Chapter 7 Stolen Ball

~Hailey's POV~

The whistle screamed again, closer this time, and Coach Daniels's sneakers pounded across the hardwood toward us. "Marcus! What in the hell was that?"

"It was a screen, Coach." Marcus held his hands up, all wide-eyed innocence. "She ran into me."

"That was a blind-side hit and you know it." Coach’s voice cracked across the gym. "You do that again, you're off this team, I don't care whose kid you are."

I lay there another second, chest still burning, sucking in air that felt like swallowing glass. Every instinct in me wanted to stay down, curl up, let somebody carry me off the court. I wasn't going to give Marcus that.

I planted a hand flat against the hardwood and pushed myself up, legs shaking, ribs screaming, and waved off Coach's hand before he could even offer it.

"I'm fine," I said, though my voice came out thinner than I wanted.

I looked straight at Marcus while I said it, holding his eyes until he was the one who looked away first.

Marcus forced out a laugh, glancing around at the guys like he needed backup. "Relax, it's just physical basketball. She wanted to play with us…"

He didn't get to finish. William shoved him backward hard enough that Marcus stumbled into the key line.

"Dirty, cowardly fouls make this whole team look pathetic," William snapped, chest heaving. "You could've actually hurt her."

"Get off me, man…"

"Enough!" Coach stepped between them, one hand flat against each of their chests. "Marcus, one more stunt like that and you're benched for the season, I promise you." He turned to me, softer now. "Carter, go see the nurse."

"No." I straightened up fully, ignoring the way my ribs protested. "Sub me back in. I'm finishing practice."

The gym went completely silent. Even the guys who'd been ignoring me all afternoon were staring now, like I'd said something in a different language.

Coach studied me for a long second, then nodded once. "Your call."

I caught Tristan's eyes across the court while I walked back to the free-throw line. His jaw was tight, his arms crossed, but there was something in his expression that hadn't been there before, something that looked, against his will, a little like respect. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to.

I finished every drill for the rest of practice, every suicide, every scrimmage rep, my ribs throbbing with each hard breath, but I didn't stop, not once, not even when my legs started shaking on the last set of sprints.

By the time Coach finally blew the last whistle, I was drenched in sweat and barely able to lift my arms above my shoulders.

William was waiting outside the locker room with a fresh ice pack, already cracked and cold, holding it out to me before I'd even fully stepped through the door.

"Here." He shifted his weight, looking almost embarrassed. "Most guys would've quit after a hit like that."

"I'm not most guys." I pressed the ice against my ribs, wincing at the sting. "Thanks. For earlier too. With Marcus."

"He had it coming." William shrugged, but a small smile tugged at his mouth. "You're kind of terrifying, you know that?"

"I'll take it as a compliment."

"It was one."

Footsteps echoed down the hallway, and Tristan appeared, gym bag slung over one shoulder, keys already in hand. He slowed when he saw me, his eyes dropping to the ice pack against my side.

"You're stubborn, Carter." He shook his head slightly. "Staying in after a hit like that was stupid."

"Quitting is what's stupid." I met his eyes without flinching. "I'm not giving Marcus, or anyone else, the satisfaction."

Something flickered across his face, quick, unreadable, gone before I could name it. He held my gaze a beat longer than he needed to, longer than felt entirely comfortable, and then turned and walked off toward the parking lot without another word.

William watched him go, eyebrows raised. "That's the most words I've heard him say to anyone all week that wasn't an insult."

"Lucky me," I muttered, though something about it settled strangely in my chest, and I wasn't sure if it was good or bad.

I pushed through the locker room door, the smell of chlorine and old sweat hitting me the second it swung shut behind me. The room was empty, everyone else already gone, just the hum of a flickering fluorescent light above the last row of lockers. I dropped my ice pack on the bench and unzipped my duffel bag to grab my shower stuff.

My stomach dropped straight through the floor.

The bag was open, the side pocket where I always kept it, empty. I yanked everything out, shirts, shorts, my water bottle, dumping it all onto the bench in a desperate pile, my hands shaking harder with every item that wasn't the one thing I was looking for.

Dad's basketball was gone.

"No, no, no…" My voice cracked, panic climbing up my throat so fast I could barely breathe around it. I checked the bag again, turned it completely inside out, checked under the bench, behind the lockers, anywhere it could have possibly rolled.

Nothing.

That's when I saw the note.

It was taped flat against the bench, block letters scrawled in the same handwriting that had dripped red paint across my locker three days ago.

WANT YOUR PRECIOUS BALL BACK? CHECK THE DUMPSTER BEHIND THE CAFETERIA BEFORE THE TRASH TRUCK CLEARS IT AT FIVE.

The words blurred for a second, my eyes stinging, my hands trembling so bad the paper shook against my fingers. That ball wasn't just leather and rubber. It was the last thing Dad's hands had touched a thousand times over, the grip worn smooth in the exact places his fingers used to sit, the one thing I'd carried across three states like it was the only piece of him I had left.

Because it was.

I spun toward the clock on the wall, my heart slamming so hard I could feel it in my throat.

Four-fifty.

Ten minutes left

Ten minutes to find a dumpster somewhere behind a cafeteria I'd barely learned to locate, ten minutes before a truck crushed the only thing that still smelled exactly like Dad's hands if I pressed my nose close enough to the leather, ten minutes before I lost him all over again.