Chapter 25 #2
A couple of girls are gaping, as if they’re impressed with my moves, and I grin at them in thanks before I glance at Coach Steele. She smiles, clapping her hands together.
“Well, alright then.” She laughs, then turns to look at the team. “Does anyone have any suggestions where Sage will fit best on our squad?”
No one says anything, each and every girl turning their heads to look at the brunette in the middle, giving away that she’s most likely the captain.
“Rachel?” Coach Steele calls her out, making the girl flick her eyes to me. “Any suggestions?”
“We could pop her in at the back of the routine with Missy. She can partner with her on how to be a backspot.” Rachel grins. “We pretty much have the entire routine done already, so that would be the easiest.”
I’m small and slim, so I know I’m not the right fit for that position. I’m more equipped to fly, but I keep my mouth shut. I need to warm them up, then hopefully they’ll be more inclined to move me out from the back.
Coach Steele nods. “We’ll see how you do this week in that position, Sage. Practice every other day, and we have a game on Friday this week.”
I nod, feeling a little defeated but still happy I’ll be part of the team. It’s clear that Rachel has some sort of problem with me, and that’s why she’s shoving me in the back, but whatever. I’m new; I wouldn’t trust some new girl either who threatened my spot.
“Stay and watch today, Sage. Get a feel for our routines and the way we do things, okay?” Coach Steele smiles, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I smile wide. “Thank you.”
I walk to the outside of the field, sitting on the grass and risking a look out to Vinny again.
He’s watching me once more as he drinks water from his bottle, and my hand twitches in a little wave.
He doesn’t return the gesture, instead throwing his water bottle down on the grass and putting his helmet back on.
Scanning the area, I find a couple of girls on the squad with their gazes on me, their eyes cautious and careful. I just give them a smile, and then Coach calls for their attention, leaving me to wonder why they’re so standoffish toward me.
The sun is setting to the west once practice wraps up, a chill running over my bare arms and legs as the soft autumn breeze blows.
Coach Steele yells out a good job to us and gives me a big smile before she goes into her office and closes the door.
I follow the girls to the locker room to change, finding the locker I left my clothes in a few hours ago.
Rachel slides up to me before I have a chance to strip, her lip curling. “What’s your plan? Get on the squad to get closer to Vinny?”
I pull my head back a little in surprise. “What?”
She rolls her eyes. “I saw you wave at him. Don’t play stupid.” She steps toward me. “And I know you were in the Games this year, but you’d be smart to remember that the Games aren’t real life, Sage. I’m real life, and it’s my bed Vinny gets into when he needs someone.”
I shake my head, confused and caught off guard. “I’m not here because of Vinny.”
She laughs. “Sure. Just stay away from him.”
She turns as if she’s going to walk away, but a response falls from my lips like word-vomit. “Do you even realize how fucked up that is?”
Her pretty features contort into malice, and I continue. “He’s in your bed when he needs someone? Don’t you want a real boyfriend, someone who cares about you past the need to fuck you?”
I immediately regret my words when she grits her jaw and her nostrils flare in anger. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
I take a mini step backwards, my back hitting the locker, just in case she’s the punching type. “I just think we all deserve to be with someone who loves us.”
Her face flushes. “He does love me, not that it’s any of your business.”
“So why didn’t he pick you for the Games?” My eyebrow quirks.
I know I’ve fucked up the moment her fists ball at her sides, and then she charges at me. My brain tells me to duck, but my muscles are too slow to act, and her fist flies into my jaw. My head turns to the side, and I slam into the lockers.
She doesn’t hit me again, just steps into my face to spit her next words at me like venom. “Stay the fuck away from Vinny.”
Her eyes are wild when I meet her gaze, and I press my lips together so I don’t spew any more unnecessary words. She looks at me as if I’m the scum of the earth, then turns and walks away without another word.
I’ve never been in a physical fight before, but my blood is rushing through me at speeds it never has. I almost want to punch her back, but I don’t.
All hopes that I might ever fit in with my new squad fly out the window as each girl gives me their attention. They all have dirty looks on their faces, telling me that they’re loyal to their captain.
I’ll need to fix this somehow.
I trace my fingers over the faces of my mother and father, trying to fit the image of them I have in my mind with the image of them in my hand.
