The call connected on the first ring.
“Do you have any idea what time it is?”
David’s voice didn’t start with a yell.
It came through the tiny speaker flat, heavy, and scraping like gravel dragged across concrete.
Alejandro pressed the edge of the glass casing against his ear, his fingers resting light against the desk.
“Dad—”
“Don’t ‘Dad’ me, Alejandro.” A loud metallic clatter echoed in the background—the distinct sound of a steel drawer slamming shut at the Vauxhall showroom.
“The consultant sat in that hallway until twenty past two.
Twenty past.”
“I was on the pitch,” Alejandro said, his throat scratchy from the afternoon wind.
“We had tactical drills until three.”
“On the pitch.”
David let out a harsh, dry breath that distorted the cheap microphone.
“Your mother was sitting in a wheelchair by the lift doors for forty minutes because the admissions desk couldn’t process the transfer without the co-signature.
Forty minutes, Alejandro.
On a draughty concrete floor.”
“Is she still in the old ward?”
“No,” David snapped, his tone sharp enough to slice through the line.
“They shoved her into Ward 4C.
The overflow room near the laundry drop.
Four beds to a corner, no heating on the east wall, and a plumber fixing a pipe under the sink while she’s trying to rest.”
Alejandro looked down at his bare feet resting on the cold floorboards.
“What happened to the three hundred pounds?”
“What happened?” David scoffed loudly.
“Your uncle lent me eighty.
I had to sell your mother’s gold chain—the one her sister gave her before we moved from Lewisham.
The pawn shop near the station gave me two hundred and ten for it.”
The room went dead silent for three seconds.
Only the quiet, electric hum of the oil radiator filled the space between them.
“She told me not to sell it,” David added, his voice dropping into a dangerous, quiet murmur.
“She cried in the cab all the way back to the hospital because she knew why I had to do it.
Because her son was two hundred miles north playing schoolboy games while we cleared out our drawers.”
Alejandro swallowed, the thick taste of butter and salted gravy still heavy at the back of his mouth.
“It’s not a schoolboy game,” Alejandro said quietly, his voice low against the bare plaster wall.
“Villa gave me a room for the night.
They’re doing the scouting report for Corrigan before five.”
“Corrigan doesn’t care about you!” David shouted suddenly, his composure breaking completely.
The raw rage blew through the speaker, forcing Alejandro to pull the phone half an inch away from his ear.
“I played in the Southern League for five years, Alejandro!
I had scouts telling me I was going to Charlton every bloody Saturday until my knee caved in against Ebbsfleet!”
“This is different—”
“It is never different!” David cut him off without hesitation.
“They use you until your body breaks, and then they throw you into the scrap heap!
You left your mother in a cold room so you could run around in the mud for ninety minutes!”
Alejandro stared at the tiny green battery icon hovering in the corner of the screen.
It dropped to one percent.
“Did you freeze the emergency card?” Alejandro asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
“I didn’t freeze it,” David said, his tone suddenly flat, completely drained of the anger that had filled it a second before.
“Your mother took it out of my coat pocket before I left the house.
She said you needed train money to get home if you didn’t make the cut.”
Alejandro kept his jaw set, his eyes fixed on the frayed white wire sticking out from the wall dock.
“Did you eat anything today?” David asked abruptly.
The shift in topic came so fast Alejandro didn’t answer for a full second.
“What?”
“I asked if you ate,” David repeated, the background noise at the showroom fading as if he had walked out into the rear lot.
“Your uncle said you didn’t take the bread from the counter this morning.”
“I ate,” Alejandro said.
“The academy gave me shepherd’s pie.”
A long beat of silence passed between them.
“Your forehead,” David said quietly.
“Your mother said you always get that red mark across your skin when you head a heavy ball in the wet.
Did you hit your head again?”
Alejandro touched the dull, thumping spot above his right eyebrow with his index finger.
“It was just a set-piece drill.”
“You always jump too early when your legs are tired,” David muttered.
It wasn’t praise.
It was the same analytical observation he used to make when watching Alejandro play for Solihull’s reserves from behind the chain-link fence.
“You rely on your neck instead of timing your leap.”
“I cleared it,” Alejandro said.
“Clearing it isn’t enough if you’re dizzy for the next twenty minutes,” David replied.
He paused, the sound of passing traffic on the A2 entering the receiver.
“Listen to me, Alejandro,” David said, his voice dropping into a tight, deliberate cadence.
“The hospital is giving us until ten o’clock tomorrow morning to settle the rest of the deposit for the private wing.
If the form isn’t signed by then—”
A sharp, descending tone chimed twice through the speaker.
The battery bar flashed a bright red line across the black glass.
“Dad?” Alejandro said quickly, taking a step closer to the desk.
“The phone’s dying—”
“Don’t let them make you sign a non-contracted scholar waiver without a—”
The screen went completely black.
The call cut off with a tiny, hollow click.
Alejandro stood alone in the center of the small room, the black plastic casing cold against his palm.
He pressed the power button three times in rapid succession.
Nothing happened.
The screen remained dead, reflecting only the dim light of the single bulb hanging from the ceiling.
He walked over to the desk, pulled the frayed wire out of the charging port, and examined the copper threads sticking out near the neck.
The cardboard wedge he had used in the canteen was gone, lost somewhere along the gravel path to Annex B.
Without the cardboard, the connection wouldn’t hold power long enough to reboot the operating system.
He dropped the phone onto the nightstand.
He walked to the window, pulling back the thin cotton curtain two inches.
Outside, the rain had started again, falling in silent, heavy sheets over the dark grass of Pitch 3.
In the distance, the floodlights of the main stadium building flickered off one by one, plunging the academy grounds into shadow.
Ten o’clock tomorrow morning.
He had fourteen hours.
Alejandro turned off the overhead light, walked over to the narrow bed, and pulled the stiff duvet up to his chin.
The room smelled of bleach and cold rain, but his stomach was full, and his feet were dry for the first time in two days.
He closed his eyes, the dull throb behind his forehead pulsing in rhythm with the radiator against the wall, waiting for the morning whistle.