Roarers’ ball.

Ryan brought it up over halfcourt, came off a Malik screen, and rose into it—mid-range, nothing but net. 4–8. The roar inside Iron Vault had barely settled for ten-odd seconds before it surged back up.

Paladins inbounded. Herring took it and brought it up the floor.

Ryan dropped low to meet him. The last two times, the rhythm had backed him up a step—this time he wound his focus to the limit, eyes locked on Herring’s shoulder. Through the legs, left shoulder dipping—Ryan slid with it, stayed glued. Herring punched the ball down. Ryan didn’t bite. Not a step given.

Something flickered in Herring’s eyes. Surprise.

He went up.

Ha. Knew it.

Ryan rose with him, hand up to contest—

And Herring’s wrist whipped. The ball was gone, past Ryan’s ear.

A pass?

Ryan’s head snapped around.

LaVonte had already sealed Gibson off with his back, catching it around the foul-line extended. No jab, no fake—he just leaned back, and Gibson’s chest took it like a hammer blow, giving up half a step. Malik scrambled out of the paint to help, hand stretched as high as it would go—and that was the moment LaVonte turned.

First step, into the paint. Second step, up—left shoulder clearing Malik’s arm, right hand carrying the ball over Gibson’s fingertips, off the glass.

It kissed the board and dropped.

Whistle. Malik’s hand still hung on LaVonte’s forearm—and one.

The Paladins crowd lost it. LaVonte landed without a flicker, just pressed a fist to his chest and walked to the line, face blank. Gibson stood with his hands on his hips, shaking his head; Malik had his arms up at the ref. But the board already read 4–10.

LaVonte stepped to the line. The free throw dropped through. 4–11.

Roarers’ ball. Ryan glanced at the clock as he ran upcourt—9:32 left in the first.

Gibson inbounded; Darius took it and pushed. Just short of halfcourt, he saw Ryan crossing midcourt ahead of him and whipped a long pass forward.

The ball hung in the air.

Ryan reached for it—and out of the corner of his eye, a shadow knifed in from the right.

LaVonte.

That long arm picked the pass clean out of the air. He landed without losing a step—one, two—surging upcourt like a beast that had caught the scent of blood. Darius, still trailing from the pass, scrambled over to cut him off; LaVonte crossed him over and left him behind without even drawing contact, Darius grabbing at nothing but air.

Darius and Ryan chased him down, one behind the other—but LaVonte was already stepping inside the foul line.

Third step, up.

His body unfurled in the air, the ball lifted high over his head—and then, like a battle-axe swung full circle, it came down.

The rim shuddered. The ball ripped through the net.

LaVonte landed on one foot, pounded a fist to his chest, and turned back on defense, face blank. The Paladins crowd went berserk—and even a portion of the home crowd couldn’t help letting out a roar.

4–13.

Ryan stood there, chest heaving. The steal, the crossover, the push, the leap, the dunk—the whole thing, maybe three or four seconds. He hadn’t even caught where the man had come from.

He jogged to the baseline to take the ball. The clock kept running.

Roarers’ ball.

Ryan came off a Gibson screen and beat Herring with one step—that first-step burst had always been his calling card. He dropped low and drove at the rim. Thorne slid over from the weak side to help, hand up high, but his timing was half a beat slow. Ryan twisted past him in the air, switched to his left hand, and laid the ball off the glass—still hanging there, his eyes flicked across Thorne.

Rim protection, huh. That’s all it is.

Good. So the Paladins have a soft spot after all.

The ball rolled around the rim once and dropped through. His feet hit the floor.

—

Paladins pushed it up. Herring crossed half and found Stith. Stith caught it at the right wing, forty-five degrees, and rose straight into a three.

No reset at all? That sure of it?

Flat arc. It caught the back of the rim and kicked high.

Ryan had already spun and broken for the paint the instant Stith let it go—his first step quicker than anyone’s on the floor, two strides eating up three. But Thorne had moved earlier.

