Having finished her business, Brunhilde strolled over and sat at Dylan?s foot, giving the tall human a pointed look. Dylan chuckled again, scratching Brunhilde behind the ears. “Yeah, yeah, I know. Your big, mean, trained to attack and kill brother is afraid of the damn pet door. And you won?t go out without him. God, you?re like an old married couple, sometimes.”

Brunhilde nudged her once, then went to romp with her sibling. Dylan stood, face tilted up to the cloudless sky. The sun felt good on her face, but was making her more drowsy than she already was. She hadn?t slept much the night before, tossing and turning and awakening every two minutes to check on Catherine. Not that she?d admit that to anyone but herself, of course.

Still, her nerves had eased considerably as she?d helped Catherine bathe and change her bandages, and by the time the young woman had slipped off to sleep, comfortable in her own bed, Dylan was feeling a sense of satisfaction rare for her.

A cold nose shoved into her belly drew her from her reverie. “Alright, guys. I?ve got a game tonight, and if I don?t get some sleep, it?s not gonna be pretty, so let?s go back inside, alright?”

She was left alone, laughing, as two dogs bolted back inside as if their tails were on fire.

Cat stared at the phone, not wanting to pick it up. Dylan?s words echoed in her head, and she winced at the remembering of them.

Sometimes she hated The Goddess.

Sighing, she picked up the phone and the button that dialed her folks. “Please don?t be home,” she mumbled when it rang for the third time. Please, please, please.

“Hello.”

Shit. “Um, hi Dad.”

“Cat? Hey baby, what graces us with your lovely voice?”

Cat smiled through the pain; just hearing her dad?s voice made it hurt a little less. “I?m okay, but?I need to tell you something Dad.”

“Cat, sweetheart what?s wrong?”

“Dad? I had an accident.”

She heard her father yell for her mother to pick up the phone in the kitchen. “Catherine what?s wrong?”

“Hi Mom.”

“Honey,” her father soothed. “Are you okay? What happened?”

“Nothing is wrong. I just wanted to let you know that I got banged up a little?.”

“Cat??” her father asked.

“Banged up?” her mother interjected. “Where? How??”

“Mom.” Cat stopped her mother before it became a full fledged rant. “I?m okay, really. I went to the doctor and got checked out. Nothing broken, nothing sprained. Just a couple bumps and bruises is all. My face looks like I went ten rounds with Lewis, but I?m really okay.”

“Are you sure?” The worried tone in her mother?s voice told Cat the older woman was already trying to calculate the next flight to Birmingham.

“Perfectly sure, Mom. I mean, doctors don?t lie, you know? At least, this one doesn?t. She said I?m fine, and I am.”

“You?re sitting out the game tonight, right?” Her father asked in that tone that told her he?d better get the answer he wanted.

“I?don?t know yet. I?m gonna go in early and see what the doctor has to say.”

“You shouldn?t.”

“Dad?”

“Cat, you need time to heal.”

“I know, and if Doc says no then I won?t, but if she okays me then I?m going to play.”

“Do you want me to come and take care of you?”

“No Mom. I?m a grown woman now I don?t think that will be necessary.”

“But Catherine?”

“Mom, I?m okay. I promise you. Okay?”

“If you need us, you promise to call?”

Thank you, Dad!

“I?ll do one better than that Dad. If I need you I?ll have Coach Lambert call you. And you know she would.”

“This is true,” her mother sighed. “I do like that woman. She takes good care of you.”

“Yes, she does. Listen guys I need to go, but I wanted to let you know I love you both.”

“We love you too, honey. Take care.

“I will. Bye.”

“Bye Cat.”

“Bye honey.”

She hung up the phone and grabbed her bag with her good hand. “Well that went better than I thought.”

Dylan stepped into the locker room, fielding greetings and expressions of concern from the team. The news of Catherine?s assault had been quietly shared with the women, though the motive, for now, had been left as “unknown”. Dylan answered the questions as best she could, all the while noticing another undercurrent that hadn?t been there before.

It was an undercurrent of defeat in a group of previously confident women. She looked around, noting the slumped shoulders and dejected expressions. Sighing, she stepped quietly in front of the group and waited patiently until every eye was on her. Though there were two women in the room that topped her in height and weight, Dylan was easily the biggest person there. She was The Goddess, the player, the star. Hers was the face that graced innumerable magazine covers, and hers were the skills that snatched victory out of the hands of defeat.

“Most of the people out there expect us to lose.” Dylan met each gaze and held it for a long moment. The silence between her words allowed the sounds of the crowd outside to filter into the locker room. “The press. Our fans. The Quake.” Her shoulders squared, making her appear even larger and more formidable than before. “I don?t.”

She looked at each of them again, infusing them with her confidence, her determination, her strength. “We?re a damn good team. You know it. And I know it. And the people who don?t?” Broad shoulders shrugged. “Fuck ?em.”

A relieved chuckle, more a release of nervous tension than anything else, filled the small room. The women looked back at their coach, a new confidence in their eyes.

Dylan grinned. “Alright then. Go out and start warming up. I?ll be out in a few.”

As the newly excited women pressed out of the locker room by the main entrance, Dylan let herself out via a smaller door which opened into a narrow hallway connecting her to the on-site offices and medical area. She?d gotten no more than five steps toward her office when the door to the medical clinic opened and she found herself narrowly missing a head-on collision with none other than her up and coming star player.

“Catherine?”

Startled, Cat pulled up short, her battered face breaking out into a smile of recognition. “Hi, Coach.”

“What are you doing here? You should be in bed.”

