The Raven King (All for the Game, #2)

by Nora Sakavic

They were different kinds of heartless and Neil, for all his problems connecting with other people, didn't want to be a monster.

As he listened to them, Neil realized he was happy. It was such an unexpected and unfamiliar feeling he lost track of the conversation for a minute.

He didn't think a small thing like this should hurt so much, but the grief that punched through him left him in pieces. The roaring in his ears sounded like the ocean. For a moment he was back there on the beach watching fire eat through the car. He remembered how it smelled, the salt of the water and the sick stench of burning flesh. He could still feel the sand on his fingers, warm up top where the sun shone and cold deep down where he'd left his mother's bones. He'd saved their phones for last. Every time they moved they got new cell phones, prepaid burners they could ditch at the first hint of trouble. He wanted to keep hers. He wanted something real to hold onto in her absence. Even then he'd known better. He threw them into the waves before leaving the beach. He'd never gotten a new one for himself. He'd never seen a point; Neil had no one in the world he could call.

"Your parents are dead, you are not fine, and nothing is going to be okay," Andrew said. "This is not news to you. But from now until May you are still Neil Josten and I am still the man who said he would keep you alive.

Neil thought about Renee's bruised knuckles, Dan's fierce spirit, and Allison holding her ground on the court a week after Seth's death. He thought about his mother standing unflinching in the face of his father's violent anger and her ruthlessly leaving bodies in their wake. He felt compelled to say, "Some of the strongest people I've known are women."

He was content to watch and imagine. Lonely, too, but there was nothing he could do about that.

"Enlighten us," Andrew said, leaning forward over his plate like he couldn't wait for the answer. "If the first step isn't tolerance, where does a pair of bigots begin in fixing a mess like this?"

Aaron's face was white with fear and horror. "This has happened before." He said it low, like he was afraid the words would make it real. Aaron stared at Andrew like he'd never seen Andrew before in his life. Andrew didn't bother returning the look, so Aaron finally dragged his attention to Luther's face. "This has happened before, and you knew about it. You knew what he'd done and you brought him here anyway."

Guilt, grief, and pain were corrosive toxins in his veins, tearing him apart from the inside out. He let them, made them, because these memories were awful but they were things that made sense. That aching loss was all he knew and understood. If he lost sight of them all he had was the unfamiliar cruelty he'd witnessed tonight. He didn't know how to face this yet. He didn't know how to compartmentalize it into something he could tolerate.

Neil didn't really believe in luck, but he watched them go and hoped for it anyway.

"I don't care." Aaron gave a savage jerk of his hand. "I don't care if Andrew never speaks to me again. I don't care about Cass or Drake or anyone. What Drake did—no. If I could bring him back from the dead and kill him again I would." "Good," Neil said quietly. "So now you understand why Andrew killed your mother."

Neil, Wymack called him, even when he looked like this, even with his father's face and his father's eyes and the Moriyamas' number on his face. Neil, Wymack called him, and more than anything Neil wanted it to be true. He stopped fighting to get free; the hands that had been trying to wrench Wymack's arms off him now held on for dear life.

He was their family. They were his. They were worth every cut and bruise and scream.