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Conall

"Thirty-two to twelve," I scoffed proudly, looking left and right for any oncoming traffic before pulling out onto the highway. "It was a massacre! The Knights were spectacular! You were spectacular!"

My eyes and ears swiveled to Lee in the passenger seat. He was clutching the helmet to his suit of armor in his lap as if it was a life-vest and he was cast adrift at sea. The swarthy little Australian shepherd let a soft smile play across his muzzle, and his flopped ears would wobble backward whenever the armor in the bed of my truck would shift and clank about, but that was it. Out on the field he was a spitfire of gleaming silver and whirring blade, a hero behind a mask; but without his shell, without his anonymity, he was quite the reserved young man, which was especially odd for a football player.

Well, he didn't get to play at all tonight, to be honest. Corbin, our school's football coach, didn't even let him take off that cumbersome, metal sauna once during the game. I know the new Emerald Knight is supposed to rally both our school spirit and faltering image, and it has been quite the breath of fresh air, but the mascot and the fur inside the costume are two separate beings. Lee, here, was a prime example.

He was a senior, and he'd been in my class for different levels throughout the years. He was a wonderful young man -intelligent, creative, driven, responsible - and he never was much trouble. His team mates, on the other hand, I could've happily gored with my antlers because of all the crap they'd done me when I had them. Lee actually took interest in what I had to teach, and we got along really well. He rarely talked, but he always listened.

Because of his passive nature Corbin ate him alive. I always went to the games (most times to help out with the event itself), and I always saw how Lee would be shunned and benched when he couldn't perform up to his coach's rip-and-tear play methods. He loved to play -God he did - but he rarely got any game-time. If Corbin hadn't discovered Lee's finesse in medieval armed combat, then I doubt he would've been on the team at all this year.

Well, poor Lee was more of a publicity stunt, a flashy show, than an actual team member. After all, no one knew who he was with all of that armor on. In a way I'm sure he enjoyed that, being someone else almost, but it wasn't what he really wanted. He wanted to be noticed - and he was getting attention...but as the Emerald Knight, not as Lee Hawthorne.

He knew this. He knew it, and it was upsetting him.

"You alright?" I asked.

He flashed me a quick, apologetic glance. "Yeah, Mr. Atlee," he sighed. "Thanks for agreeing to help me bring the suit back to the school, by the way."

I waved my paw through the air and smiled at him. "It's no problem. I guess since we store that monster in my classroom's storage closet that Corbin believes it's my responsibility to take care of it anyway."

Lee grinned, and he let his fingers trace across the helmet as he ran his paw across it gingerly. "I noticed it had been oiled and polished." He cocked an eyebrow as he aimed a curious gaze at me. "Did you?"

I shrugged and bobbed my head. The peak horns of my antlers scraped across the roof of my truck, and I ducked a little out of reflex. Lee let out a tiny snicker. "Well, it's damp in there. Can't let your glistening investment rust, now can I?"

He shook his head, and his deep brown eyes widened while he imagined the consequences that would follow that armor becoming tarnished. "My uncle would kill me. So would coach..."

"Hence the polishing," I said.

He grinned. "Thanks. You knew what you were doing, too. The plates moved like a dream. I forgot I was wearing it all for a while."

I chuffed at that, and my antlers struck the roof again. "I find that hard to believe. That thing must weigh a ton."

"You get used to it," he simply said.

My classroom was on the eastern side of the school building, so I drove around and entered through the student parking lot. The lights that illuminated the vast sea of pebbly concrete flashed ominously like a line of bug-zappers, and the blue glow that radiated off of them barely cut through the thick dark that had fallen once the sun had set. My high-beams managed well enough, though. The lot was empty except for one lone car sitting at the base of the steps from the upper parking area, and Lee peered at it in puzzlement as I drove past, his entire body swiveling in the seat as he looked back.

"There's someone there," he said in earnest.

I flashed a look in the rearview mirror but saw no one. "In the car?"

"No! On the ground! Like, laying there!"

Tires squalled as I pummeled the brake into the floorboard, and the truck came to a stop sideways where, through the passenger window and past Lee's perked ears, I could see that - although hidden partially by both the car and shadow - there was someone sprawled their on the ground. My blood froze in my veins for an instant before my heart kick started like a furnace, pounding like a fist against my ribs. Lee peered anxiously at me, and then he threw open his door and took off toward whoever was laying there.

"Dammit," I growled. I threw the truck into reverse and shouted after him. "Lee! Be careful! Jesus..."

I speedily pulled my truck down so that the headlights were illuminating where Lee was crouched down over the person. His tail was lifeless and his ears were dropped back, and as I jumped out from behind the wheel my nose caught the scent of blood hanging stale in the air. I groaned and hurried to his side, and...

Sasha.

