Rio’s voice cut through the huddle like a blade. “We’re not playing for us.”
The five other girls stared at her, sweat dripping down their faces, chests heaving. The roar of the crowd was a distant buzz in Dex’s ears, muffled by the static that had been building behind his eyes since the second quarter. He gripped the sideline bench, knuckles white, trying to anchor himself to something real. The wood grain under his fingers. The squeak of sneakers on the warped floor. The smell of popcorn and sweat and forty years of desperation.
“We’re playing for him,” Rio said.
Dex watched her through the haze. She was seventeen years old, built like a whip, with eyes that had seen too much and a mouth that never stopped moving. Right now, that mouth was flat and hard, and the girls around her were leaning in like she was the only light in a dark room.
“Marcus,” she said. “The ghost in the floorboards. The kid who never got to finish his game.”
A murmur rippled through the huddle. Tamika, their center, crossed herself. Jenny, the shooting guard, looked like she might throw up. But nobody walked away.
Dex pushed himself off the bench. His knee screamed. He ignored it.
“Listen to her,” he said, his voice cracked and raw from yelling. “You think that press I taught you is about basketball? It’s not. It’s a trap. A cage. You corner the ball handler, you squeeze, you take away every option until they panic and make a mistake. That’s what Marcus did. That’s what he was doing the night he died.”
He paused, letting the weight of it settle. The gym was loud—the whole town had shown up, packed into the bleachers like sardines, hungry for blood. Harlan Briggs’s team, the Meridian Flats Vipers, were bigger, faster, meaner. They’d spent the first half treating the Lady Vipers like a speed bump. Fifteen points down at the break. Fifteen points, and the third quarter was about to start.
“The 1984 championship,” Dex said, “Marcus’s team was down by the same margin. Same score. Same clock. He ran this press, and he turned the game around. He was winning when they took him out.”
Rio’s eyes locked onto his. She knew. She’d seen the ghost in his eyes, in the hospital, when the machines had gone haywire and the doctors had looked at each other like they’d witnessed a miracle or a curse.
“So we run it,” Rio said. “We run it perfect. We trap, we rotate, we never stop moving. We make them feel like the whole court is on fire.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” Jenny asked, her voice small.
Rio smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the smile of someone who’d been counted out her whole life and had decided she was done with that. “It’ll work. It worked forty years ago. It’ll work now.”
The buzzer sounded. The refs were calling the teams back to the floor. Dex looked up at the scoreboard—48 to 33, Vipers on top—and felt the static surge behind his eyes like a wave about to break.
“Rio,” he said, grabbing her arm as she turned to go. “If I go dark out there, you keep running the press. Don’t stop. Don’t call timeout. Don’t look at me. You hear me?”
She held his gaze. “I hear you.”
“And Rio?”
“Yeah?”
“Win this game.”
She nodded once, then jogged onto the court with the others. Dex watched them go, five girls in mismatched jerseys and one point guard who carried the weight of a dead man’s unfinished business on her shoulders.
He sat down on the bench, pressed his palms against his knees, and tried to breathe.
The third quarter started like the first two had ended: Harlan’s team bullying their way down the court, their center backing Tamika into the paint like she wasn’t there. The ball swung, the defense collapsed, and the Vipers’ forward laid it in with an easy two.
Fifty to thirty-three.
The crowd roared. Dex could hear Harlan’s voice from across the court, barking orders, his face red with confidence. The man looked like a monument to everything that had gone wrong in this town—all muscle and pride and buried secrets.
“Run it,” Dex muttered under his breath. “Run the press.”
Rio brought the ball up the court, her eyes scanning, her body low. She didn’t call a play. She just looked at her teammates, gave a sharp nod, and the machine started moving.
The Lady Vipers spread out like a net. Tamika fronted the post, denying the entry pass. Jenny and the other guard pressed up on the ball, forcing the handler toward the sideline. Rio shadowed the weak side, ready to pounce.
The Vipers’ point guard, a kid named Darnell who’d been running circles around them all night, tried to split the trap. Rio was there, her hands active, her feet quick. She poked the ball loose, and it skittered across the floor.
Jenny dove for it. She came up with the ball, her elbow bleeding, and fired it to Rio in one motion.
