Chapter 18: A Quiet Reminder
The second whistle still rang faintly in the warm air when the players staggered off the pitch in loose, uneven lines.Boots dragged on the soft turf, water bottles cracked open, sweat dripping unchecked down faces too focused on breathing to speak much.
Training wasn’t over.Not really.Only paused — long enough to see who could hold form when the body started bargaining for easier ways out.
Demien let his arms fall to his sides, fingers flexing once before folding behind his back again.A quiet readiness.Not anger.Not even disappointment.
Calculation.
The ball carts rattled somewhere behind him as the younger staff packed away stray cones.Michel murmured something to the fitness coach about adjusting sprint loads for tomorrow.Normal end-of-session noise.
Demien’s eyes found Evra first.Patrice sat on the cooler nearest the tunnel, towel draped over his head, bent forward at the waist, elbows on knees.Silent, still — but too still.
Rothen sat two coolers away, facing the pitch, bottle dangling loose between his fingers, boots tapping an idle rhythm into the grass.Casual.Too casual.
No one looked toward the dugout where Demien stood.No one needed to.
He walked without hurry, without masking his path.
Players shifted automatically, making space as he passed — an old reflex — not fear yet, but something edging toward it.A shifting of the air that said: authority is coming.
Evra caught sight of him first, straightening a little, wiping the towel down his arms in a motion that tried to look natural.