Chapter 12.

EPOV

The eerie silence of the bus is almost disturbing. Even though the bus is full, I can almost hear my own heart beat. Most of my teammates are already here — almost everyone, except for Seth and Jacob.

Emmett is all the way in the back, where we usually sit. I recognize the top of Jasper's head on the seat facing Emmett. Jasper is out cold, softly snoring with his earphones on. He doesn't even notice as I flop next to him. I stretch my legs, resting my feet on top of the seat next to Emmett.

I feel good, the meds have taken effect and I feel no pain. I stretch my hand to Emmett, who bumps fists with me absentmindedly. The dark shadows under his eyes tell me he did not sleep.

"You okay?" I ask.

He nods absentmindedly at me, before returning his attention to the window. Just as he does, I can see Seth's Range Rover making its way into the parking lot. A swarm of reporters yell, flash their cameras, and shove their mics forward, toward the oncoming vehicle, begging for a statement. Security seems to be working overtime today at trying to keep them out.

When Jacob comes out of the passenger seat, he's hiding under an oversized baseball cap and the hood of his sweater on top, but not even that fools the fans outside of the gates, which boo and scream all sorts of insults at him.

Seth makes his way out of the car and around to Jacob, who's frozen in place looking at the fans. With an arm around his shoulder, Seth steers Jacob on the direction of the bus.

Emmett scoffs in front of me, extricating his phone from his pocket and with a touch of a finger, his music is blaring so loud I can hear it out of his headphones.

I lower my feet to the floor and scoot closer, hitting his knee with my hand.

"What?!" He says a little louder than the confines of the bus would require.

"Keep your head in the game."

He rolls his eyes, waving a hand at me dismissively, and setting his headphones back into place.

I sit back, and rest my head, staring at the ceiling of the bus as we start moving. I won't do this. I won't think about Jacob or about what will happen next season. There's only today, this game, it's all I'll think about. I've studied Cristiano Ronaldo, the striker I will be marking today; I know his ways, his moves. He won't get pass me tonight — I won't allow it.

Everyone is quiet as we enter the locker rooms and start getting ready. I think no one has really had time to react or think about what's happening with Jacob and the implications of his decision to leave our team.

We link arms in a circle while Coach Banner addresses us. "The issues regarding next season will be discussed when time pertains..." he starts.

At this, Jacob lowers his head. I see him in front of me, with Seth at his side, tightening his grip around Jacob's neck. I'm glad he has him — whatever prompted him to agree to a move to Bayern, I am sure it wasn't an easy decision, and it's important to have a friend's support in a moment like this.

"Today, this is our game, our chance," Coach continues. "We go big or we go home. Everything that happened last night was aimed at us losing our focus for today, an ill-advised distraction. But I won't let that happen. We won't let it happen. Is that clear?!"

As our coach continues his speech, his trademark, charismatic, encouraging words get us pumped for the game. I search around at my teammates' faces, and all I see is power, determination, focus.

Jasper cracks his neck next to Seth, exuding dire confidence — no one will get past him tonight.

I realize there's a theme on my friends' — my brothers' — faces: revenge. If releasing that headline last night was supposed to hurt us, it backfired. Instead, it fueled us. We all want this now more than ever.

I'm feeling pretty confident that we will try our hardest to get the best result out of this game, until my eyes find Emmett, whose arms are linked with Coach himself. Emmett is the only one, besides Jacob, whose head is down.

Madrid's team is filled with talent, but their attack, especially, is deadly. We can't afford having Emmett, a defender, out of focus tonight. We must not concede any away goals.

I'm standing behind him in the tunnel; both hands on his shoulders, gripping him tightly. "I bet Ronaldo is shitting his pants right now," I joke, but I get no response from Emmett, nothing but a deep breath. He shrugs my hands off as we start moving out of the tunnel.

I try to push my worries about Emmett to the back of my head as we make our way out. The vibe, the emotion, the energy our stadium transmits is something I've never been able to put into words. It's simply indescribable.

My body is vibrating with the chants of our deafening crowd.

As soon as we're out I see him — Cristiano Ronaldo. He looks self-assured as usual, head held up high, eyebrows raised; he knows all eyes are on him.

As we stand in line, my whole body is overflowing with energy, adrenaline. I find it almost impossible to remain still.

When the game starts, I become Ronaldo's shadow. I feel light as a feather, fast, as if I have an extra pair of lungs and legs. I keep up with him easily, and as time advances, it turns out he's having trouble keeping up with me.

We manage to score early. Seth sneaks behind their defender and brings down Jacob's cross easily into the net. We dominate the first half in almost its entirety — Madrid never knew what hit them. Except for a few of Emmett's misplaced passes, we are flawless, every single one of us.