The moment the ball left Stith’s hand, Thorne had already pinned Malik behind him and slid two steps toward where the long rebound would fall. Gibson tried to fight for it—Locke walled him off on the outside.

Ryan went up, hand reaching for the high carom. His fingertips almost got there.

But Thorne had already chosen his spot, both feet planted dead into the floor, and rose into it—Malik buried behind him, Ryan’s hand only reaching as high as his elbow.

Thorne caught it with both hands at the top, brought it over his head, and hammered it down.

Ryan collided with him in the air, snapped backward, and stumbled two steps before he caught his balance.

Put-back. The rim was still shaking.

Thorne let go, landed, turned back on defense.

Ryan stood there, chest aching from the hit. His first step had been quicker than Thorne’s, he’d broken earlier than Thorne—but the man had owned that spot before the ball ever came off the rim. On speed, he hadn’t lost. On reading it, on boxing out, he was a full body short.

The coach had called Thorne the Paladins’ weak link—ordinary rim protection, no shooting touch, a man you could attack.

But that was a weakness measured against the monster centers. This was a blue-collar grinder through and through, a craftsman of the dirty work: boxing out, fighting for position, second-chance buckets—all his domain. Offensive rebounds were never about talent. They were about getting to that patch of floor before anyone else, and biting down on it harder than anyone else.

Roarers’ ball. Ryan came off a screen and drove, drawing Thorne over to help, then kicked it to Malik cutting down the lane. Malik caught it, went up in one step, and slammed it home right over Thorne. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Falling back on defense, Ryan stole a glance at the scoreboard. 6–15. Still within reach.

Paladins snapped the ball in from the baseline. Thorne grabbed it and flung it straight to Herring, who caught it, turned, and pushed—fast enough that the Roarers couldn’t get set. Backpedaling, Ryan caught it all out of the corner of his eye: Locke and Thorne filling the lanes left and right, Stith cutting in from the backcourt to the left wing, forty-five degrees. Herring pushed to two steps beyond the arc, Darius barely planting himself in front of him. The Roarers’ shell still hadn’t held—Gibson glued to Locke, Malik chasing Thorne, LaVonte already at the elbow.

Herring didn’t stop the ball. One swing pass, fired to LaVonte.

LaVonte caught it. Ryan thought he was going to drive it in and braced himself—

But LaVonte didn’t even put it on the floor. A flick of the hand, and the ball was flying to the left wing.

Ryan’s head snapped around.

Stith was already standing there. The ball arrived, his hands came up, no reset at all—catch and shoot.

Again?

Ryan’s eyes tracked the ball up—already a beat behind. A lift. A snap. All he caught: the forearm whipping past, the five-pointed star inked on it—like a meteor flung loose.

That wild, and it still drops?

Ryan’s eyes were locked on the ball the instant it left Stith’s fingers.

It rose—a clean, easy arc—and dropped straight through.

Stith didn’t celebrate. No fist, no shout. If anything, something crossed his face that looked like... displeasure. Ryan saw it plainly—a small, sharp shake of the head.

What’s he unhappy about?

The scoreboard flipped to 6–18.

The gap had stretched to double digits. The Roarers would claw back a basket—and the Paladins would answer it on the very next trip, every time. That was the part that strangled you: down there, they didn’t miss. Every possession ended with the ball through the net.

Roarers’ ball.

Darius inbounded from the baseline to Ryan, open near the center circle. Ryan pushed it past half and waved Kamara out to the right. Malik stepped up and set a solid screen, sealing his man off behind him. Ryan slipped through the gap, drew the help, and kicked it to the open man on the wing.

Kamara caught it, feet set—if anything, that whole sequence had lit a fire in him. Up and out in one motion.

Swish.

The first three of the night for Iron City.

Backpedaling on defense, he threw up three fingers, and his eyes landed right on Stith.

Stith smiled, gave a slow nod—like he was saying, nice shot.

Kamara didn’t spare him a second glance. He just ran.

