Maya Brooks heard the crowd before she saw the number.
For eleven years, applause had always arrived with conditions. Good, but your landing. Strong, but your shoulders. Beautiful, but not enough difficulty. Tonight, beneath the white lights of the National Crown Invitational, the sound hit her like weather.
She stood at the edge of the floor in a gold competition leotard, chest rising hard, trying not to look at the scoreboard.
“Breathe,” Coach Elena Ward said from behind the barrier.
Maya nodded, but she couldn’t.
Her final tumbling pass had felt weightless. The landing had been almost silent. Even the tiny correction she expected after her leap series never came.
Across the floor, the Vale Athletics team waited in deep purple. At the front stood Tessa Vale, the gymnast everyone had expected to win.
Tessa wasn’t watching the judges.
She was watching Maya.
The scoreboard changed.
14.725.
First place.
Maya’s mouth opened. The arena blurred. Somewhere behind her, Elena shouted her name, and Maya turned with both hands over her face.
She had done it.
Then she saw Tessa.
No anger. No tears. No disbelief.
Fear.
Tessa stepped away from her teammates while the crowd kept cheering. She crossed just close enough that the cameras would read the moment as sportsmanship.
“Congratulations,” she said.
Maya smiled automatically. “Thanks.”
Tessa’s fingers closed around Maya’s wrist.
“That routine was supposed to be mine.”
Maya’s smile vanished.
“What?”
Tessa looked toward Elena, then toward a gray-haired man seated beside the technical judges.
“Ask your coach where she got the last forty seconds.”
Before Maya could answer, an official called Tessa back to the holding area.
Maya turned to Elena.
Her coach had gone pale.
“Elena?”
“Not here.”
That answer frightened Maya more than Tessa’s accusation.
“You know what she means?”
Elena reached for Maya’s warm-up jacket. “Put this on. We need to get through awards.”
“No. Tell me.”
The scoreboard behind them refreshed with the current standings. Maya Brooks — 1. Tessa Vale — 2.
Elena lowered her voice.
“I changed your floor routine three weeks ago because I received a choreography file anonymously.”
Maya stared at her.
“You told me you made those changes.”
“I made some of them.”
“How much is ‘some’?”
Elena looked toward Tessa again.
“The last forty seconds.”
Maya felt the roar of the arena become distant.
Then Elena added, “And the file had Tessa’s name on it.”