Chapter One: The Last Hand

A commentator screamed, “The Champions League final! The boy Northport City abandoned for one pound—” Blackness washed across the vision. At the end of the players' tunnel, a hollow black circle glowed above an electronic sign: CLUB ZERO. Lu tore his hand away and knocked over a glass. “Mr. Lu?” A hallucination? Exhaustion? Madness brought on by debt? Lu stared at the boy's narrow ankle. “Does the outside edge of your left shoe wear down much faster? Last month, did you feel pain beneath the ankle bone twice after hard stops?” Lin went pale. “Even the physio doesn't know that. How did you—” Lu grabbed his coat. “Training ground. Now.”