Paladins’ quick inbound. This time the Roarers were all the way set, airtight—every spot manned, every passing lane shut. High pressure, locked in, not an inch of easy daylight.

Herring ran it at the top, low and tight on the dribble, rocking it side to side. Ryan bodied him up, chest on him, arms working at the ball. LaVonte sat at the elbow, Kamara shadowing him step for step. Thorne held the deep paint, Malik boxing position and giving nothing. Gibson locked onto Locke.

The clock ticked down. Nine... eight...

Herring met a double, spun, and slipped it to the baseline. Locke caught it in the right corner—Gibson was on him at once, both arms straight to the sky, sealing off every angle.

Six seconds left on the shot clock.

Mad Dog: "Walled off!"

Locke raised it past his ear—the start of a shooting motion.

Mad Dog: "He’s going up—"

Gibson left the floor, body stretched full out, contesting for everything he had.

Mason: "No—"

The ball never left. It dropped, sliding under Locke’s ribs and beneath Gibson’s outstretched arm—a flat, hard line, hugging the baseline, right to left.

Mason: "Pass! He kicked it!"

The whole arena got dragged along that white line. The ball screamed past, just inside the sideline, skimming under every reaching hand.

The gasp chased it all the way to the left corner.

Stith was already standing there. Hands set early, a soft, steady target.

The ball settled into his palms. No drift, no wobble—caught clean and whole.

Three.

The red clock burned in everyone’s eyes. The whole arena went still, as if a giant hand had clamped down over every sound—the cheers, the breathing, the footsteps, the squeak of the floor, all of it gone. The court. The stands. Every last soul in the building stopped—even the vendor, frozen mid-pour—every pair of eyes dragged to one man and one ball.

Two.

The number dropped a notch. That single second stretched into a century, slow enough to hear every heartbeat in the place.

Stith’s eyes flicked to the two nearest Roarers—Kamara, Darius—three, four steps off, frozen, neither one closing out.

His brow creased.

One.

Weight sinking. Feet planted. Ball up, arms rising, wrist folding into a clean bow. He went straight up, as if drawn by an invisible wire—smooth, simple, textbook to the last detail, not a wasted motion, not a trace of rush.

The ball left his fingertips—

—and the shot-clock horn tore through everything.

The ball went up in a perfect rainbow arc, soft and clean, and came down dead center. No iron. No rim.

Swish.

The sound of it dropping cut clean through the horn and drove into every ear in the building.

The arena hung for half a beat. Then it broke open—home fans, road fans, all of them. The noise came up from every corner like a flood through a burst dam, the roof shaking with it—all for one impossible pass and the perfect shot-clock three on the end of it.

Mad Dog: "PRIDY P!"

Mason: "Beat the clock! Nothing but net!"

Stith landed, both feet square. Stood there. Didn’t move a step. No thought of getting back on defense, his face as calm as if he’d just put up a warm-up shot.

And again—a small, clean shake of the head.

He looked up, eyes finding Kamara, the nearest man to him.

"Kamara, why—"

Kamara didn’t so much as lift an eyelid—played it clean, like he’d heard nothing at all, turning and striding upcourt to set.

Over on the other side, Gibson was already out of bounds with the ball. Ryan stepped over to take the inbound.

Stith caught him coming and called out, low:

"Hey."

Ryan stopped, turned his head, looking at him, puzzled.

Mad Dog, half amused, half disbelieving: "We’re about to inbound—and they’re chatting?"

Mason: "What do you expect? Prime trash-talk hour."

Stith slowly spread both hands out to his sides, palms up.

"Why leave me open?"

Ryan’s eye twitched, beyond his control.

His gaze dropped—catching, without meaning to, on the raised forearm. The five-pointed star, inked sharp and bright under the lights. His eyes pulled in a little further...

At the center of the star, a line of letters in a neat row: IN PRIDE I STAND.

It twitched again, harder.

Ryan didn’t linger. He stepped forward to take the ball. And in the instant he brushed past Stith, a voice—pitched for him and no one else—drifted lazily into his ear:

"Open three... boring."