerrard says, watching the offense come back out. It’s not the field goal unit. They’re going to run one more play. “Don’t jump offsides. Let’s go get him.”

In my head, I hear Steez, from the Boliat game:
Now you have to be great
. I think of him and then I think of Lee watching me, maybe from the stands, maybe on TV. For a moment, just a moment, I’m back before all the shit between us, and the pure feeling of wanting him to be proud of me overwhelms me. I want to communicate it to my teammates, but all I can think to do is put my paw out, pads down, and hold it there .

Gerrard recognizes the gesture immediately and puts his out as well. The rest of the defense all join in a moment later, and we look at Gerrard. “‘Firebirds’ on three,” he says. “One, two, three.”

Our paws dip and rise as one. All eleven guys, all together. This is our season, right here, and we shout together, as loud as we can in the deafening noise of the stadium, and it seems to me that our “FIREBIRDS!” takes on a life of its own, going up against the crowd and silencing it, exploding out from our huddle. I hold it in my chest and see my teammates doing the same. There are grins, ear-flicks, and one “Hah” from a lineman.

The offense is already getting set. We hurry to our spots and face our offensive counterparts. I don’t have time to look at the stands. I don’t need to.

Crais has both ears turned back toward their quarterback. Neither he nor I is up for any banter. I don’t know how he can hear anything. The crowd’s not as loud as when they were trying to disrupt our offense, but they’re still loud. Maybe the big ears help. I can’t hear anything except the crowd and the humming in my ears of the thrill of anticipation. So I watch the jackrabbit, and his hind foot stamps.

“Little blue!” I yell, but that’s one second before the ball’s snapped.

I need to make the decision. Do I bump him or just rush the quarterback? In an instant, I see the play last time, the one I disrupted, when McCrae found another target. When we’re all rushing, that leaves people uncovered, and if I slow up, if I’m covering the rabbit and not bringing pressure, maybe that’ll give that wolf a precious half-second to get the ball to someone else.

I don’t have time to think it through. The jackrabbit starts moving, and I leap past him.

White jerseys swarm the blue. A big rack of antlers gets in my way—Runningwater—and I spin around him. I’m two steps from the wolf. He’s got his arm back to throw. Behind him is another white jersey: Gerrard.

His arm comes forward. I crash into McCrae, knocking him back. A second later, Gerrard knocks us both down. The wolf grunts in pain. My ribs complain, but I barely feel it. What I feel is a sinking in my stomach as the crowd roars at jet-engine levels, screaming and cheering and hollering, and I know that we failed.

I roll off McCrae and extend a paw down to help him up. “Hell of a throw,” I say, without even having seen it. “You okay?”

Gerrard helps him too, and slaps him on the back. The wolf looks from one to the other of us with a huge grin as his teammates leap toward him. In the two seconds he has, he says, “You guys played a hell of a game.” He looks up, puts a paw to his ribs, and laughs. “Win or lose. I’m doing great.”

It seems pretty clear which way he thinks the game is going to go. We step back and let the rest of the team mob him. Gerrard and I just stand there for a moment, and then I hear Crais behind me. “What do you think of that, faggot?!”

We’re right in front of the Crystal City sideline, a sea of navy blue. Gerrard grabs my arm. “Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t worry,” I say, and I follow him across the grass to our sideline. My tail doesn’t have any life in it, and the field seems to go on forever.

On the Jumbotron, I see the play: McCrae whipped the ball to the uncovered rabbit. He grabbed it over his shoulder and ran down the sideline ten yards before Vonni chased him out of bounds. They’re in easily makeable field goal range now. Nothing we can do, not anymore.

They send out the kicking team with ten seconds left on the clock. That means that probably they will have to kick it off and we will have a chance at a miracle. For a fleeting moment, I think about going out on special teams again like I did back in week 7. But I was fresher then, and the kicker was shakier. Now I’m beaten up by the season; not that I couldn’t jump if I needed to, but there’s not much point. Their kicker is as confident as Charm.

But I don’t want to leave anything untried. So as the special teams go out to try to block the kick, I run over to Coach. “You need me out there?” I say when he turns.

He shakes his head. His ears are still up, but he’s lost some of the energy he had two minutes ago. “You’ve done all we could’ve asked and more. Coach Martin has a good blocking team out there and they’re doing what they can.”