After the 40th minute, Real Madrid get a corner kick.

I stand next to Ronaldo, who's bent over, hands on knees, panting. I feel a thousand feet tall at his side. I've given this half everything, and we've guarded our one goal advantage with our lives.

I think I've ran more in these 40 minutes of play than in some full 90 minutes league games, but I don't care. I may not be able to feel my legs, and I could be struggling to restrict my breathing to my nose only, but I'm standing tall next to him.

We never stop attacking and we keep our lines up. Madrid has had absolutely no chance of creating anything, and it feels like in no time, we will score again. However, in a moment of chaos, we get denied a clear penalty and to make matters worse, Madrid gets a foul called right after.

Everyone is unsettled, but I try to remain focused as Madrid is quick to take counterattack from their free kick. Emmett is in a good position and handles the ball with his head, and as I see he will pass it back to our keeper, I start moving forward again.

Unexpectedly, Emmett miscalculates his pass, and it comes short. Out of nowhere, Madrid has got the ball, with no one between them and our goalie. As if that wasn't enough, Ronaldo has a good twenty meters advantage on me, and is already running back. My legs are moving under me, without me even noticing, but they're not nearly fast enough.

I stare down at my feet as I speed up.

Move...

Faster...

I catch up with him and attempt to intercept the pass to him, but it grazes the tip of my boot.

I already know what's coming but still I have to try something. I slide to block his shot, but it slips under my legs, and into the net.

They've equalized. They've gotten an away goal.

I gasp for air into the turf, trying to catch my breath, urging myself to just keep going. There's a lot of time left, we must do better than this. As I manage to get up, I see Emmett, both hands on his head, staring at his shoes, completely devastated.

This is, by far, there worst mistake I've ever witnessed him making on the pitch.

I approach Emmett quickly. "Forget it happened," I try to get him to hear me, but I can see it in his eyes, which refuse to make contact with mine — he's gone.

There's only a couple minutes left before the end of the first half. We can't fall apart now, it would be deadly. We all move back, and defend tightly, just to try to make it to halftime without any more mistakes.

Thankfully we do.

I drop next to Emmett on the bench in our locker room. I haven't been able to get through to him all day, and I don't expect to now. I just sit next to him, mostly for support.

Jasper sinks beside me, getting rid of his soaked shirt. We've both put a great effort into the flanks, to keep our attack going without neglecting the defense.

"We've dominated the game the whole time," Coach starts as he comes in. "They've had no chance. None! We're just going to have to step it up, and score a few in the next forty five."

He pats Seth's back before he walks to us, stopping in front of Jasper and me. "You both have been stellar!" He smacks one hand on each of our sides, making us bump shoulders in the middle.

Emmett holds his head in his hand as Coach makes his way to sit next to him. If there's anyone who can get through to Emmett — at least someone who's in the room right now — it's our coach.

"Em..." He starts. As he gets no response, he puts a hand on Emmett's head. "Listen, this game might not be fun for you anymore, but we still need you out there."

Emmett takes a breath and sits back up.

"We need your balls," Coach continues through a laugh.

Emmett cracks a smile, a fake one maybe, but under his current mood, I'll take it.

Coach really can work magic with his words.

"It will be difficult, but you must put this behind you. We can't do this without you." He's back to all seriousness now, and Emmett nods at him before Coach goes on to talk to a few of the other players.

Before we know it, we are being called to head back out, and as the second half starts, we go full throttle again,

I don't let Ronaldo even catch his breath, or touch the ball for that matter.

It takes Seth five minutes to score again. Like I said, he's on fire, and everything is working smoothly. Five minutes later, he scores again, we're winning 3-1 and Madrid seems to be struggling to even get back in the game.

We never stop pressing, never lower our intensity and in the next few minutes, we could have easily scored a couple more. We're physically prepared for our high pace game, it's what we train for every day.

What I've asked of my body tonight, however, ends up being too much.

I'm running back, from a corner kick on our side of the pitch, following Madrid's counterattack on the other side. When I block a shot from Ronaldo with my right foot, I feel a pull, from above my knee all the way up my inner thigh to my groin.

The pain makes me limp around a couple steps, hitching my leg up and out to the side as I make pressure with my hand. I've pulled a muscle — I can feel it. I eye the clock to realize we're almost on the 60th minute... there are thirty more minutes to play, plus added time.

We're winning 3-1, which is comfortable, but conceding another away goal could be deadly. I can't step out now. My team needs me. I try a few deeps breaths, as they get ready for their corner.

Jasper is next to me with a hand on my shoulder and his eyebrows scrunched in preoccupation. "You okay?"

