[I've decided to start posting these once a week because I've got enough chapters done already that I don't have to be panicking about if I will get a chapter out consistently]
Beck hissed in pain and yanked her hand sharply out of her locker.
"Gotta get that fixed." She muttered as she sucked on her finger, glaring at the sharp edge inside the back of the locker on one of the shelves.
Finishing grabbing her things and making sure she didn't get blood on any of her textbooks, she headed for the locker room to grab her practice bag.
After changing quickly, she went into the practice room to stretch and wait for the others.
"So how was your day?" Lizzie asked, sliding onto the floor next to her when she had finished stretching.
"It was fine." Beck shrugged. Altogether, she couldn't complain. It hadn't been a phenomenal day, having to pass the idiot's locker after four class periods made that impossible, but it wasn't worse than normal.
"You never specify what 'fine' is." Lizzie complained.
"Cause it doesn't need to be specified, Liz. It wasn't a terrible day, wasn't an awesome one. It was just...a day." Beck made a flat motion with her hands.
Lizzie nodded, then launched into some story about how her third hour teacher had started tearing into the idiot for saying something sexist, a common occurrence.
Finally the dance coach came in, her dark blue eyes scanning the room.
"Jade, have you stretched yet?"
The blonde girl in the corner with too much makeup on looked up from her phone.
"Oops, no, sorry Coach."
"Vivian?" The coach turned her accusing eyes on the other girl sitting with Jade. She just shook her head.
Coach sighed. "Phones."
Reluctantly, the two girls handed their phones over.
"On the wall."
The entire team all groaned. Whenever someone made Coach really mad she made them all do wall sits until she decided they had done enough, then she made the directly offending person do 10 pushups.
Moving over to the cold concrete wall, Beck pressed her back against it and squatted down.
Within moments, the girls around her were complaining loudly.
She bit her lip hard, forcing herself not to complain.
Coach checked her watch after what seemed like hours.
"Four minutes. One left to go."
"You can't be serious!" Jade complained.
"Another minute added."
"Shut up Jade!" Lizzie hissed under her breath.
The girls suffered on through the last two minutes, then got up off the wall, glaring at Jade and Vivian.
"Pushups." Coach ordered, her eyes on the two.
The girls slowly lowered themselves to the ground and began the set of ten required of them.
Beck could see Jade's arms shaking as she lowered herself down on the 7th pushup. When the girls finished, Coach told them to do their warmup stretches and turned to the rest of the team.
"Alright girls, let's get started. Get in your positions for the jazz routine and we'll wait for your teammates who decided that practice needs to go late today."
Beck bit her lip. Her mom wasn't going to like that.
"You can text your rides at break, right now we're going to get started." Jade and Vivian got into position after finishing their stretches and the Coach started the music once she knew everyone was ready.
Beck smiled as she moved. She felt at home when she danced, like she was in this zone that protected her so no one could get to her.
Before she realized it, she was dropping into her final pose, sweating and breathing hard despite grinning as widely as her cheeks would let her.
"Vivian, Jade, your movements need to be softer. You need to feel the movement of the music, but not so much that you lose the choreography. Run that middle section again, the one that starts with you dropping into a Z sit and then rolling out."
The girls scrambled to find their places, then worked through the movements as their coach counted out loud.
"Better. Do it again."
----------------------------------------
Beck packed up her things quickly, knowing her mom was waiting outside and that she probably wasn't happy.
"What's the rush, Beck?" Lizzie asked.
"My mom's probably waiting." She said, slinging her bag over her shoulder and grabbing her water bottle.
"Okay, see you tomorrow!" Lizzie padded over to some of her other friends by her own things.
On the way out of the school, Beck saw Vivian and Jade talking quietly. As she passed them, she expected to hear what she normally did: complaints about the coach's teaching methods and tactics.
What she did hear was very different.
"I swear, I smelled it today! Stronger than most times, it's someone on the team." Vivan hissed.
"Why would it be stronger today though?" Jade queried.
"It was raining. What if we've got a mini-Jackson on our hands?" Vivian offered.
"That's ridiculous. As stupid as he is, he wouldn't have two of them in the span of 3 years. Besides, the smell would be much stronger if it was that."
Beck backtracked slightly, knowing they hadn't noticed her, and made her footsteps louder than normal.
Instantly the talk changed to complaints about the coach, the two girls not even looking up to see who was walking past.
As she climbed into the car, tossing her things in the back, Beck wondered what she had just heard.
What were they even talking about?
YOU ARE READING
Revenge
أدب الهواةNemesis was furious. She knew for a long time that her offspring, the Telkhines, were being mistreated by the gods. They were considered to be monsters, after all. But this was the last straw. Poseidon had begun to enslave her children and make the...
