Fence--Striking Distance Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text and Illustration copyright: © 2020 BOOM! Studios

  Fence™ and © C.S. Pacat and Johanna The Mad. All rights reserved.

  BOOM! Studios™ and the BOOM! Studios logo are trademarks of Boom Entertainment, Inc. registered in various countries and categories.

  Cover design by Ching N. Chan. Cover illustration by Johanna The Mad.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  Hachette Book Group

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  First Edition: September 2020

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Brennan, Sarah Rees, author. | Pacat, C.S. Fence. | Johanna The Mad, illustrator.

  Title: Fence: striking distance : an original novel / by Sarah Rees Brennan ; based on the Fence comics created by C.S. Pacat and Johanna The Mad.

  Other titles: Striking distance

  Description: First edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2020. | Audience: Ages 14+. | Summary: “The boys of Kings Row are assigned a course of team building exercises to deepen their bonds. It takes a shoplifting scandal, a couple of moonlit forest strolls, and a whole lot of introspection for the team to realize they are stronger together than they could ever be apart.”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020005647 | ISBN 9780316456678 (paperback) | ISBN 9780316456661 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316456685 (ebook other)

  Subjects: CYAC: Interpersonal relations—Fiction. | Boarding schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Fencing—Fiction. | Gays—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.B751645 Fen 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020005647

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-45667-8 (pbk.), 978-0-316-45666-1 (ebook)

  E3-20200911-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  1: Aiden

  2: Harvard

  3: Aiden

  4: Nicholas

  5: Aiden

  6: Nicholas

  7: Seiji

  8: Aiden

  9: Nicholas

  10: Harvard

  11: Seiji

  12: Aiden

  13: Seiji

  14: Harvard

  15: Seiji

  16: Aiden

  17: Harvard

  18: Aiden

  19: Nicholas

  20: Harvard

  21: Nicholas

  22: Aiden

  23: Nicholas

  24: Aiden

  25: Harvard

  26: Nicholas

  27: Aiden

  28: Seiji

  29: Harvard

  30: Nicholas

  Acknowledgments

  Discover More

  About the Author

  For C.S. Pacat and Johanna The Mad,

  who built the school together.

  Go team!

  Explore book giveaways, sneak peeks, deals, and more.

  Tap here to learn more.

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  Re: you don’t call, you don’t write, you only fence…

  Hey Ermie,

  I’m sorry I haven’t written in a while. Every time I start an email, a kid runs into my office with an emotional crisis and a sword.

  You’re right; it feels strange that I’m here and not back home. Of course I want to live closer to you. I miss you all the time. You’re my big sister! I want to meet up for coffee every weekend and help you train Bruno not to eat the potted plants.

  But I see something at this school that I haven’t seen in fifteen years of coaching.

  You’d love Connecticut if you visited. Kings Row is on a hundred acres, with woods you can get lost in and a lake the boys are strictly forbidden to go near. All the buildings are rambling redbricks from the 1800s, and they still teach Latin. The school was established a century ago to teach boys how to be “proper young gentlemen.” Which meant those young gentlemen, as a natural part of their education, learning the blade.

  Trouble is, their team has never won a state fencing championship. It’s been decades since they even got close—decades of boys with dreams, chasing gold they could never win.

  But something is different this year.

  Yeah, this team is rough. They’ve never fenced together before, and some of them are complete newcomers to the sport. Our captain, Harvard Lee, is solid—he has a heart of gold and is the kind of kid who shoulders everyone’s burdens. But his best friend is the school flirt, Aiden Kane. You may recall him from the times I have screamed into your ear, “Don’t talk to me about Aiden Kane!” Do you know how many boys I’ve seen absolutely wipe out because they’re heartbroken over him?

  And then there are the freshmen. Nicholas Cox is a kid who’s had no formal training. He sticks out at this school like a sore thumb. The kids around here don’t know what to do with his undercut hair or his lower-class slang. At the other extreme, there’s Seiji Katayama, the perfect fencer. He’s lived and breathed nothing but the sword since he was five years old. He and Nicholas couldn’t be more different, and when they’re in a room it’s like a cat and a dog forced into a bath together. But on the piste…

  … On the piste, they have potential. They all do.

  So I’m not coming home. I’m staying at Kings Row, because this year we’re going to win the state championship. I want to see these boys pull together and become a true team. I know they can do it.

  They’re good kids. Even Aiden.

  And I have a plan to prove it.…

  1: AIDEN

  You’re here early.”

  Coach Williams scowled at the sight of Aiden and Harvard. She seemed preoccupied, apparently finishing up an email.

  “If I’m not wanted, I can go,” drawled Aiden, sauntering through the office. “I don’t wish to be here at all, never mind early. I was on my way to a romantic rendezvous after class when my cruel roommate seized me by the collar and dragged me here against my will.”

