Free Taking One for the Team by Vanessa Cardui Page B

up a bit, and it wasn't too long before she got the skin on her wrist pinched between two links of the chain, and started bleeding.  Good—help her slip out, if there was any looseness at all.
    Breathe in, and then breathe all the way out, and then—
    And the right-side tower hit her with a chain.
    No way that she'd been in range of both of them.  Not possible.  Not after the center tower had dragged her in close like that.
    Coach had checked the chains, so they weren't cheating.  Prickle-catch on left side's chain had caught the chain on Raven's ankles.  She pulled her backwards through the field, and while Raven twisted and clawed with her free hand, all she did was earn herself a few extra bumps and bruises.
    The tower brought her in close enough to lift her up, like she was a fish she'd just caught.  Raven looked at her, upside-down, bloodied and bruised, and spat in her eye.  The tower grinned back, and went for her second chain.
    Tried to twist, tried to get her hand out, didn't help.  It wrapped around her, over and over and over, and wherever the prickle-catch hit, there wasn't any way that Raven was going to be able to get at it.  Tower dropped her, and shifted her attention back to the game.
    Four chains for a pin—that wasn't a bad trade for a wing, really.  Towers would use two chains at once a lot of the time, so Raven had left two of the towers at half-strength.  And they couldn't threaten any of the runners with pins, not without having to drop out themselves.
    The lady tower had dropped her face-down, and too tightly pinned to even turn over.  So Raven lay there and breathed in mud, and waited for the match to end.   Final score announced was 97-60, stormers.
    Tradition was that someone pinned was left pinned until they got out themselves or the opposing coach let them loose, usually a few hours after the game.  And she'd been damn well pinned, so Raven lay there and waited, not even trying to wriggle loose.  Vests were hard, but that last chain had been laid on harder than that—good chance she'd cracked a rib or two.  Lying still hurt less than struggling, and was just as likely to get her loose.
    Only when the stormer coach showed up, Coach Langdon was with him.
    The stormer coach got his cane in the knots of chain, flipped Raven over onto her back.
    "She's good," he said.
    Coach Langdon nodded.
    "Looking to trade?" asked the stormer.  He was still wearing the same gray suit, creases sharp as knives.
    "Looking what's best for her," said Coach.
    "How old is she—twenty, twenty-two?"
    "Nineteen next month."
    "Getting old," said the stormer, shaking his head.  "If she's going to make the coastal league, she's almost past it."
    Coach shrugged.  "So she'll pick up a few more wins, few more scars, maybe a cup from the team when she's done playing.  Lot of kids like that."
    "Not a lot with that potential.  Damn few, in fact."
    "Better off letting it go," said Coach.
    Nobody'd said anything to her.  They'd barely even looked at her the whole time they were talking.
    "Coastal league?" she asked.
    Coach sighed.  "Yeah, maybe.  Not worth it, though.  Play like that, they’d flay you on the coast, Raven."
    "Wouldn't play like that when we were through with you," said the stormer.
    "Which is the other thing," said Coach.  "We've got laws here.  Laws against beatings, laws against rape.  Stormers don't.  They have traditions."
    "Traditions like, stormers take a match and a pin, they can trade for the pin," said the stormer.
    "Traditions like, wing don't score her target, wing gets fucked by the team," said Coach.
    Raven stilled.  Coastal league, though.  Face in papers everywhere, victory parades.  Matches that meant more than access to springs or a head of cattle.
    "Traditions like, players get traded without their say-so," said the stormer.
    "Don't be a damn fool, Alvas," said Coach.  "That was for days when losing a match by more'n twenty meant that you didn't have enough food