Settling the Score (The Summer Games #1)(50)

THERE WAS NO getting around it. The team from Colombia was made up of superhuman cyborgs. They seemed to be built on size, each of them a giant, pumped-up killer I didn’t want to see close up. I SWORE one of them had a mustache (and I’m not talking about a couple stray whiskers—homegirl was rivaling Ron Swanson).

My defenders had played stout defense through the first half, only allowing the Colombians to test my reflexes twice before the whistle. Their defense proved to be just as good up until the 42nd minute, when Kinsley finally scored with a crafty header. By the intermission, my wrist was on fire. The constant throb hadn’t been as easily overcome by adrenaline as I’d hoped. Each time I connected for a block, I winced, and any attempt at covering up the injury was long gone. Coach Decker had pestered me about it during halftime.

“How bad is it on a scale of one to ten?”

Seven.

“Not bad. A three,” I lied.

“Are you prepared to play the second half? Should I put Hollis in that goal?”

“No. I can handle it. I’m fine.”

Fifteen minutes into the second half, my wrist had gone from a seven to an eight. The sound from the stands was deafening, made worse by the large Colombian contingent echoing Spanish chants all around me. There was a group of men, twenty or thirty of them, who’d made it their mission to taunt me. Their voices boomed behind me with thick Spanish accents. I wanted to win the game, but I also wanted them to shut the hell up. Fortunately, nothing would cut off their chants quicker than the taste of defeat.

I used their annoying-ass taunting as fuel to keep going.

My wrist is fine. Deep breath. Block. Deep breath.

At last, the 89th minute came and the score was still sitting at 1-0. I couldn’t let Colombia score. A few more minutes and we win. The guys behind me were getting louder and Colombia had the ball. I stayed in the net, watching our defense try to keep up. Their legs were tired. Kinsley and Becca had played the entire game and clean tackles they’d made with ease in the first half were proving more difficult.

The ball was passing from one player to another so fast my eyes could hardly keep up. I watched as the ball kept falling in Colombia’s favor, and I braced myself for the coming storm. I’d made every save so far. No matter the time on the clock, I could make one more.

28 seconds.

I’d studied their offensive schemes in the previous days. I knew Mustache Girl would be the primary scoring option in this last ditch effort, and I also knew that more often than not, she chose the bottom left corner of the net as her target.

I watched a midfielder set up the play and I loaded my weight onto my toes, shifting rapidly from side to side as she pivoted, striking inward behind her defender toward the penalty mark. Mustache Girl’s eyes glanced up to mine. Her eye contact lasted less than a millisecond, but I saw them flick to my left. She was desperate for a goal and I debated whether she was mapping her shot or bluffing.

Fuck.

She reared back to kick and I dove to cover the left side of the goal. The entire stadium held its breath as the soccer ball sailed through the air. I’d guessed the direction correctly, but she’d kicked it higher than usual. Time slowed even further, and I could almost visualize the ball slipping past me for the goal. As the ball zoomed toward the top of the goal, I reached up with all my might. The ball grazed the tips of my fingers, deflecting up over the white crossbar and landing out of bounds.

I had a fleeting moment of internal celebration right before my body hit the ground and pain sliced through me.

White.

Hot.

Searing pain.

It was the sharpest, most acute sensation I’d ever felt. It brought vomit to my throat and blurred the world around me. I squeezed my eyes closed and collapsed back onto the turf, rocking back and forth with my wrist clutched against my chest. Curse words slipped from my lips, but I couldn’t hear them. I cradled my wrist and tried to keep the vomit down, but it was no use. The pain gripped hold of me so tight I couldn’t see past it.

“ANDIE!” Kinsley shouted. “Andie!”

I opened my eyes to see her crouched over me, concerned, but too happy to wipe the smile from her face. “WE WON! YOU DID IT!”

Becca was right behind her, and together, they tried to wedge themselves beneath me so I could stand. I was crying heavy tears I hadn’t noticed until they started to slip off my chin and drop onto my sweaty jersey.

“Guys, I think…” I tried to get the words out, but I was out of breath and scared.

I can’t…

If I said what I was thinking aloud, it would become reality.

My wrist is broken.

Done.

My Olympic career is over.





I ONLY REMEMBERED bits and pieces of them helping me off the field. A doctor inspected my wrist in the locker room, carefully removing the tape so the bruises hidden beneath were finally revealed to my coach. It looked bad, black and blue and so much worse than it had before the game.

Coach Decker was horrified.

“Was it like this before today?” She strung her fingers through her hair and tugged at the strands. “This stuff can be career ending, Andie! Do you understand that!?”

“I—”

My explanation was wasted on her anger. She’d just lost her star goalie. My team would suffer. Sure, we’d eliminated Colombia, but we still had two knockout games left: the semifinals and finals. Of course we had reserve goalkeepers on the roster, but as the competition got stiffer, our defense couldn’t be running on backup power.