  Coach’s office was small as far as rooms in Kings Row went, and cozy in a neglected-paperwork way. The office walls, the color of institutional cream, were covered with photos from fencing glory days. One was entirely dominated by a poster of a saber that Aiden thought might be Coach Williams’s celebrity crush. Coach, still in bright red-and-white athletic wear, looked uncomfortable sitting at a desk. She’d clearly rather be standing in the gym ordering the team to do suicide drills and win state championships.

  And Aiden would rather be making out! Yet here they were. It was impossible to get what you truly wanted in this life.

  Aiden chos
e one of the chairs in front of the desk, and commenced lounging insouciantly. He looked toward Harvard and made a lazy gesture to the chair beside him.

  “Great job dragging Aiden against his will, Harvard,” Coach praised her captain.

  Harvard gave her a thumbs-up. “No problem, Coach.”

  Aiden kicked him in the ankle for his wanton cruelty. Harvard grinned. After a moment, Aiden let himself grin back.

  “I thought this was a team meeting,” Aiden remarked. “Are we so punctual the others aren’t here yet? I am deeply shamed.”

  He glanced around in anticipation of seeing the door open. The team was a bit of a mess this year, but they were an entertaining mess. Aiden was mildly surprised they weren’t here already. He expected Nicholas the scholarship kid to be late. Nicholas didn’t really know how to handle himself at Kings Row, any more than Kings Row knew how to handle his awful haircut and worse style. However, brawny Eugene was congenitally enthusiastic, and Aiden doubted Seiji Katayama had ever been late for anything. Seiji, their baby fencing genius, took life far too seriously.

  Aiden shrugged. The important member of the team was here with him.

  Unquestionably, Harvard was Aiden’s favorite. Even if he did insist on dragging Aiden away from his life of careless playboy ease. Aiden tried to be very dedicated to his life of careless playboy ease.

  When Aiden gave Harvard an approving glance for being the best captain, Harvard avoided his eyes. Aiden had known Harvard since they were five. Harvard was marvelous in many ways, but he was not skilled at deception.

  “What’s going on, Coach?” Aiden asked with sudden dark suspicion.

  “Aiden, Aiden, Aiden,” said Coach. “Can I direct your attention to this? All will be explained, in the fullness of time.”

  She was pointing to her bulletin board, which included a list of phrases such as What’s going on, Coach? Anyone who said, or made reference to, any of the bulletin-board phrases had to do two hundred suicides. In their gym, Coach had a whole wall crowded with things people weren’t allowed to say to her. One was Aiden dumped me. It made Aiden very proud.

  “I already talked to the rest of the team this morning,” said Coach Williams.

  “Before class?” Aiden wrinkled his nose. “You made the poor little freshmen get up at some barbaric hour?”

  “Seiji gets up at four every morning for fencing practice.”

  Even their coach seemed slightly horrified to report this.

  “Seiji’s life is so tragic,” said Aiden. “I hope I never catch work ethic from him.”

  Harvard smacked Aiden affectionately on the back of the head.

  “Wow, I wish you could. We’re listening, Coach!”

  Outside the picture window set high in the wall was a late September afternoon, even the trees golden with promise. The idea of Aiden’s evening shone before him, all starlight and making out. Aiden didn’t know why Harvard insisted on blighting Aiden’s life by being a team player.

  Coach raised an eyebrow at Harvard. “And why are you cluttering up my office and interrupting my writing to my sister to see if Bruno has stopped eating plants?”

  “Is that a pet?” asked Harvard with real interest.

  “You’d think,” said Coach. “Actually, Bruno is my nephew. My sister’s dog, Antoinette, started munching on the geraniums, then the baby started copying her. Any other questions?”

  There was the obvious question: Why would anyone name a dog Antoinette and a kid Bruno?

  “Can I see a picture of your nephew?” asked Harvard.

  Coach, won over by Harvard’s dangerous sincerity, softened and showed Harvard a picture on her phone. Harvard got out of his chair to take the phone and coo over the kid.

  “Aw, Coach, he’s so cute and little!”

  Aiden sneaked a glance over at Harvard’s glowing face, and then smiled to himself. Harvard really got a kick out of kids. He also secretly collected videos of kittens and puppies being friends.

  Suddenly, Coach slammed her hand down on the desk. Harvard laid Coach’s phone down discreetly beside it.

  “The reason I wanted to talk to the whole team in turn was to say you all have to do better,” said Coach. “You hardly ever practice, Aiden. Nicholas choked during tryouts. Eugene choked against MLC. Seiji choked in his tryout against you.”

  Aiden snickered.

  “I know I should do better,” murmured Harvard. “I’ve been letting everyone down as captain.”

  Aiden stopped snickering and lifted his eyes to heaven. There was another picture of a saber taped to the ceiling.

  “No, you haven’t!” Aiden snapped. “You’re an angel of a captain, and everyone is thrilled you’re here.”

  “I do have a bone to pick with you, Captain. But stop lurking and go,” said Coach. “I will speak with you in private later. For now, leave Aiden to me.”