“Well I was. Then I got up. Now I?m here.”

A raised eyebrow showed Cat plainly what her coach thought of that particular explanation.

“It?s game night,” she said softly.

“I?m aware of that,” Dylan commented, folding her arms across her chest. “That?s why I?m here. Why are you here?”

Catherine sighed. She?d known going in that this wouldn?t be easy. Still, for her own sake, she had to try. “I came early to see if Doc Norton would release me to play.”

Dylan scowled. “Catherine?.”

“Coach, please. Hear me out. I?I know you?re not too keen on me playing tonight?.”

Dylan?s low growl was the answer she expected.

“?but?I need to do this. I can?t let those bastards win. And if I don?t play, they do.”

“And if you hurt yourself worse?” Dylan asked, eyes blazing chips of ice. “Who wins then?”

Cat fought the urge to look away. It wasn?t easy, but she had something to prove. To them both. “That?s why I saw the doctor,” she stated firmly. “If she would have said ?no?, that would have been it. But she didn?t. She even gave me this.” Hodge held up a clear facemask, the kind basketball players used when they?d suffered facial injuries during a game. “She said as long as I?m careful and wear this, I should be okay.”

“?Should? being the operative word.”

“Coach?.”

“Catherine, we?re not talking about some street corner blacktop game here.” Dylan?s hands gestured wildly, mimicking the turmoil of her emotions. “We?re talking about your career. Your life.”

“I know.” Reaching out, she clamped a firm hand on Dylan?s wrist. “And for both of those things, I need to do this. Not for Johnson, not even for you, but for me. I have to prove to myself that I can do this. That those bastards haven?t won.”

Their gazes met and locked for a long, intense moment.

“If I hurt the team, make even one tiny mistake, bench me. Hell, I?ll bench myself. But this?this I need.”

Though it went against every instinct that Dylan possessed, she finally nodded.

Cat?s face lit up like the sun. “Thanks, Coach!”

“Don?t thank me yet,” Dylan growled, mentally slapping herself silly for giving in to big green eyes and a pleading voice. “Just remember your word. If I see you playing just a hair off, I?ll bench you faster than shit through a goose. Understand?”

Cat?s nose wrinkled at the analogy, but she nodded. “I understand.”

“Alright then. Get out with the others and warm up.”

Cat grinned all the way to the court.

Cat made her way to center court wondering, not for the first time, if what she was about to do was all that good of an idea. Needing to keep her senses and wits about her, she?d eschewed even the aspirin offered up by the kindly Doc Norton, and now she was paying the price. Her head was ringing like a bell, but she could deal with that, having played through headaches before. It was her belly and ribs, however, that made taking a shot or making a pass an exercise in exquisite pain. She?d even caught herself flinching when one of her teammates had rifled a pass to her. Thank God Dylan hadn?t come out on the court yet. Cat knew she?d have been benched before the first whistle blew.

She met with yet another obstacle as she took her place on the court. Her old nemesis, Keisha Brown, drafted an ignoble fifth and starting for the LA Quake, took up a position beside her, sneering as she gave Cat a slow, head to toe glance. “So, butchie, what happened? Your girlfriend didn?t like the way you fucked her last night?”

Brown?s words caused a surge of anger to rise up in Cat, a surge she was hard-pressed to push down. She wanted to lash out, to hurt someone as she had been hurt, to make the pain go away by forcing it upon someone else. And Brown was there, in her face, all but asking for it, bringing back the memories of the night before with crystal clarity.

Then, as if a switch had been flipped inside her, she felt the anger recede behind a wall as cold and hard as the winter?s ground. Some of that coldness must have reached her eyes, because Brown took a half step backward, uncertainly flashing briefly across her features.

The whistle blew, and it was time to get down to business.

Cat played like a machine, as if the seeds of her talent had burst into full bloom all at once. The basket seemed to her the size of a swimming pool; her teammates, ten feet tall. She made passes without looking and shots without aiming, hitting the mark time and time again. It looked effortless, and to Cat, it was.

Her teammates, and even the opposition, watched with awe as she blazed through the court like a comet. Brown couldn?t touch her. No one could. She was, as they say, “in the zone”, and nothing, short of a natural disaster, could get her out of it.

It never came. The Badgers won by 19 points, and Cat finished the game with a career high 28 points and 17 assists. She was carried from the court on the shoulders of her teammates as they jostled and fought for the right to bear her up.

When they arrived in the locker-room, the women set Cat gently down and continued their celebration with handslaps and loud cheers. Though in the center of the melee, Cat felt strangely detached, almost as if she were watching what was going on from somewhere outside of herself.

The feeling worried her, but was quickly swept away under the tide of enthusiastic congratulations directed her way.

Dylan pushed her way through the celebrants, accepting congratulations of her own for the game plan she?d put into place. She wasn?t ashamed to admit that it had felt damn good to trounce her old nemesis like that. Said trouncing was a long time in coming, and it tasted sweet.

As she made her way to the center of the crowd, she laid a gentle hand on Cat?s sweat-soaked shoulder, smiling when the younger woman spun to face her. “Good game,” she said softly, knowing Cat could hear her.

“Thanks, Coach. Thanks for believing in me and letting me do this.”

“No problem.”

Dylan was about to turn away, but something stopped her. Something about the look in Cat?s vibrant eyes. It was a look she hadn?t seen from the young woman before, and had doubted she ever would. There seemed to be some sort of hard, savage joy there mixing with the honest pleasure of a job well done. It gave Dylan pause.

“Are you alright?” she asked, tone still soft.