"Stay away from him, new boy."
Madison's words didn't fade as Maya watched them walk away. They echoed, bouncing around inside her head like a ricocheting bullet, each repetition sharper than the last. The threat clung to her skin like smoke, impossible to wash off, impossible to forget.
Madison didn't linger after dropping the verbal bomb—just slid her arm through Ethan's with practiced grace and steered him back toward where the cheer squad waited in their perfect formation. Her smile never wavered, fixed and flawless like a porcelain mask, as if the conversation had been about homework or weekend plans instead of a carefully delivered warning.
To anyone else watching from the sidelines, they looked picture-perfect. Golden couple walking off into the sunset, all tanned limbs and coordinated confidence. To Maya, it felt like watching someone slide a knife between her ribs with surgical precision—clean, efficient, devastating.
She knows exactly what she's doing. Every move calculated.
Maya should care less. Ethan was just the captain, just another layer of this elaborate disguise she was trapped in, just one more person she had to convince that Alex Rivera belonged here. But his question from earlier still lingered like an itch she couldn't scratch: Where'd you learn to move like that? The way he'd said it, with genuine curiosity instead of suspicion, like he actually saw something worth noticing.
Don't get attached. Don't make this personal. Don't forget what happens if you blow your cover.
Maya shoved the feeling down, buried it under the weight of necessity. Survival came first. It had to. Everything else was luxury she couldn't afford.
But the rest of the week proved that Madison's warning had done nothing to change Ethan's behavior. If anything, he seemed to be around Maya more than before—pairing them up in passing drills, calling out her name across the field during scrimmages, throwing those easy captain smiles her way like Madison's territorial claim didn't exist.
Maybe he doesn't know what she said. Maybe he thinks she was just being friendly.
That should have made Maya feel safer. Having the team captain's approval was social armor at a place like Riverside Academy, protection against the kind of isolation that could destroy a cover identity. But instead, it felt like painting a target on her back in fluorescent paint.
Because Maya could feel someone else watching. Always watching.
Mateo.
He was constantly at the edge of her vision—leaning against lockers when she walked to class, hanging back after practice when everyone else headed for the showers, hovering near her table in the cafeteria with a tray he never seemed to actually eat from. His presence felt like being stalked by a particularly patient predator.
His gaze was heavy, searching, like he was trying to solve a puzzle that only he could see the pieces of. Maya would catch him staring during lectures, during meals, during the endless moments between classes when students clustered in hallways and compared notes about weekend plans.
At first Maya thought it was leftover bitterness from their one-on-one confrontation, the kind of wounded pride that came from being publicly humiliated by the new kid. Revenge fantasies were normal after something like that. She could handle angry. Angry was straightforward.
But then she started noticing the details that didn't fit the revenge narrative.
The way Mateo's eyes lingered when Maya laughed at something during team meetings. How he found excuses to be in the same space—weight room, library, even the dining hall during off-peak hours when most students were elsewhere. The intensity of his focus that felt less like plotting and more like... something else entirely.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
It was during Thursday's practice, while Maya was stretching before drills began, that she finally caught it. Mateo was across the field, supposedly organizing cones for a passing exercise, but his attention was entirely focused on her. And when their eyes met across thirty yards of perfect grass, Maya saw the flicker in his expression that confirmed her worst fears.
Not just rivalry. Not just wounded pride or competitive anger.
Interest. The kind that had nothing to do with soccer and everything to do with the way Maya moved, the way she carried herself, the mystery she represented as the transfer student who'd appeared from nowhere with skills that didn't match his background story.
He's attracted to Alex. To me. To whatever he thinks I am.
Maya's stomach dropped into her cleats. This was worse than Madison's territorial warnings, worse than Ethan's probing questions about her technique. This was personal attention from someone who was already suspicious, someone who would be motivated to dig deeper, to get closer, to uncover secrets that couldn't be uncovered.
And that's when I realize: Madison isn't my only problem.
The realization hit her like ice water. She'd been so focused on navigating Madison's jealousy and Ethan's curiosity that she'd missed the third point of a triangle that was about to collapse on top of her.
Maya forced herself to look away, to focus on her stretching routine, to pretend she hadn't seen the heat in Mateo's dark eyes. But she could still feel his attention like sunlight through a magnifying glass, concentrated and dangerous.
How many more complications can one fake identity handle?
Practice continued around her, whistles and shouts and the satisfying thud of foot meeting ball, but Maya felt disconnected from it all. Like she was watching through glass, separate from the world she was supposed to be part of.
Because the mathematics of her situation were becoming impossible. Madison watching for signs she was getting too close to Ethan. Ethan asking questions about skills that were too advanced for Alex's supposed background. And now Mateo, whose attention came with a whole different set of risks.
Three different people, three different threats, three different ways this could all fall apart.
Maya finished her stretching and jogged toward the practice group, forcing Alex's confident stride, his easy athletic grace. But inside, she was calculating escape routes and worst-case scenarios, trying to figure out how to survive a game where the rules kept changing and everyone else seemed to be playing by different strategies.
The warning's weight hadn't lessened. If anything, it had multiplied, spreading through every interaction like a virus she couldn't cure.