Zillo’s out there, and so is Marais, and I see now that Marais is doing what I did in that game: he’s jumping up and down, and they have the rabbits on the other side of the line. But their kicker, a small, compact burro, doesn’t even take any notice. He steps back and to the right, nods, and the holder turns to the long snapper. The ball sails back and the holder takes it out of the air, sets it down, turns it quickly as the burro runs toward it.

Gerrard grabs my paw. I grab Charm’s hand. We watch the kick sail up, over the outstretched paws of the rabbits, toward the goalposts—and through.

The stadium explodes. I feel the ground shake and wonder if this is what earthquakes are like. Probably. Just not as fucking depressing.

We all let go of each others’ paws. Nobody says anything.

Coach runs along the sidelines. “We gotta receive a kick!” He yells to the special teams players, which includes Zillo and Marais. Strike jumps up and says, “Let me go out there, too.”

They talk strategy, about whether the Sabretooths will kick it in the air or squib it along the ground. Gerrard and Carson and I, with Vonni and Pace and Norton and Pike and Brick and the rest of the defense, stand on the sidelines waiting. I toss my helmet to the bench, where it rolls to a stop before one of the equipment guys, a short weasel, grabs it and puts it away somewhere.

Fisher’s still sitting on the bench, a yard from where my helmet stopped. I don’t go talk to him.

If I’d just trusted my instincts, I think. If I’d just gone after the jackrabbit. I did the safe thing, I did what I was told to do, what the coaches and Gerrard all said was best. But I will always remember that I might have had a chance to change the outcome of the game. I might have been great.

Chapter 27 – Six Seconds (Lee)

“He couldn’t have done anything different,” Hal says, and I’m inclined to believe him.

“He shouldn’t have left that jackrabbit,” Peter says.

“He almost got to McCrae,” I point out. “And if he’d given him one more second—”

“True,” Peter says. “McCrae’s a beast under pressure. He had Bridger about to shake free.”

“Or he’d have just thrown it away.” Hal feels like he’s trying hard to put the best face on it. Clearly a struggle for him.

Peter pats my shoulder. “You can’t beat yourself up,” he says. “Football’s like that. And hey, they still have six seconds.”

“Miracles don’t happen at the end of championship games.” I say this so that I won’t get my hopes up.

“Miracles can happen at any time,” Hal says. “Just, usually, they don’t.”

“Look, whatever else happens…” Peter grins down at me, his tail wagging. “People aren’t going to forget this game in a hurry.”

“No,” I say. “I don’t think they will.”

I know I won’t. I want so badly to be able to see Dev, but I only catch him in quick shots on the sideline, when he’s hard to pick out from the glum, shoulders-slumped white jerseys. The navy blue Sabretooths jump excitedly, despite their coach trying to calm them down. And the announcers are already talking like the Sabretooths have won, although every few seconds one of them reminds the rest that the Firebirds have six seconds left and remember that one playoff game where the Boxers won on a kickoff return for a touchdown as time expired?

The players take the field. I force myself to breathe.

Chapter 28 – Sitting Down (Dev)

It’s hard to watch, but we can’t look away. I keep envisioning Ty or Strike catching the ball, running it back through the defense. Ty did it once before. Strike—well, he hasn’t returned kickoffs in years as far as I know, but if he gets into the open field, he can do anything. None of us dares talk, but I look at the pricked ears and the paws being squeezed again and I know everyone’s thinking the same thing.

The burro kicks the ball along the ground. It skips and hops toward Zillo and past him, toward Ty and Strike. Ty’s in better position, and he scoops it up in front of Strike, dodges one tackler and starts to get up a good run. We strain forward and start to cheer, but as soon as we do, a pair of Sabretooths converges on him. Ty stops, tries to reverse field, looks for someone to lateral to. It looks like Strike is clear behind him, but he pitches it instead to Zillo, who fumbles the pitch and drops it.

Jerseys pile on top of the ball. The whistles sound and the clock reads all zeroes and the crowd screams with one ecstatic voice that goes on and on and on. I hear the P.A. but not what it says, the words drowned out in the joy of seventy thousand people—minus one red-shirted section and fifty-three guys in white jerseys trudging dejectedly toward the locker room.