Rio didn’t hesitate. She pushed the ball up the court, three on two, and laid it in off the glass.
Fifty to thirty-five.
The crowd’s roar faltered. Just a little.
“That’s it!” Dex shouted, on his feet now, his knee forgotten. “That’s the press! Keep it tight!”
The Vipers brought the ball in again. This time they were ready for the trap. Darnell passed it early, swinging it to the wing, trying to beat the pressure before it could set.
Rio was already there. She and Jenny trapped the wing in the corner, arms up, feet shuffling, cutting off every passing lane. The wing panicked. He tried to throw it over the top, but Tamika read it, jumped the lane, and came down with the ball.
She outlet to Rio. Rio pushed it again, drawing the defense, then kicked it to Jenny in the corner.
Jenny squared up. The shot was ugly—her form was still a mess, her elbow flared out, her follow-through short—but it went in.
Fifty to thirty-eight.
The crowd was getting restless now. Dex could hear the murmurs, the shifting of bodies in the bleachers. The Lady Vipers were supposed to be a joke. They were supposed to roll over and die. Instead, they were clawing their way back, one possession at a time.
And then the static hit.
It came without warning, like a fist to the back of the skull. Dex’s vision blurred, doubled, and split. The gym dissolved into a wash of color and noise, and suddenly he was somewhere else.
He was in the same gym, but it was different. The banners were newer. The floor was brighter. The crowd was dressed in 1984 clothes—big hair, high-waisted jeans, windbreakers. And on the court, a team of boys in old-school Vipers jerseys was running the exact same press.
Marcus Webb was at the point.
Dex saw him clearly for the first time. Not the ghost, not the memory—the living, breathing kid. He was tall and lean, with a shock of black hair and a smile that could light up a stadium. He was running the press with a joy that made Dex’s chest ache.
The 1984 Vipers were down fifteen. The clock showed the third quarter, just like now. And Marcus was calling for the trap, his voice sharp and clear, his hands directing traffic like a conductor leading an orchestra.
“Corner him! Corner him!” Marcus shouted. “Now! Now! Now!”
The trap closed. The ball popped loose. Marcus scooped it up and took off down the court, his strides long and effortless, his eyes already locked on the rim.
He rose for the layup—
And the memory shattered.
Dex gasped, his hands flying to his head. He was back in the present, back on the bench, the roar of the crowd crashing over him like a wave. The scoreboard read fifty to forty-one. The Lady Vipers were still down, but they were fighting.
Rio was at the free-throw line, bouncing the ball, her eyes fixed on the rim. She didn’t look at Dex. She didn’t need to. She was running the press exactly like he’d taught her, exactly like Marcus had run it forty years ago.
The free throw dropped. Fifty to forty-two.
And then the lights flickered.
It was subtle at first—a brief dimming, like someone had blinked. Dex looked up at the ceiling, his heart hammering. The lights flickered again, longer this time, and the buzz of the crowd faltered.
“What the hell?” someone in the bleachers said.
Dex looked at the scoreboard.
The numbers were changing.
It wasn’t fifty to forty-two anymore. The scoreboard was flickering, the digits scrambling, and when they settled, they read something else entirely.
**1984.**
The year. Not a score. Just the year, glowing in red LED letters, frozen on the board.
Dex’s blood turned to ice.
He looked at Rio. She was standing at the free-throw line, the ball still in her hands, her face pale as death. She was staring at the scoreboard too.
“Rio,” Dex said, his voice barely a whisper. “Rio, don’t—”
But it was too late. The lights flickered again, and when they came back, the gym was different.
The crowd was still there, but they were dressed differently. The banners on the wall were older, the paint fresher. The floor beneath Dex’s feet was new, the wood bright and unmarred.
And on the court, standing at the free-throw line, was Marcus Webb.
He was translucent, a shimmer of light and shadow, but he was there. He was holding a basketball, his eyes fixed on the rim, his body poised and ready.
Rio saw him. Dex saw him. Nobody else did.
“Oh God,” Rio breathed.
Marcus turned his head. He looked at Rio, then at Dex, and a slow smile spread across his face. He raised the ball, took a breath, and shot.
The ball arced through the air, spinning perfectly, and dropped through the net with a swish that echoed through the silent gym.
