ᴛᴡᴏ ʙʀᴏᴋᴇɴ ꜱᴏᴜʟꜱ, ʟɪᴢᴢɪᴇ ꜱᴀʟᴛᴢᴍᴀɴ.

27.| ʏᴏᴜ ʀᴇᴍɪɴᴅ ᴍᴇ ᴏꜰ ꜱᴏᴍᴇᴏɴᴇ ɪ ᴜꜱᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴋɴᴏᴡ [1]

Malik holds onto the ball for a moment as he thinks about last school year. "Yeah... that could be true."

Over the summer, Lizzie and Malik grew to love the things that the other person enjoyed. For example, Lizzie has a habit of eating Vanilla ice cream whenever she was stressed or even just watching a simple film. Usually, she'd do it alone, but now Malik has been keeping her company.

And another example would be, whenever Malik was stressed or annoyed, he'd go to the field or anywhere to just throw the ball around with himself. But Lizzie volunteered that she'd be there. So lately they've been tossing the ball around with another and eating ice cream to help each other cope.

It calmed their nerves.

Malik sees that the other team arrived, he looks to see Hope. They both hold a look. It wasn't awkward but it felt unusually normal.

Lizzie follows his gaze, confused. "Who the hell is she?"

Malik slightly shrugs. "Nothing to worry about," he says as he snatches the ball from her hand. "How does it feel to have your QB title taken from you?"

Lizzie playfully rolls her eyes. "Oh screw you." she laughs as he runs away.

The game was now starting. While Malik was in the game playing, Lizzie insisted that she'd help him figure out this whole Sebastian problem. So she was now reading a few books.

Headmaster Vardemus approaches the students as he holds the football at his fingertips. "Let us begin our annual rite of American excess. But unlike last year, I expect no unseemly violence, only for each team to play to the fullest extent of their abilities. Understood?"

Both Malik and Josie smirk.

"Timberwolves of Mystic Falls, you may, as I believe they say, call it in the air." The man flips the coin in the air.

"Heads."

The coin falls to the ground, Malik glances at it before looking back up. "Tails never fails."

"We'll take the ball."

"So it begins— oh uh, shake hands."

Malik shakes Maya's hands before he shakes Hope's. Hope kept ahold of his hands for longer than needed and feeling uncomfortable, Malik pulls away. And so, the game has begun. Kaleb made the first touchdown. Both him and Malik are cheering.

Before the game continued, Malik runs over to Lizzie who was reading. Malik slightly smiles, he takes a seat beside her.

"How's it going?"

Lizzie nods. "Good. You're doing good at there, I saw those blocks."

Malik snorts. "Why thank you, Ms.Saltzman." he looks back at the field, he sees that they started again, and now Hope was on the floor claiming she hurt her leg.

After a few more games, both teams had now been taking a break. The Stallions made their way to the gym where there were snacks and a few drinks set out to drink.

"Okay, okay, Stallions, I see you!" Malik cheers as he walks into the room. "Good half, we're doing really good."

Kaleb nods in agreement. "Now, we can take it easy. This game is done and dusted." he fist bumps Malik.

"No, it's not." Josie walks up to the two athletes of the team. "We need to score more."

Malik narrows his eyes, laughing. "Wow, look who's all excited to play now," he says as he takes a seat on the bench. "I'm all here for it but, it's 35-7, Jo. No reason to rub it in. If we keep scoring I'm gonna feel bad for the townies. There's no reason to use our powers anymore for the 2nd half."

"Why not?" Josie could read Malik like a book, there was plenty more to what he was letting on.

The hybrid sighs. "Screw you... your dad was right about the way the game should be played. I hate to admit it, but he was right about a lot. But you already know how I feel about that subject, so let's move on."

Everyone awkwardly sits there as the room is filled with tension. They all knew how Malik felt about Alaric and the whole talking about his thing.

Kaleb clears his throat. "Alright, Stallions, let's go. Come on!" he leads them all out of the gym.

As they were walking out of the gym, Alaric walks into the gym. Both Malik and Alaric make awkward eye contact. Lizzie notices, she takes his hand and pulls him out of the gym.

Now the team was back on the field. Malik searches the field, his eyes land on Ethan. Smirking, they both walk up to one another as they stand in front of each other, waiting for the coach to blow the whistle.

"You've got a good 30 seconds to back down before you get embarrassed," Ethan smirks.

Malik snorts. "That's cute, E. But I'm kind of Undefeatable so... you should probably go back to the benches before you get hurt. Can't mess up that lighting bolt of an arm, Thor."

Others around them would've thought they were enemies from the way they were talking to one another. But in fact, they were pretty close friends. This was the townie Malik grew close to over the summer.

With that the whistle was blown, the ball was thrown and just as Malik was about to catch it, Ethan smacks it away.

"All love big bro," Ethan shouts.

The hybrid's eyes glow yellow, he huffs before walking towards the rest of the team. Just as Malik was going to speak, Lizzie joins them.

"Okay, since you guys can't seem to stop Captain America or not fumble a kickoff, our lead is bleeding like a stuck pig," Lizzie says. "But fear not. I'm super absorbent."

Malik scoffs, he faces her, brows furrowed. "What the hells that supposed to mean?"

"It means we're gonna play-action, all nines, bootleg left...center deep cross." Lizzie shakes her head. "Uh, no, make that a bootleg right. That's my good side." she winks at Malik.

Kaleb looks at Malik questioningly.

Malik shrugs. "I- I don't know. Anyway..." he puts his hand in the middle of the group. "Ready?"

The rest of the team places their hands on top of another's.

"Break!"

The Stallions vs Timberwolves. It was always a messy game. But something told Malik it was going to get even messier. Once they were in play, Lizzie throws the ball to Josie who catches it only for the ball to be taken by Ethan. Malik runs towards the townie and was able to take the ball from his before making a touchdown.

Malik smirks as he holds the ball. "All love little bro."

Ethan shakes his head in amusement before walking away. The game continued from there, but the Timberwolves wolves were still on a roll— well actually Ethan was. Maya gets opened, Ethan has the ball in his hand. The boy gets ready to throw the ball, and just as he throws it, Malik sees Ethan's bone popping out of his arm, and followed by that, Ethan falls to the ground.

"Ethan!" Malik shouts, he runs over to the boy, he takes a look at his arm. "Holy sh— someone call an ambulance. Someone!"

From the corner of his eyes, he sees Josie backing away rather suspiciously. He chose to ignore it. The ambulance arrived about 5 minutes later, it had already been dark.

He later helps load Ethan into the ambulance. He then turns to see Professor V and Alaric arguing.

"What's up with them?" Malik whispers to Kaleb who seemed just as clueless.

Kaleb shrugs. They both watch the adults argue, and just as they were going to stop it, Alaric throws a punch.

"Oh sh—"

And yeah, hell broke loose.