"Ethan," the cheerleader called out, her voice carrying across the space between them like music. "Amazing practice today."
But her eyes never left Maya's face.
She walked straight toward them like she owned the field, owned the school, owned every blade of grass her designer cleats touched. Maybe she did. Maya had seen girls like this before—the ones who ruled through perfection, who made kingdoms out of cafeterias and courts out of hallways.
Perfect posture carved from years of dance classes and deportment lessons. Flawless makeup somehow untouched by the California sun that had left every other person on the field glazed with sweat. Her uniform hugged her in all the strategic places, tailored to make boys stare and girls measure themselves and come up short. Her ponytail gleamed like liquid gold under the late afternoon lights, catching every ray and throwing it back like a weapon.
This is dangerous. This is so much more dangerous than Mateo or even Ethan.
Maya felt herself being catalogued, filed away, studied with the kind of attention that missed nothing. Girls saw things boys didn't. Girls noticed the way you held your shoulders, the pitch of your voice, the hundred tiny details that separated real from fake.
Ethan straightened before the cheerleader even reached them, his entire posture shifting into something more performative. His voice dropped into a register Maya hadn't heard before—warmer, easier, touched with the kind of casual intimacy that spoke of shared secrets and private jokes.
"Hey, babe."
So this is his girlfriend. Of course it is.
Maya should have seen it coming. Team captain dating head cheerleader was such a cliche it hurt, but cliches existed for a reason. Power married power at places like Riverside Academy, creating dynasties that ruled over everyone else.
The girl didn't answer Ethan right away. Instead, her eyes swept over Maya from head to toe, like she was dissecting a specimen in a biology lab, taking inventory of everything that didn't quite fit. Maya fought every instinct that screamed at her to fold into herself, to make herself smaller, to disappear entirely.
Stand like Alex. Think like Alex. Don't let her see Maya.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only seconds, the cheerleader smiled. It wasn't sweet. It wasn't kind. It was a smile with edges sharp enough to cut, beautiful and cold and absolutely lethal.
"So," she said, tilting her head in a way that somehow managed to be both curious and condescending, "you're the new boy everyone's talking about."
Her voice was honey over broken glass—gorgeous surface hiding something that could slice you open if you weren't careful. Maya could hear the emphasis on 'boy,' like she was testing the word, seeing how it felt in her mouth.
"Alex Rivera," Ethan supplied helpfully, but the girl's gaze never wavered from Maya's face. She was studying micro-expressions, cataloguing reactions, building a file that Maya couldn't afford to have built.
Maya forced herself to nod, to maintain eye contact, to project the kind of casual confidence Alex Rivera would have. "Nice to meet you."
"Mm." The sound was noncommittal, loaded with implications Maya couldn't quite decode. The girl glanced at Ethan—a quick look that somehow conveyed volumes of private communication—then back at Maya, as if weighing something only she understood.
Her hand slid onto Ethan's arm with practiced possession, fingers curling around his bicep in a gesture that was part affection, part territorial marking. The movement was smooth, natural, but Maya caught the deliberate nature of it. This wasn't casual touch—this was a claim being staked.
"I'm Madison," she said, and even her name sounded expensive. "Head cheer."
Figures. She looks every inch the queen.
And she did. From her perfectly applied lip gloss to her regulation-but-somehow-superior cheer shoes, everything about Madison screamed royalty. The kind of girl who'd probably been groomed since birth to rule whatever domain she found herself in.
Ethan laughed lightly at something—maybe Madison's tone, maybe the tension crackling between them, maybe just nervous energy looking for an outlet. But Madison didn't laugh. Her smile sharpened instead, taking on an almost predatory quality that made Maya's skin crawl.
She knows. She doesn't know what she knows, but she knows something's off.
Madison leaned in closer, close enough that her perfume—something expensive and floral that probably cost more than Maya's monthly allowance used to—filled Maya's nostrils. Close enough that when she spoke, her words were meant for Maya's ears alone, cutting through the ambient noise of the field like a blade through silk.
"Stay away from him, new boy."
The threat was delivered in the same honey-sweet tone she'd used for everything else, but there was no mistaking the steel beneath it. This was a warning, a line being drawn, a boundary being established with surgical precision.
Maya's blood turned to ice water. Not just because of the threat itself, but because of what it implied. Madison saw something in the way Maya looked at Ethan, or the way Ethan looked at her, or the dynamic between them that suggested complications Madison wouldn't tolerate.
She thinks I'm competition. Oh God, she thinks Alex is interested in Ethan.
Which meant Madison's radar was picking up signals Maya didn't even know she was sending. Dangerous signals that could unravel everything if the wrong person started asking the right questions.
Maya managed to keep her expression neutral, channeling every ounce of Alex's supposed confidence. "Got it."
Madison's smile widened, but it never reached her eyes. "Good. I'm so glad we understand each other."
She stepped back, her hand still possessively wrapped around Ethan's arm, and Maya realized she'd just been dismissed. Not rudely—Madison was too smart for that—but definitively. The audience was over, the warning delivered, the hierarchy reestablished.
"Come on, babe," Madison said to Ethan, tugging him gently toward the parking lot where luxury cars waited in neat rows. "Dinner?"
Ethan glanced back at Maya once, something unreadable flickering in his expression, before allowing himself to be led away. Maya watched them go, Madison's ponytail swaying like a victory flag, and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cooling evening air.
She's going to be watching me now. Watching everything I do, everything I say, every interaction I have with her boyfriend.
And if Madison was half as smart as she seemed—which Maya suspected she was—that kind of scrutiny could be fatal.