It was Sasha.

Sasha with a wide, bloody gash across his forehead; Sasha with an eye swollen shut; Sasha who looked like a ragdoll tossed about inside a vortex; Sasha with the fur stained red from his temples to his neck, dry, cracking, serpentine lines slipping over his face and slithering across the pavement; Sasha with his arm clutched across his stomach; Sasha with the skin peeled raw upon his elbows where he'd fallen; Sasha limp and lifeless with agony frozen upon his face.

My legs nearly gave out. I nearly collapsed.

I thought he was dead. There was so much blood.

Lee had the fox's head cradled in his hands, and he felt for a pulse then held his ear to Sasha's mouth to see if he was breathing. From the way his entire body relaxed I knew he'd felt a breath.

He stared wide-eyed at me. "What do we do?" Lee asked direly. "What happened?"

I couldn't answer him. I didn't know what had happened. I had an idea, but I prayed to God that that wasn't the case. I knew better than anyone about the cruelty that had plagued Sasha. It had plagued me, too. This couldn't have happened because of that. It just couldn't have.

Hate.

Intolerance.

Lee jerked his head back around as Sasha whimpered. The fox's legs wobbled and crooked, and his head stiffly turned this way and that, the grimace he bore heaving downward on his face as he came to and the pain in his body began to plague him.

I shuffled and kneeled on the other side of him.

Lee still held Sasha's head, and he'd placed his paw over his chest as if afraid that the fox's heart would suddenly stop. The expression on his face was as much an indication of that, though I don't know why. I'd seen Lee upset, but...he seemed...distraught, deeply troubled. I mean, I was, too, but...there was something else.

"Sasha," I whispered. No reaction. "Sasha," I worried louder.

His ears flicked at the sound of my voice. I could see his eyes tumbling around behind the white, blood covered shutters of his eyelids.

I leaned closer to call again, but Lee beat me to it. "Sasha," he moaned. "Come on. Wake up!"

I looked at him curiously. His voice had cracked.

Sasha moaned again, his voice ragged and raw. His body jerked, and his eyes flung open. He looked as though he'd woken up from a nightmare, but, unfortunately, he'd woken into one. He stared off into space while Lee and I waited to see what he'd do, and then he noticed we were there with him and his eyes squeezed shut again. When he opened them his swollen one only parted halfway, and tears streaked from the edges of both, dampening the blood dried on his face and making it glisten grossly.

I wanted to ask if anything felt broken, because I was terrified to move him, but, with a staggering sob of a breath, he sat upright and latched onto Lee. The shepherd gasped as he was embraced and sat rigid while Sasha cried into his chest, but then he seemed to melt, and he wrapped his own arms around the fox.

"Sasha," I cooed, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"WHY!?" he blurted. His back arched as he took a trembling breath. His jacket - the jacket I had given him - was ruined, bloodstained. "I...I didn't do anything...why, why, why!"

He grunted in pain, and Lee's eyes widened as Sasha pulled his head back and left an oozing circle of blood on his shirt. The fox's head lolled drunkenly, but Lee put his hand behind it again and held it steady. He then looked to me in panic.

"Should...should we call 911?"

I reached for my phone in my pocket. "Yeah, hold..."

"NO!" Sasha shrieked. His head jerked around in Lee's steady hand and his terror-stricken eyes latched onto me. The pain in that look, the fear that caused him to shudder, it made my own throat tighten in anguish. "No," he sniveled. "Please, no..."

"But you're hurt!" Lee reasoned desperately.

Sasha sucked in a chest-swelling breath, wincing a little, and tried to stand. He was trying to make us see he was alright, but clearly he wasn't. Lee looked worriedly at me, but I just nodded. With much grunting and whimpering we helped the fox up, and he leaned against his car with his arms clutched protectively over his stomach as I looked him over.

The cut on his head was the worst injury from what I could tell. It had bled all that it would, though, for the moment anyway. I warily got him to unfurl his arms, and, as I pulled up his shirt, I could see some large blotches on his stomach and chest where he was beginning to bruise. When I asked what happened he said he didn't remember, so that wasn't good. His vision was blurry, he couldn't stand to look near the lights overhead, he had a terrible headache, and he could hardly keep his balance.

"He's got a concussion," Lee diagnosed. "I've gotten a couple while playing."

I nodded, and then I turned to Sasha. His head was bowed and his eyes were closed. His grimace hadn't budged. I kneeled down before him and looked up into his blood-drenched face. I knew head-wounds bled like crazy - when my antlers molted each season I ruined towel after towel keeping pressure on my skull - but, good God, he looked terrible.

I spoke as gently as I could. I knew how sensitive he could be. "Sasha, you really can't remember anything?"

