Dance in Shadow and Whisper (Marionettes of Myth #1)

Chapter Seven

CHAPTER SEVEN

We hustled to gym. The ballooning clouds finally blackened with their weight and burst across the school, uncomfortably warm and stuffy, and now wet. The short jog for me ended with an insatiable desire to shower.

I didn't like the silence between us when we headed toward the gym, either. It felt wrong. Felt like I'd done something wrong. But after we had separated into the girls' and boys' changing rooms, when we reappeared for lineup, Yuuhi was back to his regular self. Flirting.

The girls twisted their hair around their fingers when he spoke to them. A few of them tried to move in on Toivo too, but The Blonde was quick to reassert herself, even if it meant crawling across five rows of students during name call to sneak up behind him. She had smiled at me as she passed, oozing sunshine and daisies, so I couldn't dislike her, even when I tried really, really hard.

Because of the rain, the instructors resorted to a game I was unfamiliar with, dodgeball, with the other gym class. Toivo knew what it was, and as we made our way toward our designated half of the basketball court, he recommended the three of us sneak inconspicuously 'out', as he called it, when the instructors were looking the other way, so as to not draw attention to ourselves.

But even as Toivo was finishing those words, Jason inserted himself, drowning in his oversized gym shirt and shorts. "Hey, don't even worry about it. You'll be with everyone else who sneaks out, usually because they're afraid of getting hit by the ball-or because they know they're going to lose."

My eyebrows shot up, as did Yuuhi's. Toivo stopped in mid step, placed his foot on the squeaky floor, and swiveled around to face the teenager. "I'm not surprised you're personally familiar with those others."

Jason played it off by pretending something in the empty corner of the gym was more interesting to look at. "Who said that? The side I'm on never loses a game."

"Is that so?"

"I've never had adequate competition before."

"As in, you've never had competition as an extra ball that the real players use."

"I guess you'll find out, won't you? While you're watching happily from the sidelines and trying to be 'inconspicuous'."

Testosterone raged.

I lifted my finger to interject, but Yuuhi placed his hand neatly over my mouth. This amused him, and even he wasn't immune to the infection of male hormones. "I'm game," he said. "And I'm on Toivo's side."

For once, Toivo didn't decapitate Yuuhi with his laser eyes. He instead turned on me and jabbed a very dangerous finger at my chest. "You're stuck with quarter pint. Good luck."

My jaw fell.

What just happened?

As the instructors revealed from the storage room a net of rubber balls, each one larger than the size of my skull, I turned to the smug Jason and said, "You've got the awful part of this cockfight deal. I don't know how to play dodgeball."

"It's not so hard to figure out." He shrugged and gestured to the basketball court. "Look. Everyone's separating into two teams: one team on one half of the court, the other team on the second."

"But didn't the instructor tell us to take the side where Toivo and Yuuhi are going? One class versus the other? Won't we get in trouble if they spot us?"

"We're special if the teachers can recognize our faces by the end of the year."

"Oh."

"See that a few students have gathered outside the line?" He leaned in closer as he gestured. Something about his scent tickled my nose, but I couldn't place it. "They're from the opposite team, and if one of the balls bounces through the court to their hands, they can launch them from that end."