Casters Book Two: Shadow Caster

Chapter Fourteen

Losing isn't as much fun as winning. Even after hours of coaching and taking the first round, my team lost the final round of the day. It started off strong, we had a pretty solid strategy.

Joni stuck pretty close to the original plan, the only difference is that she made Moriah and Dariyah switch places. So now Dariyah was stuck guarding base. Which didn't sit well with her.

We spent the first ten minutes arguing about who should and should not stay at the base. Joni ended up throwing her hands up at the situation and let Dariyah, Moriah and I go off on our own while she stayed at base.

Which was a bad call. We had wasted too much time and didn't even make it halfway before the other team came upon us. We tried to defend as best as we could but their shadow caster grabbed the flag and dragged it through the shadows to their base.

It was over before it even started.

Dariyah blamed it on Joni, Joni blamed it on Dariyah. Things got ugly, almost a full-on fight. Coach had to rip them apart.

"Enough!" Coach called, pulling Dariyah back who tried to get in Joni's face again.

Dariyah yanked out of her grasp and glared at her.

"Take a lap, now!" Coach shouted at her.

Dariyah huffed but did as she was told.

"You," she pointed at Joni. "another quip from you, and you're out of here. Am I clear?"

"Yes coach," she clenched her jaw and looked away from everything.

"Now, which one of you wants to tell me what the hell happened in there?" she asks.

"Dariyah and Joni were arguing, we got ambushed." Moriah supplied.

"Wrong!"

We all flinched at her tone.

"There was no teamwork! None! You saw Dariyah and Joni arguing, what did you do to stop it?" She asks Moriah.

She looks away.

"Elsah? Jacky? Amaya? Emery, what did you do?" she turns to us.

We put our heads down.

"Yes they were fighting, but it's your job as a team to work together to come to a quick and satisfactory solution. Don't just give up and let it play out! Cut it off as soon as it starts. Not a single one of you stepped up and handled the situation." She said.

Well, when you put it that way.

"I said it at the start of this tryout if something affects one of us, it affects all of us. Now, Dariyah is the only one running a lap right now. Do you think that's fair?"

No one answered.

"What are you going to do to make it right!?" she clapped in our faces.

Joni sighed and was the first one to take off and start running her lap.

Soon the rest of us followed.

"Move it ladies!" she shouted at us.

Let me tell you, running in body armor, on a snowy track, is not fun.

At all.

It's on my lap that I see Cyrene watching from the sidelines. All bundled up and sipping a cup of hot coffee. She waves at me when we lock eyes. I sigh and keep running.

"So not fair right?" Joni slows down to jog next to me.

"I don't even want to be here," I pout.