I wanted to find whoever had done this. I wanted them to pay. Sasha was my student, a life-long friend, the closest person I had to a brother in the world; I couldn't allow someone to hurt him and get away with it, especially not if they'd done it because of how he looked or who he was. They'd be a threat to a number of other kids at the school if they weren't caught, and I couldn't stand idly by and watch as young ones were preyed upon because of someone else's intolerance.

He began to shake his head, but the pain it would rouse made him think otherwise. "I don't," he mumbled. "I just want to go home." He opened his uninjured eye and peered at me, begging. "Please, Conall. I just want to go home. I don't want to get anyone else into this. Please."

I grimaced myself, as did Lee. Sasha was scared. He didn't want to make a big deal out of the situation because he was afraid that whoever had hurt him would do it again. He didn't want to make an enemy, but he didn't realize - or maybe he did - that he had something worse than an enemy: he had a predator.

"Sasha, we can't just let this go," I growled. He began to argue, but his head swam and he focused on keeping himself propped up. "If someone attacked you then we have to tell the police. Since it was on school grounds the faculty nd principal have to know!"

"But..."

Lee shifted where he stood close to Sasha, his arms crossed. He spoke soft and sympathetically to him. "You don't remember anything?"

"No..."

The shepherd didn't seem convinced. Neither did I.

"Nothing at all?"

Sasha bristled. "NO."

Lee scooted closer, his tail low but wagging slightly, ears back calmly. "We're only trying to help. Please, if there's something you're not telling us..." He extended his hand as if to place it reassuringly on Sasha's shoulder.

With a sharp pop Sasha slapped Lee's hand aside, and he bared his teeth at him, his muzzle rippling into a menacing snarl the likes of which I'd never seen on him. "I DON'T FUCKING REMEMBER!"

The sudden flare of anger disoriented him, and I saw his pupils expand as his legs gave out and he fell forward. His claws shrieked against the door of his car as he tried in vain to keep himself from falling, but Lee managed for him instead. Quick as a whip he threw out his arms and caught the fox, and he held him steady against himself.

Sasha recovered and struggled out of the shepherd's grasp. "Let go of me!" He gave Lee a rough shove as he hobbled back to lean against his car. Lee took both the physical and verbal assaults without a word. He didn't even show any signs that he was upset by how Sasha was treating him.

"I want to go home," Sasha whimpered again.

Lee watched on as I helped the injured fox to my truck and cranked it, and after I hefted him into the passenger seat and buckled him up I returned to find the troubled shepherd stuck fast to where I'd left him. He had dabbed Sasha's blood on his shirt with a finger or two, and he was staring blankly at the spots of red glistening on his pads.

"Lee, are you okay? This is pretty...pretty shocking. I can take you home now if you want."

He let his arm drop, and he wiped his hand on his pants. Sasha sitting limp in my truck drew his attention, and his lips curved into a worried frown. "Is...is he going to be okay?"

I let my own eyes wander back to Sasha's still form. I knew he was strong, and I knew he'd overcome this eventually, but this was a whole new turn of events for him - for the both of us. Ever since I became a counselor and big brother to him, seeing him through countless verbal bullyings and assaults, I'd never had to console him through a physical attack. I knew he'd fought a few times in school when his classmates were picking on him and his temper got the best of him, but he'd always come out on top in those situations. Those instances were within his realm of control, though, while this...this wasn't. And it was so much worse than a simple case of teenage-ignorance and stupidity. This...this had consequences; dire consequences.

"I'll talk with him and with his parents. I'm sure it'll take some time, but he'll be okay." I rubbed the back of my head, and I tugged on an antler for no reason in particular. I guess it was a nervous tick or something. "I apologize for Sasha. Of course, he's not always like this. I mean..." I motioned to the blood on his shirt.

"I know, and it's okay. He's always been nice to me."

"Oh, good. I didn't know you two knew each other."

Lee nodded, and he noticed Sasha's keys lying up underneath his car. He reached down and picked them up, then offered them to me.

I pushed them back toward him. "I don't want to leave his car here over the weekend," I grumbled. "You wouldn't mind following me in it and bringing it back to his house would you?"

He didn't, and soon we were driving down the highway, the headlights of Sasha's car shining through the rear window of my truck and illuminating the edges of his bloody face as he nodded off beside me.

I was fucking terrified. I could only imagine what his parents were going to say...or, well, scream. I knew this was going to be trouble, and it rightly should be, but...ugh. Sasha's parents were always obsessively protective of him as a child, and I'm sure they still were. If they saw him like this, his fur more red than white, I doubt they'd ever let him out of the house again.

"Sasha," I whispered.

He didn't answer. He opened his eyes, though. He peered brokenly at me with his head laid against the seat, the white of his good eye putty-grey and shiny, frightening with all of the blood around it.

"I'm sorry, Conall," he muttered.

"For what?"

