For a moment she let her focus slip away and she listened to the crowd cheering. Turning to her box, she saw they were all yelling wildly.
“Let’s go, Pen,” Jack yelled. “Finish it.”
She stepped up to the baseline.
“S’il vous plaît, soyez tranquille,” the umpire said as she prepared to serve, and the crowd quieted, but only a fraction.
With a small groan, she sliced her serve, putting an arching spin on it. Lutrova sat back on the shot, handcuffed for a split second by the angle and the change of speed. She shuffle-stepped and swung, but mishit, sending a soft lob over the net. Penny sprinted forward, feet light as she sped up to the net, getting her racket under the ball just in time. A quick flick of her wrist sent it back over the net. The ball bounced once and then again before Zina could reach it.
As Penny tried to stop, her toe slid into a divot; her ankle twisted and then rolled under. She caught herself with her other foot, but a sharp, blistering pain shot up her leg and then back down again before settling on the inside of her ankle. She tried to put her weight on it. Bad idea. A murmur of concern went through the crowd, but she blocked them out as she lifted her foot off the ground immediately.
Shit, that was a lot of pain. Way too much pain, more pain than she’d ever been in before. A sliver of panic went through her and she tried to fight it down. Maybe it was just a tweak, maybe she’d be fine.
She tested it again.
Nope. Definitely not just a tweak.
Fuck.
Thankful the last shot brought her near the sidelines, she hopped quickly over to her chair and looked up to the umpire to call for a trainer, but he’d anticipated her request and was waving a member of the tour’s medical staff in fromthe edge of the court—the same man who’d worked on Lutrova’s legs before the start of the set.
Before she could react, her sneaker and sock were lying on the ground and gentle, well-trained hands were examining her ankle, checking the range of motion—almost none—and the amount of discomfort—a lot—and then he asked, “Do you want to continue playing?”
Withdrawing hadn’t even crossed her mind. How could it? It had all happened so quickly, but she was not going to give up. A forfeit wouldn’t just mean a loss. It would practically hand this tournament championship to Lutrova. She wasn’t going to let that happen. Even if she couldn’t play her next match, she wasn’t going to give her rival a free pass to the next round. She glanced around quickly and saw the Russian girl standing off to the side, watching intently, a brief flash of victory in her gaze. Oh, hell no.
“Wrap it and give me my racket.”
“It’s a pretty bad sprain, could be worse than that. It might be your Achilles. I can’t tell for sure unless you get a scan.”
Penny raised an eyebrow and the trainer gave up.
“Fine, but it’s against my recommendation.”
“Fine,” she agreed, and winced as he reached for his bag and jostled her ankle in the process. Her hand came up to her throat and she pulled at the chain secured around her neck. The penny slipped out and she held it in her palm for a second. It was warm from resting against her skin, and she began to breathe slowly, closing her eyes and letting her mind go blank. Like lying on the court with Alex, her hand wrapped in his.
The trainer wrapped her ankle tightly. He had to—it was the only way to stabilize the joint. And as she slid her sneaker back on, she bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Tucking the necklace back inside her shirt, she checked the scoreboard quickly. She was three points away from the win and she had to get those points as fast as possible. She had to get the next three serves past Lutrova, because there was no way her ankle would stand a rally. She had to keep the ball away from her, nothing into the body and definitely nothing off-speed. It would have to be three serves. Three aces. That was the only way.
This was going to hurt.
A lot.
She stood and the crowd went from eerily silent to a slow but steady rise into a roar.
She was going to play and they loved her for it.
Trying to minimize her limp as she moved to the baseline, she took a ball from the ball boy and breathed deeply, focusing instead on the feeling of the penny against her skin.
With a small prayer that the joint wouldn’t give out, she pushed down into the ground and then up and out, lining the ball dead center as hard as she could and let out a shrieking wail as she did at the pain.
“Trente-zéro.”
The crowd erupted. She could feel them willing her to victory. “Allez, Penny!” someone shouted from the stands over the general roar, and then several others echoed him. “Allez!”
Pressing her lips together, she shuffled her feet, keeping the weight on one foot. The ball boy ran to her and placedone on her racket. Lutrova inched up in front of the baseline, clearly anticipating a softer serve this time.
“That’s a mistake,” Penny whispered to herself before tossing the ball into the air, using every ounce of power she had to send the ball hard, straight, and flat down the center of the court.
