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Chapter 12: Home

Aima's POV

"Home," Dom said again, slowly. "Who's coming to take you home, Aima?"

The stairwell was so quiet that I could hear the tap dripping three floors below. Samuel's voice had stopped, but it still seemed to hang in the air.

I had two choices. I could lie, or I could tell him part of the truth.

"My uncle," I said. "Samuel. He's my dad's younger brother."

Dom's face didn't change. "The one in Bristol."

"Yes. His wife, my Aunt Bridget, told him I stole a watch. I didn't. She hid it in her own jewellery box and blamed me, so she could throw me out. Samuel was away on a trip. He got home and found out the truth."

I told him about the thin mattress and the housework and the names she called me. I did not tell him about the message on my screen, or the recording, or Vance.

Dom listened to every word. When I finished, he was quiet for so long that I thought he had stopped breathing.

"And now he wants to take you back to Bristol," he said.

"I don't know what he wants."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know that either."

He looked at me with his dark, steady eyes, and I felt as if he could see right through my skin. He knew I was hiding something. I was sure of it.

But all he said was, "Get some sleep."

Then he stood up and went down the stairs, and I sat there with his hoodie around my shoulders and my heart in pieces.

I could not sleep.

The next morning was closed practice. This meant nobody from outside was allowed in to watch, because the team was working on its plays for the big game. Coach Daniel had ordered it after the scandal, and he had put extra security guards on every gate. Nobody got in without a pass.

I carried towels and water bottles until my arms ached. All morning I kept checking the clock. Ten o'clock. Eleven. Half past.

At five to twelve, I put the box down on the bench and went out to the main gate.

He was already there.

Samuel stood on the pavement outside the black iron bars, in a brown coat that was too big for him now. He had lost weight. His hair had gone greyer than I remembered, and he was holding a small paper bag. He saw me, and his whole face crumpled.

"Aima." His voice cracked. "Oh, Aima. Look at you."

I walked toward the gate. I wasn't sure my legs would carry me.

"Uncle Sam."

"I brought you a sandwich," he said. He held up the paper bag, laughing and crying at the same time. "Cheese and pickle. Your favourite. It's a bit squashed. I ran for the train."

It was such a small thing. But my eyes burned, and I had to bite my lip.

"Open the gate, please," I said to the guard.

He was a big man with a clipboard, and he didn't even look up. "Sorry, miss. Closed practice. No visitors, no exceptions. Coach's orders."

"He's my family."

"Not on my list."

"He's my uncle; he only wants to talk—"

"Sorry, miss."

"Please." Samuel had put his hand through the bars, and I took it. His fingers were freezing. "Please, I only need five minutes with my niece. I've come all the way from Bristol."

"Sir, step back."

"I just want to say I'm sorry. Aima, I'm so sorry, I should have known—"

"Sir. Step back from the gate." A second guard had come over. He put a hand on Samuel's shoulder and pulled him away from the bars, harder than he needed to. The paper bag fell and landed in a puddle.

"Don't touch him!" I shouted. "He isn't doing anything!"

"Aima!" Samuel called, as they steered him down the pavement. He wasn't fighting them. That was the worst part. He just let them move him, the way he used to let Bridget. "I'll wait! I'll wait at the station! I'll be at the café across the road! I won't leave without you!"

"Uncle Sam!"

The guard blocked my way with his arm. "Miss, if you leave the grounds without permission, that counts against your probation. Coach's rules."

I stood there with my fists clenched and watched my uncle's brown coat get smaller and smaller, until it turned a corner and was gone.

The sandwich lay in the puddle, with the paper going soft and dark around it.

"Shame about your uncle."

I knew the voice before I turned.

Vance was leaning against the wall of the guardhouse, with his sports bag on one shoulder and his hands in his pockets. He looked relaxed. He looked like someone watching a film he had already seen.

"Did you do this?" I whispered.

"Me?" He put a hand on his chest. "I don't run security. I'm just a player." He smiled. "But I do hear things. Like the fact that Coach doesn't let strangers in."

"What do you want?"

"I told you. Friday. The press event. You break up with Isaiah in front of every camera." He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "And just so you don't get any ideas about deleting my phone, or pushing me down some stairs, I've already sent a copy of that recording to Dakas's agent. A backup. If anything happens to me, it goes straight to the papers."

The ground seemed to tilt.

"You can't," I said.

"Already did." He shrugged. "So I wouldn't waste time trying to find another way. You've only got one way out, flower girl."

He walked back into the arena, whistling.

I stood by the gate with my hand pressed against the cold bars. My uncle was somewhere across the road, waiting. A recording was in the wrong hands. And the only person I had begun to trust was a boy I was supposed to be lying to.

Somehow, I got through the afternoon. I filled bottles and wiped floors, and every time I looked up, I expected somebody to point at me.

When practice finally ended, I went straight up to my room. I just wanted to sit down. I just wanted to think about what to do with all of it.

The door was open.

I stopped on the threshold.

The lamp was on, throwing its small yellow circle on the wall. And Dom was sitting on the edge of my bed with his back very straight.

He wasn't looking at me. He was looking down at his hands.

There was a blue notebook open on his knee.

My notebook.

"The security guard told me about the man at the gate," he said, without lifting his head. His voice was very calm. "I came to see if you were all right. I knocked. The door wasn't locked. And your pillow was slightly out of place, and there was a corner sticking out."

"Dom, give me that—"

"'Finals night,'" he read out loud. "'Every camera. Every receipt. Every word he sent me. He will say my name himself.'" He turned the page. "'Stay close to Dom. The Titans' badge is my way into the finals.'"

He looked up.

I had seen Dominic Isaiah cold. I had seen him furious. But I had never seen him like this, with all the fight gone out of his face, and only something raw and quiet left behind.

"So that's what I was," he said softly. "A badge."