Page 31 of The Fake Divination Offense
The moment it does, Marlow’s eyes go huge and she leaps up onto a bench. “Water!”
I cock a smile.
The field is, indeed, almost entirely water, with a few sand islands scattered around. On either side of the long field are each team’s goalposts. A ref will hover over us, and once they drop the ball into the center of the field, it’s a free-for-all between both teams to get possession of it. We’ll have to rely heavily on swimming or other underwater transportation to avoid magic attacks from the opposing team, grab the ball, then get it between the goalposts on the Gorgons’ side, all while defending our own goalposts and fighting off the Gorgons.
And Marlow isecstatic, pumping her fists and doing the Hellhounds bark. “My time has fuckingcome!” she signs. “It’s over for you bitches. MVP! MVP!”
“Wow,” I say. We all wear the subtitling earrings when we’re in the locker room. “Do you talk to your mother with those hands?”
Marlow smiles sweetly at me. “Just yours.”
There’s a chorus ofohhs. Someone slaps me on the shoulder—good-naturedly, but I have to hold back a flinch.
It was a joke, and they all laughed, see?
“Keel, Monroe,” Riprak says to me and Marlow, “thank you forvolunteering to go over which plays we’ll rely on for this type of field. Keel—get us started.”
Marlow doesn’t seem at all chastened by Coach’s obvious calling-out, and she starts noting areas of weakness on the field and which plays would be best. I offer advice where I can, but Marlow’s on a tear. This is her first game on the Hellhounds like it is mine, but it’s also her firstgame,period, as a pro rawball athlete.
“Kid’s got something to prove,” a guy mutters next to me. Aaron. Human, one of the other defensive tanks—and the team captain.
He’s gripping a rawball in one big hand, tapping the twenty-sided leather ball against his opposite palm in a nervous tic. I’ve trained alongside him the past few weeks, by nature of being a defensive tank, too, and he seems like a good guy. Encouraging, smart, charismatic. All things you’d expect of a team captain.
The Chimeras’ captain was those things, too. But also an egotistical jackass. Aaron, so far, hasn’t exhibited any asshole qualities, but around him I still feel like I’m walking on one of those glass floors in a skyscraper, only the glass is splintering and it’s seconds away from shattering.
I eye him. “Yeah. And the field being water’s gotta be some kind of sign for her.”
“Shit.” Aaron scratches his chin. “You’re usually on her? All the luck to you. She’s going to be a nightmare to defend with this kind of energy.”
I give him awhat can you doshrug.
It’s all very… civil.
Honestly, it’s freaking me out. Part of me wishes the team would turn on me; at least with the Chimeras, I knew where I stood.
Gods, that’s pathetic. This team hasn’t done a damn thing to earn my distrust, and Iwantthem to be jerks? What is this, middle school? I came here to get into a better situation. And so far, itisa better situation; no passive-aggressive remarks in the locker room, no unnecessary force in practice drills, no outright cruelty or confrontations.
But they didn’t come to the Silver Hound when I invited them. If they really didn’t blame me for the lawsuit, they’d have come, right?
Yep.
This is middle school.
When Marlow finishes her breakdown, she topples off the bench and turns to Riprak like she’s expecting a pat on the head.
Riprak blinks stoically.
“Nothing to add,” he says. “Aaron, you got a word for us?”
Aaron moves past me. He leaps up onto the same bench Marlow was on and gives the kind of speech I’ve heard dozens of times before. About greatness, victory, the hope of a new season; we’ve all heard shit like this before, but it still serves to get everyone appropriately pumped up.
By the time he ends with “Let’s suit up and kick some Gorgon ass!” we burst into Hellhound barks, hooting and woofing, a rising well of energy.
No one gives me sideways looks. No one jostles me unnecessarily in that dumbass macho threat way.
It’s unity.
It claws at me, and I let it in, let it burrow deep into my chest and drag me with it.
