2|| Whispers in the Wind

4|| revenge on fire

Kalyani

"Alright, folks!" the coach barked. "I want seven laps around all the tennis courts!"

Kalyani inwardly rolled her eyes. 'Folks'? Really? But she'd been assigned a task, and she supposed she had to complete it. The tennis courts were actually pretty wide, and were unknown to some of the students. As Evelyn Stone had said, "There are tennis courts here? I take track, and we literally have to run around the block."

She began her rather long run. Running never came easily to Kalyani, but to her sister, it was like a flick of the wrist. Aria normally played soccer, but she was a disaster at tennis. It was strange, since tennis required agility, which Aria should've gotten from years of soccer practice. Yet somehow things happen. Why on earth did their mother sign Aria up for tennis? Every Chopra knew she was amazing at soccer.

So this train of thought had urged her to go faster, and soon enough, she was at a point where she could see Arlo Daye and her sister, who were engaged some sort of running competition. They'd already done half of their second lap, while Kalyani was just finishing her first.

Uh oh. Not good.

There tended to be some sort of a natural disaster whenever Aria got involved in a competition, and Kalyani usually felt bad for her opponent. But the Arlo girl actually held her own. She was surprisingly similar to Aria, actually.

Kalyani watched as Arlo shoved Aria aside, putting herself in the lead. But she knew her sister. Aria got right back up and almost sent Arlo reeling into the fence.

Aria. Arlo. Too many A- names. I hope Aria never dates someone with an A name.

The coach had gone temporarily blind, not noticing this scenario.

Kalyani picked up her pace, getting closer to them. She figured her best strategy would be stay behind them the whole time to see if anything worse happened. So it continued, the worst minutes of her life. Kalyani tolerated watching more shoving and pushing. When she looked back the next time, she realized the horde of other students were way behind her. Maybe she could win this thing.

Feeling a twinge of satisfaction, she continued. But it was the last moment of the last lap that really irritated her. She heard Aria lean over and whisper something in the blonde girl's ear. She slowed down, and Aria took the lead. They were literally running. It was never that serious.

Leaving the gaping Arlo behind, Kalyani picked up her pace, overtaking her sister and completing first. The coach, regaining his eyesight, nodded approvingly. "Good job Chopra."

Aria finished soon in second, scowling. "What was that for? Arlo was being a jerk."

Kalyani frowned. "So were you. The last time I checked, you were both playing dirty."

"B-but she- earlier today- Kalyani wait-"

Leaving her spluttering, Kalyani waited for the coach to say something. "Right, so I'll divide y'all into four by whoever finished first. The two Chopras, Daye, annd McKinnon. Out to the last court. I'll be there in a bit. The rest of you get different instructors..."

The four of them headed down to the very last court. It was the closest to the forest that Kalyani and Aria had crashed through last week.

As promised, the coach stalked over. "Right, so we'll play doubles. Twins, I'm splitting you. The one who came in first- Kalyani- you with Daye, and the other one with McKinnon."

Wow, the coach really was blind. Kalyani thought it would be better to have Aria and Arlo on the same team so they wouldn't have to face each other. And worse yet, they both claimed spots diagonal to each other, meaning...

Kalyani supposed she would have to hope for the best.

"Alright, I won't start off with matches since you still need to warm up. How about we see what you can do at first. The first Chopra- Kalyani- you get first serve."

"Why don't you just call us by our first names? That's way less confusing," Aria said.

The man shrugged infuriatingly. "I suppose so."

Kalyani grabbed a ball, as instructed, and tossed it up. Just as it started to fall, she snapped her racquet to meet it. With a whizz noise, the ball went clean over the net, barely visible thanks to the speed.

Coach raised his eyebrows. "That's some good stuff. You sure you belong in the beginner class?"

Suddenly, Aria looked extremely gleeful. "Wait, did you say the beginner class? 'Cause I thought that-"

But the coach seemed to know exactly what was on her mind, and replied, "Daye is here today to give us a good example."

"Aw, man."

Arlo, on the other hand, looked superiorly smug. Kalyani contemplated her opponent- could she really be that great?

Over time, she began to see that her theory was correct. Arlo was really really good. In contrast, Aria kept stumbling or losing her grip, and she almost hit the McKinnon boy in the face.

By the time they had started proper matches, Aria looked thoroughly bummed out. On the first serve, Arlo hit the ball purposely to the corner, and it went by so quickly, Aria barely had time to register before it whizzed past her. She jumped, slapping her right wrist with the racquet. The coach ran to her, but Kalyani knew her sister's bones were exceptionally hard to injure. She didn't have to worry.

At the end, however, something got the better of Kalyani. After Aria missed another ball, Arlo snickered. "You are so pathetic. You get beat in the race, beat in tennis, shown up in literally everything. Can't tell if you're lazy or incompetent."

Kalyani's insides swirled with rage. This girl had a bit too much of an ego problem for her liking. Big talk coming from someone who barely knew them- she couldn't just label Aria as things she wasn't! Kalyani had been pretty quiet throughout the period, but she would always defend her sister.

"Coach, before class ends, can I call on a match with my teammate? It's good for practice," Kalyani called.

The coach, who now sat, dribbling a tennis ball, looked up. "Sure, go ahead. Don't care."

Arlo's eyes narrowed. "I know what you're doing. It's not gonna work."

Kalyani stopped for a split second. Would it work? Kalyani was really good at this sport, but would she be able to hold her own against this girl? Forget it, Arlo was trying to get under Aria's skin, she would get a taste of her own medicine.

In that moment, Kalyani's plan changed. "We'll see. Get in your spot. I get first serve."

"Sure. Not like that's gonna help."

Just as she had done a thousand times before, Kalyani tossed the ball up. But instead of aiming at the ground over the net, she aimed at her opponent. It flew over the net, barely visible.

"OW!" Arlo screamed, clutching at her head. The ball had hit her straight above the eye. Hard. "She did that on purpose!"

As the coach ran off to get a nurse, Aria approached Kalyani. "Dude, that was incredible. I didn't think you'd ever do that. You're going to be in so much trouble."

Kalyani smirked. "C'mon, this is worth a little trouble, isn't it?"

Instead of agreeing with her, Aria looked kind of concerned. She reached forward as if to say something, but decided otherwise, leaving her sister alone.

The second the satisfaction faded, Kalyani felt a pit of terror. What had she done? This was so unlike her. She'd injured a student. On school grounds. Couldn't she have just played fairly and won? That would have been more likely to work. And how had her dart hit the target so perfectly? Seasoned players had enough coordination to step out of the way of a ball. It was almost as if something had intervened to ensure Arlo's injury.

What if something had intervened? There was a graveyard in the forest. What if...

No, that was ridiculous. As Arlo stumbled toward her water bottle. Kalyani felt that same anger overpower her once again. It forced her to walk over and whisper,

"Better luck next time."