The scoreboard flickered again. When it settled, it read:
**1984: 42**
**1984: 42**
Tied.
Dex’s legs gave out. He collapsed onto the bench, his head spinning, his vision swimming. The static was everywhere now, filling his ears, his eyes, his bones. He could feel the ghost pressing against him, trying to get in, trying to take over.
But he didn’t fight it.
He let it in.
And suddenly, he was standing on the court, not on the bench. He was wearing a Vipers jersey, old and faded, with the number 14 on the chest. He was holding a basketball. The crowd was on its feet, screaming, and the clock was ticking down.
He looked at his hands. They were young. Strong. Unscarred.
He looked at the scoreboard. It read 84 to 82. His team was up by two. The clock showed 0:04.
And across the court, Harlan Briggs was staring at him with murder in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Harlan said, his voice low and venomous.
Dex opened his mouth to respond, but the words that came out weren’t his.
“I never left,” Marcus said. “I’ve been here the whole time. Waiting for you to finish what you started.”
The buzzer sounded. The ball was in Dex’s hands. He was at the free-throw line, the game on the line, the crowd holding its breath.
And then the lights went out.
When they came back, Dex was on the bench again, gasping for air. The gym was the present again—the crowd in modern clothes, the banners faded, the floor warped. The scoreboard read 1984, still frozen, still glowing.
Rio was kneeling in front of him, her hands on his shoulders, shaking him.
“Dex! Dex, can you hear me?”
He blinked, tried to focus. “Rio. The scoreboard.”
“I know,” she said. “I saw it. I saw him.”
“He’s here,” Dex said. “He’s in the game.”
Rio looked at the court. The Lady Vipers were huddled at the other end, looking lost. The refs were conferring, pointing at the scoreboard, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“What do we do?” Rio asked.
Dex looked at her. His head was pounding, his vision swimming, but for the first time in weeks, he felt clear. He knew exactly what he had to do.
“We finish the game,” he said. “We win it. For him.”
Rio nodded. She stood up, walked back to her team, and called them into a huddle.
Dex watched her go, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw Marcus standing beside her, his translucent hand on her shoulder, guiding her forward.
The lights flickered again.
The scoreboard changed.
**1984: 42**
**1984: 42**
The third quarter was over. But the game was just beginning.
“We’re playing for him,” Rio said.
Dex watched her through the haze. She was seventeen years old, built like a whip, with eyes that had seen too much and a mouth that never stopped moving. Right now, that mouth was flat and hard, and the girls around her were leaning in like she was the only light in a dark room.
“Marcus,” she said. “The ghost in the floorboards. The kid who never got to finish his game.”
A murmur rippled through the huddle. Tamika, their center, crossed herself. Jenny, the shooting guard, looked like she might throw up. But nobody walked away.
Dex pushed himself off the bench. His knee screamed. He ignored it.
“Listen to her,” he said, his voice cracked and raw from yelling. “You think that press I taught you is about basketball? It’s not. It’s a trap. A cage. You corner the ball handler, you squeeze, you take away every option until they panic and make a mistake. That’s what Marcus did. That’s what he was doing the night he died.”
He paused, letting the weight of it settle. The gym was loud—the whole town had shown up, packed into the bleachers like sardines, hungry for blood. Harlan Briggs’s team, the Meridian Flats Vipers, were bigger, faster, meaner. They’d spent the first half treating the Lady Vipers like a speed bump. Fifteen points down at the break. Fifteen points, and the third quarter was about to start.
“The 1984 championship,” Dex said, “Marcus’s team was down by the same margin. Same score. Same clock. He ran this press, and he turned the game around. He was winning when they took him out.”
Rio’s eyes locked onto his. She knew. She’d seen the ghost in his eyes, in the hospital, when the machines had gone haywire and the doctors had looked at each other like they’d witnessed a miracle or a curse.
“So we run it,” Rio said. “We run it perfect. We trap, we rotate, we never stop moving. We make them feel like the whole court is on fire.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” Jenny asked, her voice small.
Rio smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile. It was the smile of someone who’d been counted out her whole life and had decided she was done with that. “It’ll work. It worked forty years ago. It’ll work now.”
