Chapter 24
WREN
“Tackle that bastard.” Nikita clutches my arm so hard she might snap a bone. Hollering at the field as if our lives depend on it. We both have our hearts in our mouths.
The first half was one try a piece, followed by two quick scores to the Wolves after halftime.
It looked like the game was well and truly in the clear, only for penalties to add up.
The Boston squad have an absolute sharpshooter on their team, who hasn’t missed a kick all day, whereas Maddox has been off his rhythm, missing two crucial conversions that would have given a little bit more breathing room.
Now, here we all are. Biting our nails and jumping up and down with every desperate tackle being made back to back as the Wolves try to run the clock out while defending their own try line.
“What if they win another penalty?” Nikita screams in my ear, just as another jarring tackle goes in from one of the forwards.
“This close to the goalposts? Their kicker will almost be guaranteed to nail it.” I wince, just about wanting to cover my eyes.
I’m never good in these heart-stopping final moments, when all it takes is one slip, one person missing their marker, and they can so easily reach through to get that ball across the line.
From this point onwards, it’s only sheer determination and willpower. Everyone is exhausted after a full eighty minutes of high-intensity back-and-forth up the field. It’s going to be a battle of fitness and grit to hold them off.
“Oh my god. I can’t watch.” Nikita reads my mind.
“Come onnnnnn,” I yell, as we both hold our breath, watching the passes zip between the Boston team, prying at every possible gap for a weakness.
From our seats, there is a sea of gold and black filling the stadium. We’re in the usual place Finch gets me tickets for, right behind the Wolves’ team bench—with all the substitutes and support staff on their feet dialed in on the action at the far end of the field.
Nikita gasps. “TWO MINUTES.” Her hand slips into mine, and I’m sure we’re both praying to the rugby gods that they can hang in there.
Wave after wave of attack plays keep coming.
I can see Finch pointing and barking orders as he tracks his opposite number.
I can’t bear to look at Connor. This is the most terrifying part of the field to be in, because there’s absolutely zero room for error.
No fullback to save them. Even though his job out there is normally to be the last line of defense, there’s nothing he can do if the ball swings away from his position on the field, the margin is too tight.
It’s only a matter of inches between where the defense has to make sure they stay within the rules and not get called for any number of technical penalties that could happen.
Moments like this are likely to give me gray hairs at twenty-three.
The substitutes start yelling loudly from the sideline, seeing something happening out in the backline, farther away from the ball.
Nikita’s fingers clutch me in a death grip. “What’s happening? Oh god. I have heartburn. Why are they yelling?”
“Shit. They’re setting up for a drop goal.”
As I say the words, their fly-half starts to jog back, dropping into position with an arrow-straight, uninterrupted line of sight to the uprights.
“A drop what? What does that even mean?” Her voice hits a higher octave.
My stomach flops at the sight of the guy, who hasn’t missed a kick the entire match, stalking around behind his forwards, setting himself up in the perfect position. “If he kicks that over, it’s three points.”
Nikita gasps, bringing our interlocked fingers up so she can cling to me, both hands clasped in front of her mouth like a prayer. “Fuck! No!” Or at least, Nikita’s version of a prayer, that is, which is almost exclusively yelling expletives in the general direction of the field.
The Wolves’ bench all start waving frantically, alerting the players still out there on the field covered in dirt and sweat.
Meanwhile, the game is still rolling, with no stoppages to slow the momentum of the attack play being set up like a chess piece on the board.
They’re doing their best to lift teammates who will no doubt be exhausted, carrying any number of unknown injuries picked up during the course of this game.
Guys whose muscles will be heavy with lactic acid and the attrition of the game.
All the minutiae of things that slow a team down while defending their line in the dying moments.
The tiniest of details could cost them in this zone.
A split second, one foot wrong, might make the difference between making a tackle or missing the mark.
My heart leaps into my throat. I’ve seen Finch in these moments before.
Been there for the high of a victory, and the gut-wrenching sorrow of a loss right at the final gasp.
In this moment right here, a drop goal would secure them the match with so little time left until the referee blows that whistle.
