Chapter Text
Abram was released into his uncle’s care four weeks after his questioning with Betsy. He slept on the small couch in his uncle’s one-bedroom hotel room, the cushions too short for his legs and too thin to keep out the ache in his spine.
They told him he’d be heading to South Carolina once he could stand without the world tilting beneath him. Until then, the days blurred into paperwork, hushed phone calls, and meals that tasted like cardboard.
He had signed himself over to the FBI, trading one cage for another. They gave him a new name, a new past, a fresh birth certificate still warm from the printer. None of it felt right. Not like Stefan. Not like Chris.
Neil Josten was a small-town boy from Millport, Arizona. Abandoned by his parents, taken in by his foster father—David Wymack. A man he had yet to meet. Neil had heard his voice over the phone once: low, gravelly, a tone that left no room for defiance. He decided then he’d have to keep his distance.
The doctors said the damage could’ve been worse—a slightly fractured wrist, a few broken ribs, a torn Achilles tendon. It could’ve been so much worse. He might not have left that basement at all.
He couldn’t walk yet, but they said full mobility was possible. Running, though—that would take time. Running had always been his outlet, the one thing that made him feel free, and his father had taken that too. Still, he tried to see the good. He was alive. Alive and ready, maybe, to start over.
By the time they handed him the plane ticket, he’d already stopped trying to remember who Abram was.
The flight to South Carolina was smooth. Neil wheeled himself off the plane and scanned the crowd. When he spotted a tall man with tribal tattoos along his forearms, a kid around his age, and a shorter woman in a pink cardigan holding a sign with his name on it, he assumed that was his ride home.
He approached them, and when he got close enough, they met him halfway.
“Neil Josten? I’m David Wymack. This is my son, Kevin, and my wife, Abigail.” He pointed to each in turn.
“Nice to meet you,” Neil said in the most neutral voice he could manage. Going anywhere with strangers in a strange city while half-immobilized broke every rule in his mental handbook on how not to get murdered by your insane father.
But his father was dead. He had to remember that.
Kevin, seventeen and stiff-backed, grabbed Neil’s backpack.
“Where’s the rest of your stuff?” he asked, glancing around like Neil might’ve hidden a suitcase somewhere.
“This is all I have,” Neil replied, gesturing to the bag. “Is that a problem?”
Kevin hesitated, considered his options, then chose silence.
“We’ll take you to the house to get settled,” Abby said kindly. “David and Kevin have practice tonight, so you’ll be with me for a bit.” She folded up Neil’s wheelchair and tucked it neatly in the back of the Tahoe.
“Practice? For what?” Neil asked.
“Exy practice,” Abby said with a small smile. “It’s a sport.”
Neil’s pulse kicked up. Of course the family he was placed with played Exy.
“I know what Exy is,” he said. “I’m not stupid. What team do you play for?” He looked at Kevin, who had just buckled in beside him.
“Just our high school,” Kevin said. “The Palmetto Foxes. The season started last week.”
“Do they take new players mid-season?” Neil asked, before remembering the folded wheelchair in the trunk.
“They do,” Kevin said, “but I don’t think we’re looking for crippled members—”
“Kevin!” Wymack barked, shooting him a glare through the rearview mirror. “Watch your mouth. Sorry, Neil, he’s not great with social cues.”
Neil almost laughed. “It’s fine. I know Kevin’s got his own issues. There isn’t enough concealer to hide the tattoo on his cheek.”
“Listen,” Neil said, his voice steady but edged. “I’m not going to pretend you don’t know who I am, or who my family was. I don’t know anything about you, but it won’t stay that way for long.”
He took a slow breath, eyes fixed on Kevin. “That tattoo on your cheek—it’s a two, isn’t it? A perfect court placeholder?” His lip twitched into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I may seem like I don’t know what I’m talking about, but believe it or not, I haven’t always been crippled.” The silence lasted ten seconds after that before Wymack burst out laughing
“I’ve dealt with some fucking up kids but you Mr. Neil Josten, might take the cake,” Kevin’s face was pale, and he refused to look at Neil. Instead he pulled out his phone and started to furiously text someone. “You are going to fit right in as a fox. You might be new, but I’m sure you’ll fight right in.”