The buzzer sounded. The refs were calling the teams back to the floor. Dex looked up at the scoreboard—48 to 33, Vipers on top—and felt the static surge behind his eyes like a wave about to break.
“Rio,” he said, grabbing her arm as she turned to go. “If I go dark out there, you keep running the press. Don’t stop. Don’t call timeout. Don’t look at me. You hear me?”
She held his gaze. “I hear you.”
“And Rio?”
“Yeah?”
“Win this game.”
She nodded once, then jogged onto the court with the others. Dex watched them go, five girls in mismatched jerseys and one point guard who carried the weight of a dead man’s unfinished business on her shoulders.
He sat down on the bench, pressed his palms against his knees, and tried to breathe.
The third quarter started like the first two had ended: Harlan’s team bullying their way down the court, their center backing Tamika into the paint like she wasn’t there. The ball swung, the defense collapsed, and the Vipers’ forward laid it in with an easy two.
Fifty to thirty-three.
The crowd roared. Dex could hear Harlan’s voice from across the court, barking orders, his face red with confidence. The man looked like a monument to everything that had gone wrong in this town—all muscle and pride and buried secrets.
“Run it,” Dex muttered under his breath. “Run the press.”
Rio brought the ball up the court, her eyes scanning, her body low. She didn’t call a play. She just looked at her teammates, gave a sharp nod, and the machine started moving.
The Lady Vipers spread out like a net. Tamika fronted the post, denying the entry pass. Jenny and the other guard pressed up on the ball, forcing the handler toward the sideline. Rio shadowed the weak side, ready to pounce.
The Vipers’ point guard, a kid named Darnell who’d been running circles around them all night, tried to split the trap. Rio was there, her hands active, her feet quick. She poked the ball loose, and it skittered across the floor.
Jenny dove for it. She came up with the ball, her elbow bleeding, and fired it to Rio in one motion.
Rio didn’t hesitate. She pushed the ball up the court, three on two, and laid it in off the glass.
Fifty to thirty-five.
The crowd’s roar faltered. Just a little.
“That’s it!” Dex shouted, on his feet now, his knee forgotten. “That’s the press! Keep it tight!”
The Vipers brought the ball in again. This time they were ready for the trap. Darnell passed it early, swinging it to the wing, trying to beat the pressure before it could set.
Rio was already there. She and Jenny trapped the wing in the corner, arms up, feet shuffling, cutting off every passing lane. The wing panicked. He tried to throw it over the top, but Tamika read it, jumped the lane, and came down with the ball.
She outlet to Rio. Rio pushed it again, drawing the defense, then kicked it to Jenny in the corner.
Jenny squared up. The shot was ugly—her form was still a mess, her elbow flared out, her follow-through short—but it went in.
Fifty to thirty-eight.
The crowd was getting restless now. Dex could hear the murmurs, the shifting of bodies in the bleachers. The Lady Vipers were supposed to be a joke. They were supposed to roll over and die. Instead, they were clawing their way back, one possession at a time.
And then the static hit.
It came without warning, like a fist to the back of the skull. Dex’s vision blurred, doubled, and split. The gym dissolved into a wash of color and noise, and suddenly he was somewhere else.
He was in the same gym, but it was different. The banners were newer. The floor was brighter. The crowd was dressed in 1984 clothes—big hair, high-waisted jeans, windbreakers. And on the court, a team of boys in old-school Vipers jerseys was running the exact same press.
Marcus Webb was at the point.
Dex saw him clearly for the first time. Not the ghost, not the memory—the living, breathing kid. He was tall and lean, with a shock of black hair and a smile that could light up a stadium. He was running the press with a joy that made Dex’s chest ache.
The 1984 Vipers were down fifteen. The clock showed the third quarter, just like now. And Marcus was calling for the trap, his voice sharp and clear, his hands directing traffic like a conductor leading an orchestra.
“Corner him! Corner him!” Marcus shouted. “Now! Now! Now!”
The trap closed. The ball popped loose. Marcus scooped it up and took off down the court, his strides long and effortless, his eyes already locked on the rim.
He rose for the layup—
And the memory shattered.
