“It would still be a forfeit. I’d never live it down.”

I sighed. “Fine. Fine. Be that way.”

Ian hugged me with what Melanie thought was unnecessary enthusiasm. “You’re my very favorite person in the known universe.”

“Thanks,” I muttered dryly.

“Ready to be humiliated, Wanda?” Wes taunted. “You may have taken the planet, but you’re losing this game.”

Ian laughed, but I didn’t respond. The joke made me uneasy. How could Wes make a joke about that? Humans were always surprising me.

Melanie included. She’d been in just as miserable a mood as I was, but now she was suddenly excited.

We didn’t get to play last time, she explained. I could feel her yearning to run—to run for pleasure rather than in fear. Running was something she used to love. Doing nothing won’t get them home any faster. A distraction might be nice. She was already thinking strategy, sizing up our opponents.

“Do you know the rules?” Lily asked me.

I nodded. “I remember them.”

Absently, I bent my leg at the knee and grabbed my ankle behind me, pulling it to stretch out the muscles. It was a familiar position to my body. I stretched the other leg and was pleased that it felt whole. The bruise on the back of my thigh was faded yellow, almost gone. My side felt fine, which made me think that my rib had never really been broken.

I’d seen my face while I was cleaning mirrors two weeks ago. The scar forming on my cheek was dark red and as big as the palm of my hand, with a dozen jagged points around the edges. It bothered Melanie more than it did me.

“I’ll take the goal,” Ian told me, while Lily fell back and Wes paced beside the ball. A mismatch. Melanie liked this. Competition appealed to her.

From the moment the game started—Wes kicking the ball back to Lily and then sprinting ahead to get around me for her pass—there was very little time to think. Only to react and to feel. See Lily shift her body, measure the direction this would send the ball. Cut Wes off—ah, but he was surprised by how fast I was—launch the ball to Ian and move up the field. Lily was playing too far forward. I raced her to the lantern goalpost and won. Ian aimed the pass perfectly, and I scored the first goal.

It felt good: the stretch and pull of muscle, the sweat of exertion rather than plain heat, the teamwork with Ian. We were well matched. I was quick, and his aim was deadly. Wes’s goading dried up before Ian scored the third goal.

Lily called the game when we hit twenty-one. She was breathing hard. Not me; I felt good, muscles warm and limber.

Wes wanted another round, but Lily was done.

“Face it, they’re better.”

“We got hustled.”