The locker room emptied after that, leaving Maya alone with the sound of dripping faucets and her own ragged breathing. She'd managed to escape—barely—but Mateo's words echoed in the silence: Some secrets are harder to keep than others.
She'd thought she had until the next practice to figure out damage control. She was wrong.
The next morning, Mateo's eyes found her across the dining hall like heat-seeking missiles. Sharp, dark, unblinking. Maya tried to focus on her scrambled eggs, but she could feel his stare burning into the side of her head. When she finally looked up, he was sitting three tables away, chin resting on his hand, watching her with the patience of someone who had all the time in the world.
He's not going to let this go.
Practice that afternoon felt different. Coach Martinez ran the same drills, barked the same instructions, but Maya could sense the shift in dynamics. Players who'd been impressed yesterday now threw her sideways glances, like they were reassessing everything they thought they knew about the transfer student who'd come out of nowhere.
And Mateo? He stayed close. Too close. During passing drills, he positioned himself where he could observe her footwork. During small-sided games, he marked her tighter than her own shadow, studying her moves like he was preparing for a test.
"You're avoiding them, huh?" he said again during a water break, voice pitched low so only Maya could hear. The words carried more weight this time, loaded with implications that made her stomach clench.
Maya forced a shrug, trying to channel Alex's supposed confidence. "Not my thing."
Mateo tilted his head, studying her the way predators studied prey. His expression was calculating, like he was working through equations in his head and didn't like the answers he was getting. Then—slowly, deliberately—he smiled.
"Not your thing? We'll see about that."
The threat hung between them until Coach Martinez's whistle split the air, calling them back to drills. But Maya could feel Mateo's attention like a physical weight for the rest of practice, measuring every pass, every touch, every reaction.
After practice ended and most of the team trudged toward the locker room, cleats clattering against concrete, Mateo lingered on the field. Maya had almost made it to the tunnel entrance when his voice cut across the late afternoon air.
"Hey, Rivera."
Maya's blood turned to ice. She turned slowly, hoping her expression looked more annoyed than terrified.
Mateo stood near the penalty box, soccer ball tucked under his arm, that same calculating smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "One-on-one. You and me."
No. Absolutely not. This is exactly what I need to avoid.
"Why?" Maya managed, her voice steadier than she felt.
His grin widened, teeth flashing white in the golden hour light. "Because I don't buy it. That stunt yesterday during tryouts? Could've been luck. Beginners sometimes get hot streaks." He bounced the ball once, caught it. "Let's see what you really got when someone's paying attention."
Maya's peripheral vision caught movement. Ethan Morrison had stopped near the sideline, eyebrows raised but making no move to intervene. A few other teammates noticed the standoff and paused, backpacks slung over shoulders, sensing the kind of drama that would be talked about in the dorms for weeks.
I should say no. Keep my head down. Don't draw more attention.
But even as the thought formed, Maya knew it was impossible. Alex Rivera wouldn't back down from a direct challenge, especially not in front of teammates. Refusing would raise more questions than accepting, and she was already walking a tightrope made of lies.
"Fine," she said, steadying her voice and praying it came out low enough. "Let's go."
Mateo's smile turned predatory. He dropped the ball between them with a soft thud against the grass, tapped it once with the inside of his foot, and then everything else faded away.
He was fast—quicker than most of the players Maya had faced in Chicago street games—but she was faster. His first move was textbook but sloppy, too aggressive, like he was trying to intimidate rather than outplay. Maya read it before he committed, stripped the ball clean with a perfectly timed tackle, and pivoted away in one fluid motion.
Muscle memory. Thank God for muscle memory.
Mateo recovered quickly—she had to give him credit for that—sliding in hard from her left side. But Maya had already seen the angle, already calculated the escape route. She spun away from his challenge, leaving him grasping at air while gasps echoed from the growing crowd on the sidelines.
Don't showboat. Just beat him and end this.
Maya drove toward the goal, heart hammering against her ribs so hard she was surprised it didn't interfere with her footwork. Mateo tried again, cutting across her path with the desperation of someone who'd underestimated his opponent. But he telegraphed the move like he was sending smoke signals—too obvious, too desperate.
One feint to the right. One delicate flick of the ball to the left. And suddenly Mateo was sliding past her on the wrong side, his momentum carrying him nowhere useful while Maya found herself alone with twenty yards of open field.
The goal loomed ahead, net hanging loose in the still air. Maya struck the ball with everything she had—all her frustration at this impossible situation, all her grief for the family she'd lost, all her terror at the identity she was trying to maintain. The shot rocketed off her foot and buried itself in the upper corner with enough force to rattle the goalposts.
Complete silence fell over the field.
Mateo stood frozen ten yards away, chest heaving, his face cycling through emotions too fast to track. Disbelief. Humiliation. Something that might have been respect. Around them, the boys who'd stopped to watch erupted into chaos—cheers, laughter, shouts of "damn!" and "did you see that?" filling the air like confetti.
I just made it worse. So much worse.
But even as Maya recognized the mistake, she couldn't bring herself to regret it entirely. For thirty seconds, she'd been able to forget about witness protection and dead families and the constant fear of discovery. For thirty seconds, she'd just been a soccer player doing what she did best.
Mateo wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, his gaze locked on Maya with an intensity that made her skin crawl. The humiliation was there—public, undeniable—but beneath it, something else flickered in his dark eyes. Not just anger. Intrigue. Like she'd just confirmed something he'd suspected but couldn't prove.
He walked closer, close enough that only she could hear his words over the continuing celebration from the sidelines.
"This isn't over," he muttered, and Maya realized with growing dread that she'd just turned a suspicious teammate into something much more dangerous.
An obsessed one.