Chapter 6: Aftershocks and Family Files

🏀 Post-Match – Pentagon U Gym

We lost.

Okay, I didn't lose. My team did. Sky's team won by two points.

He had the nerve — the audacity — to shoot a buzzer-beating fadeaway three like he was in a movie.

And I?

I stood there watching it arc through the air, heart pounding like I was in love with the ball. I wasn't. (The ball didn't have perfect cheekbones or walk like wind.)

The crowd screamed.

Sky smiled.

And I… I might've felt something break a little.

He walked past me after the final whistle. Our shoulders brushed. His voice barely a whisper.

"Good game, Captain."

I think I forgot how to breathe for a second.

🧪 Later That Night – Young One's Home

My dad was in his lab again. He's always in his lab. Building machines to "optimize genetic potentials." Whatever that means. I once found a test tube labeled "Enhanced Sperm Velocity Trials." I've never recovered.

My mom was upstairs, yelling on the phone.

Something about "canceling the LGBTQ awareness week at campus" and "protecting traditional values."

You'd think a hacker with three degrees in cyber warfare would be more open-minded.

She isn't.

She once put parental controls on my Spotify account because I liked too many Lady Gaga songs.

They don't know about me.Not really.I keep it locked tight — behind sarcasm, sports, and a very heterosexual stash of protein shakes.

But sometimes I wonder…If they ever found out?Would they try to "fix" me like one of Dad's broken robots?

🩸 Meanwhile – Sky's House, 11:32 p.m.

Sky sat at his desk.

He wasn't smiling, despite the win.

Below his room, the hum of a freezer echoed through the floor. His mom had been gone for three days. Tonight she returned.

With another package.

He didn't ask questions. But he saw the small shoe sticking out of the duffel bag before she zipped it shut.

"You're quiet," she said, peeling off leather gloves. "Everything okay, sweetheart?"

"Fine," he replied.

She smiled and handed him a red lollipop like he was still six years old. Then walked downstairs, humming something off-key.

Sky didn't eat the lollipop.

He stared at the wall instead. At the poster of Young One mid-jump shot — frozen in air like someone who never fell.

He wanted to live in that poster.

Far away from secrets. From basements. From mothers who steal children and fathers who sell them by weight.

Just… somewhere safe.

Where the only thing stolen was a glance across a basketball court.