There’s no post-game mingling, no mixing and back-patting. I prepare my statements, as I’m sure Gerrard and everyone else is doing, about what an honor it is just to have competed, about how great the Sabretooths played, about how disappointed we feel to have come so close. I can’t think of anything else or else I might just break down completely.

I’m not the only one. Back in the locker room, nobody’s crying noisily, but at least five guys have their paws over their faces, and more rub damp tracks into the fur around their eyes. A bunch just stare into space. Even when Coach gathers us all around, we shuffle like zombies.

“I’m not gonna lie,” he says, and his voice has cracks in it too, which just makes it worse for the rest of us. Someone catches his breath in a definite sob. “This one hurts. I feel like I let you guys down, like there was one thing I could’ve done differently so we would be celebrating now instead of thinking about that other team celebrating.”

We murmur, “no, no,” and he holds up a paw. “I want you to leave here with this thought: we did not lose this game because you didn’t play hard. We lost this game because they made some outstanding plays, because their players are talented and their coaches are smart, and because they had the ball last. You have done as much as you could, and the city of Chevali is going to remember you for a long, long time. Nobody expected us to be in this game, much less be leading with ten seconds to go. So walk out of here with your heads high and your ears up, and when the reporters talk to us, congratulate the Sabretooths on a terrific game, because they played their hearts out the same as you did. And this team has proven that it’s no fluke, that it’s going to be a force to be reckoned with for years to come. We’re young, and next year we’re just going to be better and have more experience.”

Murmurs around the locker room. “One last thing,” Coach says. “For some of you, this is the last time I am going to talk to you as your Coach. Some of you will move to new teams, and we’ll have new faces in these uniforms. So I just want to tell each one of you here in this locker room: thank you all for the effort you’ve put in this season, for the blood, sweat, and tears you’ve shed to make this football team great. I have never been more proud of a group of football players than I am of you. I will never forget how much I have enjoyed the privilege of being your coach.”

Now I feel the pricking of tears. Charm, steady-voiced and loud, calls out, “Let’s hear it for Coach!”

He claps with steady, fast beats of those strong hands, and the rest of us join in with hoots and cheers, and the ones nearest Coach hug him and pound him on the back. “We love you, Coach” and “You’re the best” sound through the cheers, and the old wolf presses fingers to his eyes and hugs back, his tail wagging.

When I make it through the mob to give Coach a hug, he says into my ear, “You’re a remarkable guy.”

“You’re a great coach,” I say back, and then Carson takes my place and I move on, back to my locker.

And you know, I feel a little better. I find that I also want to hear those words from another voice, a fox’s voice, but that will wait for later. I sit there and wonder if I’ll be a Firebird next year. But even that is a remote concern. I’m thinking about how I did everything right, I worked as hard as I could and I focused on football, and at the end of the year I’m still left feeling that there’s a big hole in my life. Is it always going to be like this? I look for Fisher, because I want to ask him if winning a championship, winning two, dulls the pain of losing. But I don’t see him anywhere.

“Where’s Fish?” I ask Gerrard.

He shakes his head. “Trainers, probably.”

I look toward the trainers’ room. “I’ll catch him later, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Gerrard is slumped against his locker, and he looks old, just staring at the floor, still in his game jersey and pads.

I feel the need to try to take his mind off things. “What are you gonna do in the offseason?”

He shrugs. “Play with the kids. Try not to remember this.”

“I hear you.” I look up at the video screens in the locker room, mercifully dark.

“What about you?” He looks up. “Going to work on your contract?”

“Maybe.” I shrug. “Might be traded somewhere, right?”

Gerrard shakes his head. “Doubt it. Maybe if someone comes in with an offer that blows them away.”

“I’d like to stay,” I say. “I think we work well together.”

The coyote doesn’t say anything in response, but he smiles a little and nods.

My phone rings. I pick it up and look at the number. It’s Dad, so I answer. “You played well,” he says. In the background, I hear the noise of the crowd, and then they go silent.

“Thanks.”

“Er…” He seems at a loss for words. “You are watching the field?”

“No. I’m not watching any of it.” My phone beeps again. Another call coming in.

“Perhaps you should.” The crowd behind him roars again, the silence broken.

My phone buzzes: a text message. “What’s going on?”