I can’t make it make sense. No matter how much I try, I just can’t see these two people as the same two people who raised me.
The two lives my parents lived don’t align.
It seems as if they completely reinvented themselves once they left Blackmore.
My uncle too, I guess.
I wish I could call him, ask him about my parents and this creepy town. Our town. My uncle is a Blackmore as well and decided to leave alongside my parents. Why?
How do three people just up and leave everything they know, their family, their legacy, and never look back again?
What happened in this town that led to the drastic decision they made?
“Sage!” Gran calls out. “Juliet is here!”
I tuck the photo of my mother with the Hallows Boys under my mattress once again, trying to leave the questions I have wandering around inside of me with it as I make my way to my bedroom door.
After a long school week, I’m looking forward to my first ever girls’ night with Juliet.
Right on time for me to open my door, Juliet’s stomping up the last few stairs and grinning at me.
“Hey!” I smile at her, opening my bedroom door wide to welcome her in. I close the door behind her, then follow her into my room and sit cross-legged on my bed. “How are you?”
Sighing, she drops her bag on the floor and then joins me on my bed. “So ready for a girls’ night.”
I nod. “Me too, it’s been such a weird week. What should we do first? Movie?”
She narrows her eyes. “I want to know about the Hallows Games.”
I arch my brows. “The Hallows Games?”
She laughs, leaning back on her elbow. “Okay, Little Miss Secrets. You can stop playing dumb. Everyone knows they chose you; there are no secrets in Blackmore.”
I laugh, leaning on my headboard. “Yeah, they did. They chose me.”
I look at her with a cautious gaze, unsure how she’s feeling or what she’s thinking.
“Rumor has it that you’re still trying to continue something with the Hallows Boys, which is why Rachel punched you in the face.” She eyes my jaw, which is blossoming with green and purple, and laughs.
I rub my jaw, then roll my eyes. “All I did was wave at Vinny, and anyway, she barely clipped me! I just spoke some stone-cold truth; not my fault she didn’t like it.”
“What happened during the Games, Sage?” she asks, her eyes curious.
I sigh, rubbing my eyes. “What do you want to know?”
She rolls to her side, holding her head up on her hand so she can look at me.
I didn’t want to tell anyone about the Games, not only because of the things we did, but also because these are my memories with the Hallows Boys, and they seem too sacred to share with anyone.
But, if clearing things up with my one and only friend is what I need to do, then I will.
“I’m just curious about all of it. There’s only ever been whispers about what happens, and I’ve heard that this generation of Hallows Boys is worse than the last, almost like they’re demonic or something,” Juliet says.
“I promise not to judge you. I mean, obviously, I don’t like the three dickheads, but curiosity is eating me alive. ”
“I don’t know anything about the last generation, or what’s been said about any of it, so I can’t really clear that up for you.
But, I don’t know, it was like time and space blurred together, holding me hostage while I was with them.
Everything disappeared, and the only thing in the world that mattered was them.
I didn’t know which way was up or down, if I was drowning or dreaming. ”
She doesn’t say anything, and I look over her head, through the window where the sky is bleeding into blackness. I let my mind drift back to Halloween, how I went out because I was upset, how my heart felt shattered for the millionth time this year.
They fixed it—they fixed me. When I got home the next morning, they had filled me up and sewn me back together.
“I went for a walk that night, and I thought I was being kidnapped by, like, traffickers or something.” I laugh at the insanity of my words.
“They were creeping around me in the cemetery, using voice changers, so I didn’t know it was them.
I ran my ass off and next thing I knew, I was trapped in a fucking coffin. ”
“What the fuck?” Juliet rasps.
Even as I share the dark details with her, I don’t feel ashamed or scared. My body is lighting up in millions of little fireworks all over again, almost as if I can still smell and taste them.
“Yeah, I ended up flipping it over, and it broke open on the floor, and when I crawled out, I was in this dirty room that was graffitied to shit. I had to go through this abandoned psych ward, and then the three of them came out and grabbed me. They all had masks on, and it was scary, but I don’t know… I liked it.”
I risk looking at Juliet, to see how she’s responding, and thankfully, she doesn’t look like she’s grossed out by me, so I keep going.
“They ended up taking me out to the cemetery, into some old crypt, where they played with me.”