I nod at him, pointing at one Madrid player who is unmarked, successfully diverting him.

I manage to push the pain to the back of my mind and continue to play at max intensity for the next few minutes.

On the 66th minute, Seth is brought down in the box and the referee points to the penalty spot. As he steps up to take the penalty, I approach Coach quickly. I don't want to be stupid and jeopardize our lead by playing injured, so I let him know I'm hurt. However, I also let him know I feel I can play through the pain for a while longer, but that if he sees me lower my intensity or my quality, he should sub me off.

Coach knows I don't mess around. I don't take risks. I'm in control of my body and I know what I can do. He stares at me, my body is buzzing... or maybe I'm just shaking, but I want to keep going. He nods, so I get back to my position.

Seth converts the penalty beautifully, and we're winning 4-1.

A fairytale.

I make it to the 80th minute, but it's a stretch. I know it. Coach knows it. I won't be able to finish this game, not up on two legs at least. One look at my coach from across the field, and he gets the change ready, and at the 83th minute, I'm being subbed off.

We're still winning 4-1, there's a little over minutes left, but we have been in complete control. As the weight of the game is lifted off my shoulders, the pain in my leg becomes more pronounced, and I have trouble even making it out of the pitch.

Everything hurts.

I even cringe away from Jasper's pat on my back.

I shake Coach's hand as I step off the field and he pulls me for a hug. "I'm sorry I couldn't finish," I say through my teeth, a sense of non-achievement filling me. There's nothing I would have liked more than to be able to finish this game.

"You've done more than enough, son." He pats my back.

I collapse on our bench with a huff, wincing as my fingers press on the inside of my thigh. The medic is on me soon enough, spraying numbing medication and wrapping ice packs around my leg.

I lack the energy to really focus on the remainder of the game, and I am a bit out of it and don't notice much except the fact that we don't concede.

After the final whistle, the stadium explodes with joy. We're not in the finals yet, but we have a pretty good chance now. I limp onto the pitch and join my teammates in celebrations. I stand back when they start jumping and dancing. Emmett greets the roaring fans calmly as well, and after a few minutes we all go into the locker rooms.

The celebrations continue in the locker rooms as well. Seth plays music and they're all singing and dancing. Beers are flowing too. Even though Emmett was able to pull himself together during the second half, he's still clearly not enjoying himself.

I'm not too worried, though. He's probably exhausted and frustrated with himself. I sit next to him as he takes his gear off, when Jacob comes closer, a beer bottle in each hand. Seth appears behind him, his eyes wary and on me. His entire body is tense and in defensive mode as Jacob's hand stretches out, offering the beer to me.

I grab the beer from Jacob, who seems nervous and apologetic. I smile at him, and we clink bottles — I hold no grudges against the kid. Seth releases a breath, as he senses no threat, and is next to me in the next instant, throwing an arm around my shoulder.

Jacob still holds the other bottle in front of Emmett, who's bent over unlacing his boots. When Emmett looks up, his face flashing with emotions — from indifference to anger, hurt, disappointment. He stiffens up next to me, and Jacob takes a careful step back, lowering the offensive drink.

Emmett gets up then, towering over Jacob. In reflex, Seth shoots up from next to me as well and stands protectively next to Jacob. Emmett's eyes flicker, from Jacob to Seth and back, before he just turns around and heads to the showers.

Seth goes after him. "Emmett, come on, you're not being fair."

"Fair?!" When Emmett turns around, Seth has to take a step back as well. "Since when are you the devil's advocate?" he seethes, leaving Seth speechless, and heading back in again.

Jacob sighs in front of me, setting the bottle down on the bench. "Just give him some time," I say encouragingly, but the kid just shrugs and walks away from me.

I fish in my bag for my things so I can go shower as well. When my eyes land on my phone in my bag, only one thought crosses my mind: Isabella.

I finally allow myself to think about her.

When I saw her name flashing on my screen last night, I almost couldn't believe it. She had finally called me, reached out to me. I've struggled with keeping my distance from her and allowing her some time, even though not hearing from her, not knowing if she was okay, was unbearable. I was comforted by the fact that I know how strong she is, and that she'd be dealing well with the situation.

I mostly just yearned to hear her voice... I still do.

She said she'd be watching today, and I really hope she was. I'm sure she would be proud of us. I would love to call her, share this with her, but when I think about the day Emmett is having, I desist and head for the showers instead.

The drugs are well worn out by now and the pain on my thigh is nothing compared to the one on my hip. I'll need the medic staff to pull out some serious tricks if I have any intention of walking out of here tonight.

~o~o~o~o~o~o~o~

A/N: Edward seems to need a massage... who volunteers?