"Stick with me—we'll win this thing."
Ethan's promise had followed Maya through two weeks of doubled training that left her muscles screaming and her lungs burning, through roster meetings where Coach Rivera's clipboard determined futures, through sleepless nights where she calculated the odds of survival versus discovery.
Now, standing in the tunnel beneath Riverside's home stadium, Maya could hear the crowd building to a roar that seemed to shake the concrete walls. The first tournament match. Everything she'd trained for, everything she'd feared, condensed into ninety minutes under the California sun.
This is it. No going back now.
The first whistle pierced the air, sharp and final as a gunshot, and everything inside Maya sharpened to a razor's edge.
The stands were packed beyond capacity—parents clutching programs with their sons' photos, college scouts with notebooks and stopwatches, reporters with cameras that caught every blade of grass, every bead of sweat, every expression of triumph or defeat. Banners waved in the hot afternoon breeze, school colors creating waves of navy and white that rippled across the bleachers.
Too many people. Too many eyes. Too many cameras.
Maya forced herself to focus on the field, on the familiar geometry of the game that had been her sanctuary before it became her prison. The opposing team—St. Augustine Prep, according to the program—looked hungry in the way that came from years of being second-best, ready to prove they deserved to be here.
Tournament. First blood. No mistakes allowed.
The ball was in play before Maya had time to overthink, and the game was brutal from the opening minute. This wasn't the controlled aggression of practice or the playful competition of scrimmages. These boys wanted blood, wanted to prove themselves worthy of state championship consideration, wanted to leave everything they had on the grass.
They're treating this like war. Because that's what it is.
Maya slipped into rhythm despite the chaos, her feet remembering what her mind couldn't afford to forget—first touch control, body positioning, the split-second decisions that separated good players from great ones. The ball stuck to her like it knew she didn't have room to fail, responding to touches that were more instinct than conscious thought.
Don't think. Just play. Be Alex.
Gasps rose from the crowd when she danced past two defenders in the fifteenth minute, leaving them turned around and grasping at air while she accelerated toward goal. The keeper came out to challenge, but Maya's shot was already in flight—hard and clean and perfectly placed in the upper corner where no human hand could reach it.
For one heartbeat, the rush was intoxicating. Pure joy flooded through her system like a drug, the kind of high that came from executing something perfectly under pressure. It felt like flying, like being invincible, like all the pain and fear and lies were worth it for moments like this.
This is why I love this game. This is who I used to be.
But the euphoria lasted exactly as long as it took for the other team to realize they were being outplayed by someone they'd underestimated. After Maya's goal, everything changed.
They stopped playing fair.
A shove to the ribs during a corner kick that left her gasping. A cleat raking down her ankle when the referee wasn't looking, opening cuts that bled into her socks. An elbow that caught too close to her chest during a header challenge, the impact sending shock waves through her compressed torso.
They're targeting me specifically. They know I'm the threat.
Maya gritted her teeth, forced herself not to flinch, not to show pain that would invite more punishment. Every hit was a reminder of the fundamental problem with her disguise—she wasn't built for this level of physical punishment. Her frame could handle skill and speed, but not the grinding brutality that came with elite competition.
One wrong hit. One slip of the compression shirt. One referee who looks too closely.
She played through it, channeling every ounce of Chicago street soccer toughness, every lesson her father had taught her about surviving when opponents tried to intimidate you off your game. But by the second half, her body was sending signals that couldn't be ignored—ribs aching with each breath, ankle throbbing with each step, chest screaming protest against the binding that kept her secret safe.
Late in the second half, with Riverside leading 2-1 and desperately defending their advantage, it happened.
Maya broke down the right sideline, ball tight at her feet, looking to waste time in the corner and protect their lead. The St. Augustine left-back had other ideas. He came at her like a missile, shoulder-first, with the kind of reckless abandon that suggested he'd rather injure her than let her maintain possession.
Move. Get out of the way. Protect yourself.
But there was nowhere to go. The sideline trapped her on one side, the defender's momentum on the other. Maya tried to ride out the contact, to stay on her feet through pure will and superior balance.
She failed.
The impact drove her sideways and down, grass tearing her skin raw as she hit the ground hard enough to drive the air from her lungs. For a moment, the world went white with pain, her vision narrowing to pinpricks while her body tried to remember how to breathe.
Get up. Get up right now. Don't let them see weakness.
When Maya pushed herself up on shaking arms, her stomach dropped into her cleats.
Her jersey—split right across the chest where the defender's shoulder had caught her, the fabric parted in a line that revealed far too much of what lay beneath.
Air rushed out of her in a panicked gasp. Her hands flew up instinctively, clutching the torn fabric and pressing it together before anyone could see what the compression shirt was hiding. The movement was desperate, obvious, the kind of reaction that would definitely be noticed by anyone who was watching closely.
Too close. Way too close.
From the corner of her eye, Maya caught Ethan's face as he jogged toward her from midfield. His expression was shifting from concern to confusion, blue-gray eyes narrowing as he processed what he was seeing—the torn jersey, her frantic attempt to cover herself, the way she was holding the fabric like her life depended on it.
He's going to ask questions. He's going to want to know why I'm acting like this.
And in the stands, worse than Ethan's confusion, worse than the referee's whistle calling for a substitution, Maya saw the flashes of cameras. Photographers capturing every moment, every angle, every detail that would be analyzed frame by frame in tomorrow's sports sections.
They got it. They got everything.
Maya's hands shook as she held her jersey together, trying to look like someone who was just embarrassed about a wardrobe malfunction instead of someone whose entire existence depended on keeping certain truths hidden.
But as Ethan reached her and she saw the questions forming behind his eyes, Maya realized that some secrets were too big to hide forever.
Even with the best disguise in the world.