Chapter 4 Team Earning

~Hailey's POV~

Tristan came at me hard, dribbling low and fast, using his shoulder to back me down inch by inch until I could feel the paint under my sneakers instead of the open floor. His sneakers screeched against the hardwood with every shift, sharp enough to make a couple guys on the sideline wince. The whole gym had gone dead quiet again, that thick kind of silence where you can hear everybody breathing.

I dropped lower, refusing to give him another inch.

"Move, Carter," he muttered, not even looking at me, just feeling where I was.

"Make me."

He drove his shoulder into my chest, and I planted my feet, absorbing the hit even as it rattled straight up through my spine. We collided again under the rim, harder this time, his forearm pressing into my ribs, and for a second it wasn't basketball anymore, it was just two people refusing to back down.

He leaned in close, voice low enough that only I could hear it. "Didn't your daddy teach you to play defense? I expected more from you, Carter."

Something in my chest went white-hot. I knew exactly what he was doing, trying to rattle me, trying to get inside my head the way he used to when we were kids, and I hated that it still worked. I lunged for the ball, too aggressive, too angry, my foot catching wrong on the seam of the floorboards.

The gym tilted.

I felt myself falling backward, that sick weightless second before your body hits something hard, and I braced for the impact of the floor against my skull.

It never came.

A hand clamped around my forearm and yanked, hard, and suddenly I was pulled forward instead of down, straight into Tristan's chest, his other arm catching me around the back before I could crumble. For one long second neither of us moved. His breath was ragged against my temple, his heart hammering so loud I could actually feel it against my shoulder, and his eyes, up close, weren't cold at all. They were wide. Startled. Almost afraid.

Then I remembered the ball was still loose between us.

I brought my free hand up fast and slapped it clean out of his grip before he could recover, sending it bouncing hard across the court, skidding all the way to the far wall.

The whistle screamed.

"That's enough!" Coach Daniels's voice cut through the silence in the gym. "Both of you, back up."

Tristan let go of my arm so fast it was like my skin had burned him, stepping back with his jaw locked tight, a dull red creeping up his neck. I stumbled a step on my own, catching my balance, my heart still slamming from the fall, from the catch, from all of it at once.

Coach Daniels walked out onto the court, clapping his hands twice, the sound bouncing off the walls. The rest of the team had gone quiet, some of them still gaping at what they'd just watched, Marcus with his mouth actually hanging open.

"That's enough for today," Coach said, looking around at all of them before his eyes landed on me. "Carter has the skill and the grit to play this game." He turned, addressing the whole gym now, voice flat and final. "She's on varsity."

Nobody said anything for a second. Then the murmuring started, low and disbelieving, a couple guys shaking their heads, one of them muttering something under his breath that I didn't catch and didn't want to.

"Coach, you can't be…" Marcus started.

"I said that's enough." Coach didn't even look at him. He just gathered his clipboard and walked toward his office like he'd settled something that wasn't actually up for debate.

I looked over at Tristan. He was staring at me with an expression I couldn't fully read, somewhere between fury and something else, something that looked almost like confusion about his own fury. Then it hardened back into a glare, and he turned away without a word, snatching his shirt off the bleachers and stalking toward the locker room.

I grabbed my bag, my legs still shaky from the fall, and headed for the door, wanting nothing more than to disappear into a shower and pretend today hadn't happened. I didn't get that far.

Tristan was leaning against the wall right outside the gym doors, arms crossed, waiting.

"Making the team was the easy part, Carter," he said, pushing off the wall as I passed. "Surviving this season on my court? That's going to be a nightmare you won't forget."

"I've survived worse than you," I said, not slowing down.

"We'll see."

I brushed past him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a real reaction, and pushed through the door into the girls' locker room, my sneakers squeaking against the tile, the smell of chlorine and deodorant thick in the air. I was already thinking about my duffel bag, about texting Mom that I'd made the team, about anything other than Tristan's face inches from mine under that basket.

Then I saw Allison.

She was standing near the back row of lockers, completely still, her face pale, both hands pressed over her mouth like she was trying to keep something from coming out.

"Allison?"

She didn't answer right away. She just pointed, one shaking finger, toward the locker with a strip of masking tape and my name written across it in a very bold handwriting.

I followed her hand and my stomach dropped straight through the floor.

Red paint, thick and dripping, still wet enough to catch the fluorescent light, was smeared in jagged letters across the metal door.

LEAVE.

It ran down in long streaks, like something out of a nightmare, pooling slightly at the bottom of the locker where it had already started to dry into a dark, ugly stain. My mouth went completely dry. For a second all I could do was stare at it, at my name on the tape right above a word that felt less like paint and more like a threat somebody meant with their whole chest.

"Who did this?" My voice came out quieter than I meant it to.

Allison lowered her hands slowly, her eyes darting toward the door like she was scared someone might still be listening. "I don't know for sure. But I saw someone watching through the gym window earlier. During your one-on-one with Tristan." She swallowed hard. "Aurora Vale. She saw him catch you before you fell."

"Who's Aurora Vale?"

"Tristan's… not really his girl, but they are kind of a thing." Allison said, like the words themselves were dangerous, like just saying them out loud might summon her. She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper, glancing over her shoulder one more time before she said it.

"And Hailey, I need you to understand something. You just made the most dangerous enemy in this entire school."