The Silver Striker: Fated to My Dead Brother's Alpha Best Friend

Sade's POV

Ninety-third minute, one-all, and the full moon had come up over the east stand like somebody had hung an extra floodlight in the sky just for me. Jalen called it moon legs. Every full moon since we were kids, the two of us played as if someone had bolted a stranger's legs onto our hips, and every full moon Dad stood at the fence chewing his thumbnail like he was waiting for something to go wrong.

He was at the fence now. I saw him look up at the moon, then at me.

The St. Agnes keeper set the ball down for a goal kick, picked it up, wiped it on her shorts, and set it down again.

"Ref, come on!" Kenzie Morrow yelled beside me. "She's been holding that ball since Thanksgiving!"

Half the Carver Heights section laughed. The keeper finally hoofed it long, our center back headed it straight back, and the whole stadium in Columbus came to its feet.

I ran with my left arm tucked in. Two layers of white athletic tape covered my mother's silver bracelet. Before kickoff, the center ref had pressed it with his thumb and given me the speech about jewelry, and I had given him mine back: I don't take it off, sir, not for showers, not for state finals, not for anybody. Under the tape, my wrist stung as if the silver had been left on a dashboard in July.

Kenzie picked up the ball on the right wing. Their number four, a tall senior who had been stepping on my heels all night, pressed against my back at the penalty spot.

"You're done, Holloway," she breathed. "Go home."

"I am home," I said. "You're the one on the bus tonight."

Kenzie's cross came in fast and behind me, too high for a header, too far for my feet. Number four relaxed, and I felt her weight leave my back.

Win it ugly. That was what Jalen had texted me at 9:14 that morning, in all lowercase, the way he wrote everything: win it ugly. got news after my semi. big news. don't tell dad.

I planted my right foot, threw my left leg at the moon, and went up higher than I had any right to go.

For half a second I hung upside down over the whole stadium. My laces caught the ball clean. Then I hit the grass flat on my back, and I lay there staring at the sky because I couldn't see where the ball had gone. The sound told me. It came up out of the stands like a wave breaking on concrete, and Kenzie landed on top of me, screaming, then Brianna, then a pile of girls in red.

"You jumped over her head!" Kenzie was crying into my ear. "Sade, you went six feet in the air, I swear to God!"

I shoved my way out and ran for the streaming camera on its tripod by the corner flag. I tapped two fingers on the taped silver and pointed at the lens.

Tap the silver, point at the sky. Jalen invented it when we were nine, the first season after Mom died, because he said she couldn't see a goal from heaven unless we showed her where to look. Twins share a celebration; that was his rule.

The final whistle blew forty seconds later, and we were state champions.

A woman in a navy windbreaker caught me by the bench before the handshake line was even finished. Her lanyard said U.S. Soccer.

"Teresa Ruiz. I scout for the youth national team." She shook my hand while I was still breathing hard. "I came for the eighty-nine minutes before that kick, not the kick. January camp, California. You'll get the email Monday. Don't make plans."

"Are you serious?"

"I don't joke in stadiums," she said. "Congratulations, captain."

I dug my phone out of my bag and called Jalen. It rang six times and went to voicemail.

"It's Jalen. If you're a scout, I'm flattered. If you're my sister, I'm busy. Leave it at the beep."

"You are not busy," I said. "You're watching the stream with your mouth open. I did your thing. I did the silver. And a national team scout just said January, Jay, so call me back right now so I can scream at you properly."

I tried FaceTime. It rang out. I texted him: did you see it??? Then: answer me. The texts sat there, delivered and unread.

Dad hugged me so hard my cleats left the ground.

"You closed your eyes," he said. "Right before contact. You closed them like your mother on a roller coaster."

"I did not."

"I have it on video, baby." He pulled back. His eyes went to my taped wrist, and his smile slipped for a second before he fixed it. "Does that sting?"

"A little. It's the tape."

"Keep it on," he said, as if I had ever taken it off.

"Have you heard from Jay?"

He checked his phone. "Whitaker takes their phones at ten during tournament week. Film session, probably. He'll call at breakfast."

Coach Pruitt let me ride home with Dad because of my heel. Dad's old truck had satellite radio, and somewhere past Springfield he was flipping stations when a news voice came through, flat and bored.

"...in Port Sable, Georgia, residents near the Marrow Sound causeway have reported howling for a third night in a row. State wildlife officials say Georgia hasn't had wild wolves in more than a century and are blaming feral dogs..."

Dad turned it off so fast the knob clicked twice.

"Port Sable," I said. "That's Jay's town."

"It's dogs. You heard the man."

"You didn't even let him finish."

"I don't need a radio to tell me about dogs." He kept both hands on the wheel. "Check if your brother's posted anything."

I checked his location instead. The little circle with Jalen's face was gone; he had turned off location sharing on Thursday. We had shared locations since we got phones at thirteen.

"He's eighteen," Dad said before I could say anything. "He's allowed to be gone from a map for one weekend."

At home I soaked my foot, ate cold pizza over the sink, and fell asleep in my uniform.

I dreamed I was running, not on a field but through pine trees, low to the ground and fast, with the needles cool under feet that weren't feet. The moon was huge and white through the branches, and Jalen was running beside me. He threw his head back and howled, a sound I had never heard a person make, and I howled back without thinking, and it felt like the most natural thing I had ever done. Then the trees opened onto water and a long gray bridge, and something big and dark was running between us, and when I looked for my brother he wasn't there anymore.

I woke up gasping. My left wrist was on fire.

I tore the tape off with my teeth. Under the silver, my skin had come up in a hot pink ring, like a rash or a burn, and the bracelet felt heavy, as though someone had poured lead into it. The clock on my nightstand said 11:52.

I texted Jalen: had the worst dream. you okay? It said delivered. Down the hall, Dad's bedroom door opened, and his footsteps came and stopped outside my room. He stood there a long time without knocking, and then he went back to bed. I stared at the word delivered until my eyes closed again.

A crash woke me the second time. The clock said 2:13, and something heavy had hit the kitchen floor. Then I heard a sound come out of my father that I had never heard before, low and long, like an animal that has been hit by a car and hasn't died yet.

I ran to the kitchen. A chair lay on its side, and Dad was sitting on the tile with his back against the dishwasher and his phone on the floor beside him, the speaker on. A man's voice was coming out of it, slow and Southern and careful.

"Mr. Holloway? Sir? Are you still with me?"

Dad looked up at me. His face was wet, and he didn't seem to know whether to close his mouth.

"Dad, who is that? What happened?"

He reached for my hand like he was the one who needed to be pulled up.

"They pulled his car out of the water, Sade," he said. "They pulled Jalen out of the water."