his hands before I tackled him to the ground.
“You’re supposed to throw the ball, my love,” I teased.
He shoved me off of him playfully. “Pipe down.”
In no world could we force a turnover. It took longer for them than it took us, but the Vipers returned the points we scored easily, and made a successful conversion, bringing them to the lead. The game was a tit-for-tat match of the Widows scoring and the Vipers scoring right behind us. I knew that, unless we managed to get a point gap going, the Vipers were going to win, if only by a small margin. Cal had a play designed to make the most of our team offensively, but it was a little reckless and took a lot of stamina off Hollie and Gria. We could probably only run it for two possessions before they were too tired to do it, so I positioned one right after we came back from halftime and held over the other for near the end.
Between the reckless plays, I relied on my team to open the Vipers up and make small advances toward the end zone instead of throwing it for big yardage. It was a strain on my stamina, and the Vipers were well aware of my ability to sneak through tiny openings, but I kept on and on until we were within the twenty-yard line. Kris snapped the ball back to me, and it barely touched my hands before I threw it. I had to blindly trust that the Widows would get where they needed to be, and I need not be worried.
Beck was smaller and faster than Jansen. She shook off her mark quickly and got down the field at lightning speed, earning her nickname. She was under the ball without breaking a sweat, and it dropped into her hands in the end zone without an issue. We ran the Vipers through their next possession, barely allowing them by for a touchdown and foiling their conversion attempt. It was just about to tick over into the final two minutes of the game, and the conditions were optimal. Our victory was so close I could taste it.
We used our final timeout just in time, and I huddled the Widows. “We’re going reckless,” I looked at Gria and Hollie. “Take care of yourselves out there, but give it all you’ve got. This is it.”
Gria nodded and put a hand on Hollie’s head. “We got it.”
Cal put his hand in the middle. “Widows!”
“Widows!”
We broke and walked back out onto the field, and the Vipers defense had repositioned for our reckless play. I should have known it wouldn’t get past Zeke the first time we used it, but it was exactly why I didn’t run them back to back. The best we could hope for was to pull it off, anyway. It was a quick and dirty play. Gria and Hollie had to topple as many heads as they could, while Beck and Jansen got down the field. If I could get the ball over the Vipers and down to them, we could win.
The whistle blew, and Kris snapped the ball back. Zeke was off the line and rushing toward me in a flash. He knew what I was up to. I looked to my left and right, but I was buttoned up. My mind flashed back to when I ran drills with Zeke in that very stadium a month ago. He charged at me the same way, and I’d held my ground. I thought about my dad and that first time that I took him off his feet. I thought about Lila holding me down, rendering me helpless while I fought for the ball. All of the power in my career surged into me, and I ducked and ran at Zeke.
The crowd went wild around me as I slammed into him with my shoulder, knocking him to the right and off his feet. There was no one behind him, so I bolted between the line that Hollie and Gria were holding back and up the field. I spied Jansen and Beck, and they were both heavily guarded, but everyone around me was too far away to catch me. It was the riskiest thing I’d done in my career, but I barrelled all my stamina into my legs and raced as fast as I could for the end zone.
28
Zeke
“Shh, shh, look! Quinn’s famous!” Quinn’s teammate Kris held the remote up to the flat screen in MontRec and turned