April 3rd, Thursday. Iron Vault Arena. Nine o’clock sharp.

The Roarers’ starting five was the same familiar lineup—Ryan, Darius, Malik, Kamara, Gibson. Omar, who’d stepped into the starting role for the Krakens game, was back on the bench, towel draped over his knees, sitting quiet. Whoever’s spot it was, it was still his.

Front row, courtside, Palmer was there.

Iron City’s wealthiest man, and the Roarers’ most die-hard fan. Long before the buyout was even a whisper, he’d been the team’s loudest supporter, that courtside seat all but his by default. Now, with the team about to be a Palmer team, he showed up more often than ever. Beside him, Chloe, in that No. 0 jersey, threw a small clenched fist out toward the floor. Ryan returned it—a little shake against his hip.

The ref tossed the ball into the air.

Malik rose high, fingertips nearly brushing the rafters, won the tip clean, and tapped it back to Ryan.

The game was on.

The Roarers’ first possession. Ryan brought it up, ran the offense, swung it around a few times—Darius pulled up off the dribble and clanked it off the rim.

Change of possession.

Talons’ ball. Their point guard, Terry Rollins, handed it off to Harrow and cleared out. Harrow waved a big up, took a screen. Ryan stayed glued to him but got hung up half a beat on that solid wall of a pick—and in that half-beat of daylight, Harrow curled off, pulled up, and let the three fly.

Splash.

3–0, Talons drew first blood.

Harrow jogged back on defense, expressionless, as if the shot had simply been a given.

And on the other side of the floor, Kamara’s jaw tightened.

The Roarers reset. Ryan worked it around, swung the ball to the weak-side corner—Kamara caught it, his man not even closed out yet, and barely adjusting, fired from deep.

Splash.

3–3.

The instant the ball ripped through the net, Kamara didn’t rush back on defense.

He stood right where he was, facing Harrow not far off, raised a hand, and mimed an exaggerated shooting motion at him—wrist snapping down hard. Then, slow and deliberate, he pointed at himself, then at the rim, grinned, and mouthed the words, silent:

Watch this.

Crude, brazen, the taunt out in the open with nothing hidden. Even the broadcast booth stalled a beat. "Whoa—is Kamara... going at Harrow? These two got beef?"

Harrow frowned.

He’d crossed paths with this Roarers wing a few scattered times over the last couple of years, but they’d never exchanged a word, never had anything between them. He couldn’t make sense of it—when had he ever done anything to this guy? And yet tonight, from the very first possession, the man was locked onto him like he had a score to settle.

Falling back on defense, Darius turned and shot Ryan a glance, eyebrows up, voice low. "...He was serious yesterday?"

Ryan didn’t answer, just looked at the smug grin plastered across Kamara’s face, caught somewhere between exasperation and a laugh.

This opening—too reckless.

Talking trash was a double-edged blade. If the shots fell tonight, it was swagger. But the moment that hand went cold, all this showmanship flipped into the whole arena’s punchline—a clown who’d pointed in a man’s face and run his mouth, then bricked his way through a whole night.

And Ryan knew exactly what kind of shooter Kamara was.

It just came down to which side of it he landed on tonight.

Harrow didn’t spare Kamara another glance, turning to wave his team into their sets. Talons’ ball.

That taunt left hanging—he didn’t take the bait. But the very next possession, he answered in the most direct way there was. Another curl off a screen—only this time he didn’t shoot. He burst past Ryan with a sudden change of pace, attacked the rim, and laid it in soft, beating Malik’s help just before it arrived.

A pro tips his hand the moment he moves. That was Harrow—not some shooter standing around waiting to be fed. The handle, the pull-up, the pick-and-roll, the drive-and-kick: a polished, refined off-the-bounce game, every move landing right in the seams of the defense.

And Kamara—it was like something had been lit.

The whole first half became a long-distance duel between the two of them.

Harrow on his end, iso pull-ups and screen curls, smooth as water; Kamara on his, catch-and-rise from the corner, off the wing, dropping into the post now and then for a turnaround—one after another. Ryan played the textbook facilitator, swinging the ball into Kamara’s hands again and again. He knew exactly what his guy wanted tonight.

Every make, Kamara had something to say. A gesture, a slap of the team logo on his chest, a chin tipped Harrow’s way. At first Harrow flat-out ignored it, but with three after three coming back at him right in his face, that ever-blank expression slowly went taut.

Eventually, he stopped letting it slide.

A step-back three ripped through clean. Harrow landed, turned his head for the first time, met Kamara’s eyes dead-on—and raised a finger to his lips, a soft little shh. Zip it.

The fire was fully lit now.

Half over: Talons 58, Roarers 54, up four.

Kamara had it going—five threes on seven attempts from deep, plus a single two, seventeen points. Harrow, twenty-one.

Ryan hadn’t pushed it—ten and eight at the half, running the offense beautifully, content to fade into the background. Tonight’s firepower, he handed to Kamara.

Out of the gate in the second half, Kamara’s stroke hadn’t cooled a hair. Time and again Ryan swung it to him, and time and again he delivered. Harrow stayed locked in stride for stride on the other end—back and forth, neither willing to be the first to go cold.

Three quarters in, Kamara had knocked down seven of nine from three, mixed in a couple of buckets inside the arc—twenty-seven points—exactly the blade of a night Ryan had talked about. Harrow gave no ground either, thirty-one.

But basketball, in the end, isn’t a two-man game. The Talons played the tighter, more disciplined ball as a unit, and it was that steadiness that kept them clamped onto the lead, refusing to let go. End of three: Talons 89, Roarers 84, up five.

The decisive fourth.

During the break between quarters, Crawford changed the defense.

