Chapter 4

Mia POV

"Take off your hoodie."

Liam said it quietly, not loud, but like captains don't ask. They tell.

He was standing in the doorway of Room Three at 1:07 a.m. in just black sweatpants, no shirt, his gold captain armband still wrapped around his left wrist even at night, tattoos dark with sweat. He had just come from the private gym across the courtyard — I could still hear the treadmill humming over there. His hair was damp, his jaw tight, his grey eyes silver under the fluorescent hallway light.

Behind him, Luis was snoring loud enough to shake the top bunk. Ethan was turned to the wall with headphones on, but I could see his phone light glowing under his blanket. He was awake and listening.

My heart was beating so fast I was sure Liam could hear it through my hoodie.

"No," I said. My voice came out high and scared. I cleared my throat and forced it lower. "No. It's private. It's an infection. You don't want to see it."

"If it's staph, you don't get to make it private, Carter," he said, calm but sharp, the voice he uses when he's actually in charge. "You infect my entire building. I had a winger last year miss playoffs because a trial kid hid a staph infection in his armpit to make weigh-in. He got cut that same night and my winger got a scar that kept him out of the draft. So I don't care if it's gross. I care if it's contagious. You show me what you're hiding so I know if I need to quarantine this room, or I call J. Cole right now and he pulls you for the Performance Lab emergency check tonight. Your choice."

It was a trap either way.

If he called J. Cole at 1 a.m., I would get a full medical in front of two trainers, no hoodie, no binder, no plan. I would be on a bus back to Texas by 3 a.m., banned for life, and Mason would be banned too for letting me use his ID.

If I showed Liam my chest, he would see the binder marks, and he would see I'm not flat anymore because I took the binder off ten minutes ago to breathe.

I had to think. Not panic. Think like Mason would.

My duffel was on the bathroom floor where I'd shoved the binder inside. My real ID was hidden in the bottom secret pocket. My pads were hidden inside a thick black Nike sock where no one would look. My binder was right on top, black, soaked with sweat, the side zipper leaving a red imprint on the fabric.

I looked at that duffel and made a plan in two seconds. A strategic plan, not a reactive one.

"Okay," I said, making my voice angry instead of scared, like a boy who is annoyed that someone is in his space. "Okay, fine, but it's disgusting and it's not on my chest. It's on my shoulder from tape. You want to see shoulder, you can see shoulder. Not chest. Chest hurts too much to show."

I pulled my hoodie down just enough to show my left shoulder, not my chest, not my ribs. I had made a red mark there myself an hour ago with my own nails, scratching hard in the bathroom mirror to make it look like a rash from kinesiology tape.

Liam stepped into the bathroom doorway, closer. He smelled like clean sweat and expensive soap, not Axe like the rest of the boys. He looked at my shoulder.

There was a red, angry scratch there, about three inches long, with little raised bumps around it from me scratching it raw.

He frowned and leaned in a little.

"That's not staph," he said. "That's contact dermatitis. From adhesive. I had it in March from the new tape brand. Same pattern."

Exactly. That's what I wanted him to say. That's what I needed him to believe.

"I told you," I said, keeping my voice low and annoyed, dropping it from my chest like I practiced on the bus. "I taped my shoulder wrong after my knee rehab and I reacted badly. I told Ethan I had a rash from tape, that's why I didn't shower with you guys. It's not contagious. It just itches like hell and burns when I sweat."

He stared at my shoulder, then at my hoodie which I had pulled back up fast to hide everything else.

"Then why have you been wearing that same hoodie for fourteen hours in seventy-degree weather?" he asked. He notices everything. That's what makes him captain. "And why do you breathe like you can't get air? Shallow breaths. And why do you flinch every time Luis touches your sleeve? Like you're scared of being touched."

"Because my chest hurts from the tape too," I said quickly. It wasn't a full lie. My chest did hurt from the binder. The zipper had dug in for eighteen hours and left deep red welts. "They wrapped my ribs in Texas to keep my posture straight after I lost weight during rehab. The athletic tape pulled my skin when I sweated. It hurts to breathe deep. I'm not flinching because I'm weird, I'm flinching because every time someone grabs me it feels like my skin is ripping."

