Friday night lights,Freshman red zone

CHAPTER 2

Friday night lights, Freshman red zone

The spiral behind my ear started itching at 6:12 p.m., right when the marching band hit the first downbeat of “Louie Louie.”

I was crouched under the bleachers lacing my Vans tighter, skateboard wedged between my knees like a shield. Lakeside’s freshman football team was warming up on the practice field behind the stadium—real game didn’t start until the varsity finished, but freshmen still got to play under the same lights for one quarter. Tradition, apparently.

Tradition smelled like burnt popcorn and teenage desperation.

Brittany Rae Lynn bounced past in her tiny navy skirt, megaphone swinging.

“Celeste! You’re coming to the game, right? We need bodies in the student section or Coach kills us.”

“I’m working,” I lied, tapping the Canon AE-1 hanging around my neck. “Photo lab assignment. Mr. Bathory wants action shots.”

She pouted glossy pink. “Fine, but save me one of you doing something cute on that board later.”

She cartwheeled away. Literally.

I slipped through the chain-link gate that separated the practice field from the real one. The mist was already thick tonight—rolling off Lake Hamilton in slow-motion waves, tasting like pennies and cotton candy. It clung to my platinum hair until the ends dripped like I’d been swimming.

Remy Tsatoke was throwing spirals to the wide receiver, braid whipping each time he planted. The scar on his throwing arm caught the stadium lights—silver spiral, same shape as the tattoo behind my ear. I lifted the camera, zoomed.

Click.

He looked straight into the lens like he’d felt the shutter in his bones. Amber flash in his eyes. Gone.

“Morau.”

Mr. Bathory’s voice slid over my shoulder like cold silk. I hadn’t heard him approach.

He stood too close—close enough I could smell wintergreen and old books on him. His black coat looked expensive, 1940s cut, collar turned up against mist that didn’t seem to touch him.

“Action shots require being in the action,” he said.

“I’m working the sideline.”

He tilted his head. “The sideline is safe. The red zone is honest.”

He reached past me and adjusted the aperture ring on my lens—two clicks wider—without asking. His fingers brushed the spiral tattoo.

It burned.

I jerked away. “Personal space, Mr. B.”

“My apologies.” He smiled like he wasn’t sorry at all. “The light is better near the end zone. Trust me.”

He walked off toward the goalpost, coat flaring like wings. The mist parted for him, then swallowed the space he’d been.

I edged closer to the field. The freshman quarter started.

Remy took the snap.

The mist rose.

Not metaphor—actual fog lifting off the turf in the exact shape of a coyote pack, eight of them, running alongside the offensive line. Only I saw it. I think.

I lifted the camera.

Remy juked left, planted, threw a missile thirty yards. Touchdown.

The coyote mist howled—silent to everyone else, loud as sirens in my skull.

The spiral behind my ear spun.

I dropped the camera. It hung against my chest, strap cutting into my neck.

Someone laughed behind me. Low, Kyoto accent wrapped in venom.

“Careful, Valentina-chan. Some pictures develop teeth.”

Seras Nakamura leaned against the chain-link, red streak in her black hair glowing like fresh blood under the lights. She wore the same uniform as the cheer squad but hadn’t bothered with the bow—looked like she’d cut it off with scissors and zero regrets.

I rubbed my ear. “You always lurk, or is this a special occasion?”

“Special,” she said, eyes on the goalpost where Mr. Bathory now stood, motionless, mouth open like he was drinking the steam curling off the goal line. “Your family’s very good at running. Kyoto, Prague, Nashville… Hot Springs. Always one step ahead of the exhale.”

I blinked. “You stalking my mom’s F******k or something?”

Seras smiled sharp enough to cut film. “Something.”

She flicked something small and silver into the air—a coin?—caught it without looking. “Tell Julian-sensei I said hi.”

“He’s not—”

But she was already walking away, hips swaying like she owned gravity.

Halftime. Varsity took the field. Freshmen spilled into the stands.

I stayed on the track, reloading film with shaking fingers.

Remy jogged over, helmet tucked under one arm, sweat making his braid stick to his neck.

“You okay?”

“Peachy.” I held up the camera. “Got your touchdown. Coyote edition.”

He went still. “You saw them?”

“Hard to miss when they’re screaming in Dolby surround.”

He glanced at the spiral scar on his arm, then at my ear. Didn’t ask to see it. Just nodded once.

“Grandma says the marked ones see clear. Didn’t think it’d be a skateboard girl from Tennessee.”

“I’m full of surprises.”

He almost smiled. “Game’s not over. Stay off the fifty-yard line after the third quarter. Mist gets… grabby.”

He ran off before I could ask what that meant.

Third quarter. Varsity up by fourteen.

The stadium lights flickered—once, twice—then died.

Blackout.

The crowd screamed, half thrilled, half scared.

Emergency floods kicked on, bathing everything in corpse-blue.

The mist poured in through the open end of the stadium like someone had opened a valve. It rose to my knees, my waist, my chest.

I lifted the camera on instinct.

Through the viewfinder:

Mr. Bathory standing dead center on the fifty-yard line, arms spread, face tilted to the sky.

The mist was feeding him—streaming into his mouth, his eyes, his sleeves.

Behind him, Seras watched from the top row, red streak glowing brighter, lips moving like she was counting.

And on the field, the varsity quarterback dropped the snap, bent double, and howled.

Not metaphor. Full coyote.

The refs blew whistles that sounded like screams.

Lights slammed back on.

Everything normal.

Quarterback laughing like it was a prank. Crowd cheering.

Mr. Bathory was gone.

Seras was gone.

But the spiral behind my ear was hot—burning like a brand.

I skated hard out of the stadium, past the concession stand where Brittany was selling glow sticks like nothing happened.

Found Mr. Bathory waiting by my Tahoe in the parking lot, leaning against the hood like he belonged there.

“Celeste.”

I braked hard, deck screeching. “You can’t just—”

“You dropped this.” He held out my lens cap. “And this.”

A single developed photo—still wet.

Me, under the bleachers, spiral tattoo glowing silver through my hair.

Behind me, in perfect focus: Mr. Bathory’s reflection in the chrome bumper.

Only he had no reflection.

Just mist shaped like a man.

On the back, written in red darkroom pen:

The Morua spiral turns again.

Lesson one: some secrets develop in blood.

—J.B.

I looked up.

He was already walking away, coat flaring, swallowed by mist that curled around his ankles like an obedient dog.

My phone buzzed.

Unknown number.

Text:

“He lies with every breath he doesn’t take.

Ask your mother why you really left Kyoto when you were six.

Or don’t. Some negatives burn the second you expose them.

—S”

I stared at the photo until the edges curled.

The spiral behind my ear finally cooled.

But the mist?

It followed me all the way home—slipping through the cracked window of the Tahoe, pooling on the passenger seat, fogging the windshield from the inside.

It tasted like ozone.

Like secrets.

Like family.

Freshman year was five days old.

And the valley had already started developing me.