Page 58 of Contested

Sebastian brought it into his chest as contact came through his shoulder, and he hit the ground on his side with the ball still held tight.

The whistle went.

Then the siren sounded.

For half a second, Sebastian didn’t understand what had happened. The noise changed too fast, turning from live chaos into something larger and sharper. Players stopped. Some with hands on heads. Some bent over. Some looking toward the umpire, then toward Sebastian, then toward the scoreboard.

He pushed himself up slowly, ball in both hands.

The umpire pointed to the mark.

Just outside fifty.

Sebastian stared at the goals.

The Mustangs were behind by three. The siren had sounded. This was their last chance.

The information settled through him, clean and brutal.

Kick it, and they’d win.

Miss, and they wouldn’t.

The crowd became almost unbearable once everyone understood. Eighty thousand people, all of them suddenly inside the same breath. Mustangs supporters rising, screaming, begging. Wolves supporters roaring the other way, waving arms behind the goals, trying to make the space between Sebastian and the posts feel impossible.

A few teammates started toward him, then stopped because there was nothing they could give him now.

Marcos stood near the edge of the centre square, hands on hips, chest moving hard.

Sebastian found him without meaning to.

Marcos was already watching him. Not tense. Not grinning. Not hiding behind the easy illusion of rivalry or the careful silence they had been living inside for weeks. Just looking. There, tired and bruised by the game, trusting him with the only thing left.

Sebastian turned away before it could become too much.

He walked back from the mark. One step. Another. Enough space, but not too much.

The umpire spoke to him, but the words barely entered. Sebastian nodded anyway.

He wiped his face again. Still wet. Still bloodied.

He steadied himself, then held the ball in both hands and looked at the goals.

White posts. Grass and players between. Wolves supporters moving behind them.

Noise.

His chest rose and fell.

He could do this.

Not because the crowd wanted him to. Not because the team needed him to. He could do this because he had done it before. Different grounds. Smaller crowds. Junior ovals with mud under his boots. Training sessions when no one watched. Games that mattered less to everyone else and too much to him.

Sebastian set the ball firmly in his hands.

“This will be easy,” he muttered.

Then he breathed and started his run-up.