It’s a clutch play. A last-ditch effort to steal the lead, with only seconds left, trickling down until full time.
If he slots the kick, it’s game over. Boston go home with smiles on their faces.
If he misses, it’s a crucial away win to the Wolves.
“How do they stop it?” Nikita is a cat on hot coals.
I’m right there in the flames at her side.
We both bounce in place, living and breathing every second as the attacking lineup makes their move.
“Wren… how do they stop him from kicking?” Her voice is right at my ear, over the thunder of noise in the crowd.
She’s right to sound panicked. The reason he’s dropped right back is to put as much distance as he can between himself and a defender who could charge the ball down. Basically, he’s either got to miss… or someone has to be fast enough to get there…
“Atlas.” I breathe his name, seeing him fly. As the letters pass my lips, he takes off like a rocket, shooting up out of the defensive line. How has he got any speed left in his legs this deep into the game?
The fly-half on the Boston side calls for the ball. As their halfback bends down to snap a perfect spiraling pass into his outstretched hands, everything feels like it morphs into slow motion.
Goosebumps fleck my skin as Atlas races toward their kicker. The guy is in full sprint track star mode. He’s supremely powerful. Head down. Legs pumping. Purely focused on closing what seems to be an impossibly large distance in an effort to stop the seemingly inevitable in progress.
It’s spine-tingling, as the raucous noise of the stadium fades, and all I can watch is the way he drives each long stride forward. Atlas glides across the grass, a missile with a target locked in his sights, and somehow covers the space of thirty yards in the blink of an eye.
That ball is too quick. The pass is too accurate. It lands safely in the hands of their kicker, who immediately props his weight onto his left and swings back with the other in order to punt the drop goal. It’s gotta go the best part of forty yards to clear the crossbar.
Nikita screams in horror.
The guy’s boot connects with the ball just as it rebounds from the turf. Perfect form. Precise and cool-headed. The same as he’s displayed for this entire game.
From out of nowhere, Atlas’s tattooed arms lunge forward. He hurls himself the final yards at full stretch. Complete disregard shown for his body, his safety, anything outside of attempting to block the kick with a chargedown.
The ball collides against his arms with a sickening thud, surely powerful enough to shatter bone at such close proximity.
Atlas stopped it. He single-handedly stopped it.
“Oh my fucking god!” Nikita starts screeching, and I can hardly hear any of the words leaving her lips over the noise filling the crowd. It’s electric, as the crowd erupts in reaction to the impossible, implausible of what just unfolded.
As the ball skids and rolls across the surface of the pitch, loose in play, there’s an ocean of agony from the Boston fans, and ecstasy from the Wolves supporters who have traveled to watch today.
Atlas is superhuman, finding speed and agility and strength from seemingly out of nowhere.
He continues racing forward, in an effort to be the first one to reclaim the ball, but the opposing team is right there, running at him in order to do the same.
It’s an outright footrace now for who can be the first to the scene.
“Go! Get there, Wolves.”
“Kick it out,” the bench yells, pointing to the sideline.
The clock is up. The game is over. Somewhere in the stadium, a siren blares, signaling full time…
and Atlas gathers the ball as calmly as ever, and drops it onto his boot with a massive kick over the sideline, sending it sailing clear into the highest stadium seats.
Wolves win.
I’m being shaken so hard by an ecstatic Nikita that I think my teeth rattle inside my head. I feel giddy, floating on the kind of sensation I can only begin to imagine those guys down on the field feel.
Half of them are down on one knee, breathing hard. The other half are bent double. It’s been a brutal match for both sides.
We’re engulfed by a sea of supporters who flock toward the Wolves’ team area.
A forest of green and silver swallows us up, and it’s suddenly hard to see the field.
I’m on my tiptoes, craning my neck for a glimpse of Connor, of Atlas, and Finch, too.
But the mass of tired players mingling among each other, shaking hands and trading post-match hugs—in the way rugby players do after beating the shit out of each other for eighty minutes—makes it hard to spot them, or their numbers.