"Switch everything," he said, eyes on the whiteboard, voice low. "Every screen they set for Harrow, we switch. Whoever gets picked, you take him."

It was the only play left. Chasing Harrow over screens all night, Ryan had been ground down by that endless succession of walls, had let too much slip through. Switching everything would at least guarantee a hand in Harrow’s face at all times—even if the man on him wasn’t the right matchup.

And then it happened.

A dribble hand-off, the Talons’ big flowing into a screen for Harrow—the Roarers switched, and the one who picked him up was Kamara.

Two men holding the same breath, neither willing to give the other an inch, finally collided head-on, both ends of the floor.

Harrow eyed Kamara now in front of him—everybody knew the guy was a so-so defender. He probed with the dribble, then pulled back a step and floated the three up over Kamara’s outstretched arm—

Splash.

92–84.

He didn’t look at Kamara, but that three said it clearer than any words could.

Kamara didn’t say anything. The next possession, he caught Ryan’s pass on the right wing, faced the closeout, and answered with a step-back three of his own—

Splash.

Right back at him. 87–92.

From that moment on, the game turned into a tug-of-war between two men.

Crawford handed the offense fully to the hot hand—off-ball screens, hand-offs, springing Kamara loose from the corner, off the wing, all just to carve him out a sliver of space to shoot. And on the other end, the Talons funneled it straight to Harrow, running set after set around him, the mirror image of the Roarers feeding Kamara.

You hit one, I hit one. Harrow a pull-up jumper, Kamara a step-back three in his face; Harrow a deep one curling off a screen, Kamara a clean corner three. The score nailed in place, neither able to pull away. The whole arena, inch by inch, set alight by these two young men going at each other.

Three minutes left, Kamara hit again, cutting it to 106–107.

By now he had nine threes on eleven tries from deep, plus a few buckets inside—thirty-three points.

The hand—scorching. The man who’d pointed in Harrow’s face before tip was, step by step, shoving himself onto the swagger side of that blade.

Final minute.

Harrow, iso, forced up a brutal fadeaway jumper and buried it. 109–106.

The Roarers came down, Darius pulled up and knocked down the jumper, 108–109, down one. Talons came back the other way, Rollins drew a foul, made one of two—110–108.

Ten seconds. Roarers down two.

Crawford called timeout, no hesitation.

The players gathered at the board. Crawford’s pen came down without a flicker of doubt, landing on a single name.

Kamara.

"Last shot’s for Kamara." He looked up, eyes sweeping the huddle.

Nobody had an objection.

The reasoning was dead simple—whose hand was hottest tonight, everyone knew. That guy, all jokes and swagger and streaky as they came, was, tonight, the sharpest blade in the Roarers’ hand. Even the ever-silent Malik gave a nod.

"But they’ll see it coming too." Crawford’s tone shifted, pen tapping the board. "They’ll smother Kamara off the catch, won’t let him get it clean."

His pen swung, settling on Ryan.

"So we make them think twice. Ryan—you drive, take it straight to the rim. They won’t dare bet on you not shooting. Draw the double, and Kamara’s side opens up."

"Malik, step up, set Kamara a screen." He looked at Kamara. "You curl off it, out to the right wing. Ryan’s pass comes to you."

He swept the huddle.

"The one who shoots is Kamara. The other four—you’re all the misdirection for that one shot."

Kamara cracked a grin. That easy swagger, sliding right back on.

"Relax, Coach." He shook out his wrist. "This hand’s not going cold tonight."

The whistle. The ball came in.

Ryan caught it, brought it across half-court.

He didn’t hurry. A jab step first, then he dropped his hips low and exploded into a hard change of direction, driving straight at the rim—

That snapped the Talons’ defense tight in an instant.

Everyone knew what Ryan was. Let him come barreling in like that, and the damage didn’t bear thinking about. The man on him got his feet tangled, the interior help instinctively collapsed in—one, then two, both swarming the driving Ryan.

The double, sprung.

But that was exactly what Crawford wanted.

The shot was never what Ryan was after. The instant those two bodies committed, the weak side—opened up.

Almost the same beat, Malik stepped into it, planting a solid wall for Kamara curling off the baseline. Riding the screen, Kamara burst out from the corner, slicing into that patch of right-wing space that had just been vacated.

In the seam of the converging double, Ryan was already airborne. He never looked at the rim—a flick of the wrist, a pinpoint bounce pass skimming the floor, threading between two outstretched arms, landing right in Kamara’s hands.

Kamara caught it.

But the Talons had finally read it. Their quickest switch lunged, practically threw himself in front of him—and it was Harrow. Of course it was.

A whole night’s bad blood, collided into a single point in these last two seconds.

Two seconds left.

Kamara didn’t hesitate a hair. Into the very direction Harrow was lunging, he rocked back into a clean step-back, dragging open that thin sliver of space by force—

then, in the instant Harrow’s fingertips grazed just past, sent the ball arcing high.

The ball left his hand.

The final buzzer sounded.

The whole arena held its breath.

Every eye in the building followed that high, hanging arc toward the rim.

The ball dropped, clean.

Splash.

111–110.

The Iron Vault erupted.

Kamara flung his arms wide, threw his head back and roared, swallowed up and crushed in the middle of teammates mobbing him like madmen. Thirty-eight points, ten threes on thirteen from deep—the man who’d pointed in his rival’s face before the game had made good on every word of it, down to the very last second.

Not far off, Harrow didn’t head off with his teammates. He stood where he was, watching Kamara vanish under the crowd, watching a long while.

Even now, he probably still hadn’t figured it out.

That guy he’d crossed paths with a few times but never once dealt with—why, tonight, he’d been so hell-bent on going to war with him.