He tried to smile, but he was too heavily burdened and it collapsed into a grimace. "I didn't mean to get so angry..."

"You were scared, that's all. Lee understands."

He was silent for a few minutes. Lee followed close. I turned off the air conditioner as I Sasha began to shiver.

"Why can't I remember what happened?" he asked softly, almost to himself.

"It might be because of the blow to your head."

In response he shakily lifted his pawn and touched the wound on his forehead. He winced as he probed the gash, and then he moaned as he felt all of the blood caked onto his face.

I reached underneath my seat and pulled out some Lysol wipes. "Here, clean that up as much as you can. I don't want your parents to faint at the sight of all that."

He grunted and sat up, and then he took the cylinder of wipes and started to wipe his fur clean. "Is...is it that bad?"

"No," I said in honesty. "Cuts on the head just bleed a lot."

"Will I need stitches?"

"No. It's scabbed over already." He'd discarded a handful of soiled, scarlet wipes into the little wastebasket hanging off of my cup holder. "Just try not to open it back up."

"Okay."

He went through nearly the entire container of wipes before he was clean, and I was relieved to see how much better he looked without all of that mess on him. His fur was still a little red, but a nice bath and some soap would take care of that. The swelling had gotten worse around his left eye, though. I could see the skin beginning to bruise blue. I bet the ones on his stomach and chest were just as bad.

We had a while to go yet, so he lay his head back against the seat and curled up as best as he could given the restraint of his seatbelt. He pulled his tail up and held it close like a stuffed animal. I remembered when he would do that while at my house after a drawing session. He looked as peaceful now as he did then, but I knew, on the inside, he was anything but.

The cab grew silent after a while, and I thought he'd fallen asleep, but I'd see his eye open out of the corner of mine every so often. He'd watch me apprehensively, and then he'd look elsewhere as he thought. I could tell he wanted to talk. I wanted him to talk. I wanted him to relieve some of the pressure weighing down on his heart.

He finally broke the silence.

"I missed the game," he said solemnly. "Did we win?"

My frown tugged hard on my face. I couldn't believe what I just heard. After everything that had happened to him he was worried about the damn football game?

"Yeah," I said.

That seemed to cheer him up a little bit.

"Good." His expression then soured. "Red's probably wondering where I was."

Red? "Who's Red?"

"A...a friend. He's the quarterback. He dropped me off at my car before he left to go play." He sighed. "I was supposed to be there to cheer for him."

He was referring to Rudy Kendrick. I had no idea Sasha was friends with one of the football players. Sasha ran track, and I knew about the heated rivalry that the track team and the football team had with one another. Sometimes things got nasty between them. It seemed rather suspicious that the quarterback had dropped Sasha off before going to play, and then someone attacks him in the parking lot. Could Kendrick have set him up? God I hoped not.

"You know Rudy?" I simply asked.

"Yeah. I'd gone with him to meet his parents before the game. They're going..." He dropped off.

"What?"

He clenched his eye closed. "We were all going to Lake Greenwood tomorrow," he said gloomily. "I bet that won't happen now."

Oh. Kendrick had an alibi. Still, I'd talk to Lee. He seemed to be unnerved by something when we'd found Sasha. I hoped the football team wouldn't go to such an extreme to enact their vengeance on the track team, but if they did then Lee may have overheard something. I know he wouldn't ever have a hand in anything like this, but he was so passive...the other guys could have threatened him, too, so he wouldn't say anything.

I sighed and tightened my grip on the steering wheel.

It really wasn't fair of me to jump to such conclusions. Though it was all I had to go by at the moment. Until - and if - Sasha remembered anything all I could do was assume. I doubt the security cameras aimed over the student parking lot would've caught anything seeing as Sasha's car was parked right at the bottom of a hill. It'd still be my first priority to check, though.

I dreaded speaking with his parents about this, but it had to be done. I could already hear his mother now. First she'd blame the school, then she'd blame the school's lack of proper security measures, then she'd blame the faculty and staff, then she'd blame the other kids, then - ultimately - she'd blame me. His father would just stand against a wall looking broody, nodding his head. It wasn't anything new; I'd seen and heard it all before on many different occasions when Sasha and I were younger. Now, though, he couldn't sneak out of his bedroom window and come to me when he needed a shoulder to cry on. I'd moved out of my childhood house after leaving for college. Sasha hadn't even seen my new place or been to it. I'd watched him grow up, and I'd been there for most of it. I was still a part of his life, but not as much as I used to be.

I hated how far apart we'd grown.

I peered over at him. He'd finally fallen asleep. His tail would twitch every so often, and his eyes were darting around behind his lids as he was lost in some dream. I hoped it wasn't a nightmare. It felt like one to me. As I pulled up into the driveway of his house I knew it would only get worse.