Dex gasped, his hands flying to his head. He was back in the present, back on the bench, the roar of the crowd crashing over him like a wave. The scoreboard read fifty to forty-one. The Lady Vipers were still down, but they were fighting.
Rio was at the free-throw line, bouncing the ball, her eyes fixed on the rim. She didn’t look at Dex. She didn’t need to. She was running the press exactly like he’d taught her, exactly like Marcus had run it forty years ago.
The free throw dropped. Fifty to forty-two.
And then the lights flickered.
It was subtle at first—a brief dimming, like someone had blinked. Dex looked up at the ceiling, his heart hammering. The lights flickered again, longer this time, and the buzz of the crowd faltered.
“What the hell?” someone in the bleachers said.
Dex looked at the scoreboard.
The numbers were changing.
It wasn’t fifty to forty-two anymore. The scoreboard was flickering, the digits scrambling, and when they settled, they read something else entirely.
**1984.**
The year. Not a score. Just the year, glowing in red LED letters, frozen on the board.
Dex’s blood turned to ice.
He looked at Rio. She was standing at the free-throw line, the ball still in her hands, her face pale as death. She was staring at the scoreboard too.
“Rio,” Dex said, his voice barely a whisper. “Rio, don’t—”
But it was too late. The lights flickered again, and when they came back, the gym was different.
The crowd was still there, but they were dressed differently. The banners on the wall were older, the paint fresher. The floor beneath Dex’s feet was new, the wood bright and unmarred.
And on the court, standing at the free-throw line, was Marcus Webb.
He was translucent, a shimmer of light and shadow, but he was there. He was holding a basketball, his eyes fixed on the rim, his body poised and ready.
Rio saw him. Dex saw him. Nobody else did.
“Oh God,” Rio breathed.
Marcus turned his head. He looked at Rio, then at Dex, and a slow smile spread across his face. He raised the ball, took a breath, and shot.
The ball arced through the air, spinning perfectly, and dropped through the net with a swish that echoed through the silent gym.
The scoreboard flickered again. When it settled, it read:
**1984: 42**
**1984: 42**
Tied.
Dex’s legs gave out. He collapsed onto the bench, his head spinning, his vision swimming. The static was everywhere now, filling his ears, his eyes, his bones. He could feel the ghost pressing against him, trying to get in, trying to take over.
But he didn’t fight it.
He let it in.
And suddenly, he was standing on the court, not on the bench. He was wearing a Vipers jersey, old and faded, with the number 14 on the chest. He was holding a basketball. The crowd was on its feet, screaming, and the clock was ticking down.
He looked at his hands. They were young. Strong. Unscarred.
He looked at the scoreboard. It read 84 to 82. His team was up by two. The clock showed 0:04.
And across the court, Harlan Briggs was staring at him with murder in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have come back,” Harlan said, his voice low and venomous.
Dex opened his mouth to respond, but the words that came out weren’t his.
“I never left,” Marcus said. “I’ve been here the whole time. Waiting for you to finish what you started.”
The buzzer sounded. The ball was in Dex’s hands. He was at the free-throw line, the game on the line, the crowd holding its breath.
And then the lights went out.
When they came back, Dex was on the bench again, gasping for air. The gym was the present again—the crowd in modern clothes, the banners faded, the floor warped. The scoreboard read 1984, still frozen, still glowing.
Rio was kneeling in front of him, her hands on his shoulders, shaking him.
“Dex! Dex, can you hear me?”
He blinked, tried to focus. “Rio. The scoreboard.”
“I know,” she said. “I saw it. I saw him.”
“He’s here,” Dex said. “He’s in the game.”
Rio looked at the court. The Lady Vipers were huddled at the other end, looking lost. The refs were conferring, pointing at the scoreboard, trying to figure out what was wrong.
“What do we do?” Rio asked.
Dex looked at her. His head was pounding, his vision swimming, but for the first time in weeks, he felt clear. He knew exactly what he had to do.
“We finish the game,” he said. “We win it. For him.”
Rio nodded. She stood up, walked back to her team, and called them into a huddle.
Dex watched her go, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw Marcus standing beside her, his translucent hand on her shoulder, guiding her forward.
The lights flickered again.
The scoreboard changed.
**1984: 42**
**1984: 42**
The third quarter was over. But the game was just beginning.