The relaxed euphoria of hours playing lacrosse enveloped me as I snatched the white T-shirt from my locker. It was as I began to pull said T-shirt over my head that a tingling on the back of my neck caught my attention; it was as though icy fingers danced over the smooth skin on the back of my neck, waiting for the right moment to snap my neck. My feet fell in a quiet and steady pattern as I turned, the T-shirt snagging at my shoulders. Suddenly irritated, I pulled the shirt down while gazing at the pair of juniors.
Both were pretty recognizable; the first was the taller of the pair at around 5'9, dark hair sloppily pushed from his forehead. He didn't look intimidating save for his height. Just unnaturally pale with his mouth half open. The second was slightly more intimidating even if an inch or so shorter. This junior was also dark-haired though his was spiked up. A crooked jaw as though he'd been in a fight too many, paired with a ragged jacket gave him the appearance of a teen looking for trouble. Quite possibly a lot of trouble. My nerves steeled as the first spoke.
"Hey. Liam." I internally snorted at how ridiculous the first boy sounded. If one were to imagine a young kitten growling at its siblings, it wouldn't be much less intimidating than this junior. He drew out my name in contrast with the first word which had been quickly spat as though it were acid on his tongue. "You wanna explain what that was out there?" Scratch that. No more intimidating than a newborn kitten searching for its mother's side. But without the ability that every kitten possessed to make everyone believe that it was absolutely adorable. This junior was the kitten without the fluffy exterior, just the interior demon-cat.
Frowning at him, I replied. "What do you mean?" I'd just been playing lacrosse; it wasn't as though I'd been doing flips across a gymnasium like in some crazy circus act. Goalie, I was good at goalie just like every other part of my favourite sport. They didn't have goalies in circuses, obviously. Just sports. The goalie who kept the ball out of the net was the best goalie on the team. Hopefully me but from what I've heard that Mahealani guy's pretty good, too. Greenburg said he's good everywhere on the field, scored almost everyone winning shot in the semi-finals the previous season. And then in the finals they'd also mentioned some guy called Jackson (whether that was a first or last name, I would never know) who apparently tried to kill himself on the field and was thought to have succeeded before he returned from the dead several hours later.
Even stranger than the whole return-from-the-dead things was that this Jackson had been 'killed' by horizontal slash marks, as though his nails had grown to claws and started to rip out his own stomach. Lovely.
"That little display. You're little circus act?" Oh the irony. Circus acts. If not for the overwhelming confusion that was causing an epidemic within my head, I would have burst out into laughter at how ridiculous that was.
Confusion made my brain foggy. "What circus act?" I responded, confusion evident in my tone as I gazed at the first boy. Ah, a name rose to the top of my head, Greenburg. Mason had claimed that Coach Finstock (also the economics teacher) hated some kid named Greenburg who was ridiculously tall for a high school kid and, apparently, a pain in the rear end. An immense pain in the rear end.
Greenburg rolled his eyes. "You caught every shot." While the words were firm, his hand gestures completely ruined the effect. It was a weird gesture towards me, beginning with his hands parallel to each other before he flicked them slightly so that his palms were at a diagonal. Really weird. I guess Garett hadn't been exaggerating when speaking about Greenburg.
"I was in goal." My confusion was quick to change to amusement at the pair's lack of knowledge of their own sport. The whole point of playing net was to keep the ball out of said net. The fewer you let in, the better you did. Wasn't that obvious to them? In football, the goalie was known as the 'goal keeper'. The definition of keeper (according to the Oxford English dictionary; I looked it up once) was a person who looked after something or someone. Just as a goal keeper, goalie, looked after their net.
Once again, Greenburg replied. "Yeah but nothing, not a single shot, got past you."
... I was in goal.
Were I my own little sister, I'd be dancing around singing 'idiots' like some sort of idiot. Sadly, I was not my own little sister nor would I ever be my own little sister. "Yeah, I was the goalie. You guys played this game before?" My voice held a note of sarcasm and irritation that quickly replaced the amusement.
Greenburg through his hands up in irritation before rubbing one at his face, clearly irritated by my attitude. I internally smirked.
The second boy sighed and shot a glance at Greenburg, slightly irritated. "Look, you're a Freshman, right?" I turned my attention to trying to identify this boy. There was some guy named Danny who was apparently the team's goalie and extremely nice. I mentally crossed the name off my list. I'd heard a tall, intimidating boy called Boyd mentioned in passing once or twice, though that went along with the words 'missing for four months' and 'dead girlfriend' and 'animal attack', so I figured that this Boyd didn't go to Beacon Hills anymore. Coach Finstock had mentioned a Lahey in passing, a boy who was good at lacrosse but kind of quiet. There was Matt who turned out to have been a psychotic murderer trying to kill the former swim team, hence orphaning Lahey and subsequently getting himself killed. There was some guy by the last name of Taylor, a Bilisnki and a McCall. I decided this boy couldn't have been McCall because of all the players to hand out with Greenburg, the captain was not among them. And, honestly, Bilisnki was downright ridiculous for a last name. I decided this must have been Taylor.
My eyes rolled involuntarily. "Yeah."
"But you weren't here last semester," Greenburg pushed on for his friend.
Heart pounded faster than a moment before, I answered. "I transferred from Devenford Prep." My lie came off easily just as it always did. The last thing I needed was the lacrosse team thinking I was going to kill there coach.
The gears in Taylor's head spun. "You transferred?"
Instantly, my heartbeat sped up, using my ribcage as a drum to beat to a unsteady rhythm. "Yeah."
Something in the boy changed, became more dangerous as he cocked his head slightly to the side. "No, you got kicked out, didn't you." I made a decision; this was not Taylor. Rumour was (joking rumour, I hoped) that there was one boy on the team who was always different. This boy was stronger, faster and had impossibly good aim, as though he were superhuman. While I mentally snorted at the guy, there was no denying the conversations overheard. Mason had told me that while listening to Danny listen to Jackson that McCall could 'see, hear and smell things that I shouldn't be able to see, hear and smell'.
And a person's pulse rose when they lied.
"All right. Look! Kicked out or transferred, what do you guys care? I came here to play lacrosse." I paused, waiting for a reaction. "The team could use a few good players, right?"
Greenburg scowled. "No. No, we don't need any more good players."
Hadn't there captain left after last year? Moved off to England? And then that Lahey boy, I'd heard that after his girlfriend was murdered he moved off with his girlfriend's dad to France or something. Two top players now living in Europe.
The other boy, McCall/Taylor/whoever corrected Greenburg. "Actually we could sorta use a couple."
A huff from Greenburg. "Okay, how'd you get this good? Have you always been this good? Or did it suddenly happen just once over night. Have you ever been out in the middle of the woods during the night of a full-"
"Stiles," Taylor/McCall cut him off. Okay. Greenburg went by the name of Stiles. Have got to laugh about that with Mason later.
My bag pulled over my shoulder, I gave one last answer before storming off. " Look, I learned from my stepfather, all right? He made team captain when he was a sophomore. Like you. And yeah... I guess I'm just that good."
As I left, I heard McCall/Taylor say one last thing. "He wasn't lying that time."