It was a good lie, Medical. Boys understand tape pain and rib taping. They don't understand binders.

Liam was quiet for a second, looking at my face, at my choppy hair, at my hands which were shaking because I was holding my hoodie so tight my knuckles were white.

"You lost twenty pounds since August," he said. "File says one-sixty-five, you look one-forty. You cut your hair with kitchen scissors — I can tell, it's uneven in the back — and your voice is different, higher, then low. You walk different, lighter. You run different, you use your left foot more. You are not the same Mason Carter from Texas who was benched last year for being too slow to press."

My blood went completely cold. He knew I wasn't Mason. He just didn't know WHAT I was yet. He thought maybe eating disorder, drugs, anxiety.

"If you have an eating disorder or you are on something to lose weight fast, you need to tell medical before Friday weigh-in," he said, his voice lower now, not angry anymore, actually concerned in a captain way. "Because Friday is full-body check at Performance Lab — weigh-in, height, functional movement screen where you squat in shorts, skin check. If you show up dehydrated or with track marks or you faint, you get banned and I have to explain to Coach why I let you in my building with my name on you."

"I don't have an eating disorder," I said, shaking my head. "And I'm not on anything. I lost weight because I was depressed after the ACL scare. I couldn't play, I couldn't run, I couldn't eat. My mom was worried. And I cut my hair because I was tired of looking sick and sad in the mirror. I wanted to look different."

It was close to the truth. I was depressed after that rejection email. I did lose weight from stress. And I did cut my hair because I was tired of being called pretty before being called good.

He stared at me for a long time, his grey eyes scanning my face like he was trying to read a play before it happened. Then he exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Okay, Texas," he said. "I believe you have a rash. I don't believe that's the only thing you're hiding, but I believe you are not contagious and you are not on drugs. That's enough for tonight."

He stepped back out of the bathroom doorway, giving me space.

"But you are not staying in Room Three," he said, loud enough for Ethan to hear clearly. "You have contact dermatitis and you need quarantine until Performance Lab clears you. You are moving to Room Seven. With me. My room has a private bathroom with a lock and its own AC and HEPA filter so your rash doesn't spread to First Team. J. Cole approved quarantine for trial players with skin issues — it's protocol after last year's staph outbreak that cost us two players. Check the handbook if you don't believe me."

Ethan sat up instantly in bed, headphones off, eyes wide. "Room Seven? Captain, no one shares Room Seven. Ever. In three years, no one has ever slept in Room Seven with you. You made a rule."

"I know I made a rule," Liam said, not looking at him, his voice back to cold. "I made it because I don't like people touching my stuff. But I also made a rule that no trial kid with a skin condition sleeps in Third Team hall and infects my starters before semi-finals. Which rule do you want me to break? You want to explain to Coach why First Team has a rash because you wanted to keep your roommate from Texas?"

Ethan shut up immediately. That was captain logic no one at Elite argues with. Team health over comfort.

Liam grabbed my duffel from the bathroom floor — my duffel with my binder and pads and real ID and men's boxers inside — and slung it over his shoulder like it weighed nothing, like it wasn't holding my entire secret.

"Let's go, Texas," he said to me, his voice back to cold captain, but his eyes on me for a second were softer, like he was checking if I could walk. "You belong to me until Friday medical. You don't leave Room Seven without me. You don't talk to anyone without me. You don't eat anything I don't give you. You train with me at 6 a.m. on main pitch. You get it?"

I nodded, heart hammering so loud I was sure Ethan could hear it from his bunk three feet away.

I followed him out of Room Three, my big hoodie hiding my shaking body and my secret, my choppy hair dripping sweat, my duffel in his hand, while Ethan stared after us with wide, confused eyes and Luis snored through the whole thing, snoring through the most important thirty seconds of my life.

I had not been discovered. I had survived by being strategic. I faked a rash, I used real academy medical rules, I turned his concern into my cover.

But now I was moving into Room Seven — the room no one ever shares, the king bed, the private bathroom with a lock, the wall of trophies — with the most observant, dangerous boy in the academy, who already knew I was lying about something big, and who was going to be watching me breathe, eat, and hide for the next forty-eight hours until the full medical that could end everything.