  Harvard winced and nodded. Aiden sat bolt upright.

  “Why would Harvard leave me?”

  He found Coach’s smile frankly sinister. “I asked him to bring you because I want to talk to you alone.”

  “It would be wrong to bring me to this place and desert me,” said Aiden, but Harvard was already making for the door. He cast an apologetic look over his shoulder at Aiden as he went, but Aiden was not appeased. “You’re betraying me like this? I can’t believe it. I thought you loved me!”

  “I do love you, buddy,” said Harvard. “But I am betraying you, yeah. Coach’s orders. Captain’s gotta do what a captain’s gotta do.”

  He waved goodbye and gave Aiden a mischievous grin. Since Harvard was a traitor, Aiden didn’t wave back and only half returned the grin.

  The door closed after Harvard, and the room seemed instantly darker. Aiden leaned back in his chair and sulked. Insouciantly, of course.

  Coach was staring at him from across the desk. She’d steepled her fingers. Maybe she hadn’t got the memo that only evil masterminds steepled their fingers.

  “Aiden, Aiden, Aiden.”

  “Coach, Coach, Coach,” Aiden responded.

  “Are you aware we won our first team victory against a rival school last week?”

  “Sure am,” said Aiden. “Many congratulations.”

  “But you weren’t actually at the match to help us win, or even to cheer your teammates on to victory?”

  “Sure wasn’t,” said Aiden. “Many apologies. I had plans that couldn’t be put off. They were ridiculously good-looking plans.”

  Coach seemed unimpressed by this information. Aiden was getting the feeling she might be a tiny bit annoyed with him.

  “Kings Row has never won the state championship,” Coach announced. “Do you know when we last reached the finals?”

  “In the Jurassic period?” Aiden hazarded.

  Coach didn’t laugh. Harvard would have. As ever when Harvard wasn’t there, Aiden wished he was.

  “Kings Row reached the finals in 1979 but ultimately didn’t win, despite having Robert Coste—a legend who went on to win Olympic gold. Why do you think we didn’t win that year?”

  Aiden shrugged. “Robert Coste had food poisoning?”

  Coach regarded Aiden sternly.

  “He was distracted by someone hot?” Aiden guessed. Coach’s stern aspect only increased. “I don’t know. Give me a clue.”

  It was interesting Coach should bring up Robert Coste, Kings Row’s most famous alumnus. Robert Coste hadn’t sent his son to his alma mater. Jesse Coste had gone to Exton, the better, shinier school where he was now the star of a better, shinier fencing team. And Jesse’s former partner, Seiji Katayama, had thrown it all away to come to Kings Row for reasons nobody understood.

  Aiden could probably work them out, but he didn’t care that much.

  He’d once needled Seiji about Jesse Coste, in order to throw off Seiji and win a match. It had worked. There were no hard feelings on Aiden’s side, but Aiden suspected Seiji held it against him. That was why the phrase “sore loser” existed. Losers were the ones who got h
urt.

  Coach tilted her head to scrutinize Aiden in a way he found unsettling. Mellow afternoon light caught the silver glints starting in Coach’s hair.

  “Kings Row didn’t win, because one genius fencer is not enough to win a team match,” said Coach. “If we want to win the state championships, we have to be the best team we can be. Right now, we’re hardly a team at all. I’ve been seriously thinking our teamwork could use a little, oh, work. Aiden!”

  Her snarling his name might’ve made lesser men flinch, but Aiden maintained his lounge unperturbed.

  “How many times did you attend our matches last year?”

  “To tell you the truth, I never bothered to count.…”

  He clearly saw the moment when Coach considered throwing a lamp at his artfully disheveled head. “Zero times, Aiden. That’s how many. Zero times.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Aiden murmured, “that does sound right.”

  Coach leaned both her elbows on her desk, ever more intent. “This has to change. If we establish stronger bonds as a team, nobody will skip matches or try to win them on their own. For the next few weeks, I’ve decided we must focus on teamwork.”

  Aiden nodded politely. He didn’t see why Coach was telling him this, since it couldn’t possibly apply to Aiden. When it came to participation, Aiden simply refused to participate.

  Coach expanded on her demented scheme.

  “We’re going to do bonding exercises. I’m asking every one of you to write essays on your childhoods, which will be shared with your teammates so you can get to know one another better. I’m going to send you on expeditions. I want you to do trust falls. At the end of the team bonding sessions, we can have a team bonfire.”

  Aiden gave the door Harvard had disappeared through a wistful glance. He’d been abandoned in this office, alone with a madwoman who wanted him to bond with freshmen instead of racking up dates.

  “I have somebody waiting for me, you know,” he reminded Coach reproachfully. “Somebody hot.”

  Coach snorted. “Who?”

  “Well, I don’t remember his name at this time,” Aiden admitted, “but I’m sure he’s distraught.”