Pawn (Nightmares Trilogy #1) (10 page)

I flopped down on my bed and began
pulling at a loose thread on the comforter. “Then what? It’s not
like my mom would do anything if I told her what
happened.”

“Then we’ll go looking for him. Me and
you. That old guy at the diner probably knows more than he told
you. We’ll start there.” Devon paused and cleared her throat. When
she spoke next, her voice was hard and edged with intensity in a
good imitation of Coach Peters. “For right now, you need to get
your head in the game. We have St. Mary’s this Friday. I need you
focused, Andrews.”

I laughed. Over the past four years,
Devon had perfected our coach’s clipped tone and squinty-eye
glower. She was probably performing the latter right
now.

“Like a PI’s telephoto lens on a
cheating spouse,” I responded.

“That’s my girl.”

Chapter Six

Watching JV girls’ lacrosse is
normally a painful experience. The players typically drop more
passes than they catch, and most shots on the goal are only blocked
because the shooters use the goalie as a target. But lacrosse is a
religion in our area, much like football is in the south. This was
the only reason that the stadium bleachers weren’t completely empty
at 5:00 p.m. on Friday evening.

As varsity captain, I felt that I
should make an appearance, but neither Devon nor Elizabeth felt
compelled to join me. Since prom was fast approaching, my friends
had decided to use the free time to test out a spray tan salon in
the next town over. At last count, they’d already tried three other
places without much luck. After going to Fun Without the Sun, a
spray tan salon in Westwood, Elizabeth resembled an oompa loompa
and Devon was streaked.

So I sat alone on the bench with my
warm-ups over my uniform, trying to drum up some enthusiasm from
the second and third stringers since the crowd in the stands was
barely cheering.

With mere seconds left on the clock,
one of the defensive players for Mt. St. Mary’s fouled Anna Beth in
the arc, and the ref awarded her an eight-meter shot. Coach Peters
called a time-out before she let Anna Beth take the penalty. She
met my eyes as the girls huddled around her, and nodded in Anna
Beth’s direction. I pulled Anna Beth away from her
teammates.

“How are you feeling?” I asked,
wincing when I noticed the goose egg forming on her forehead from
the stick she’d taken to the head.

“Good,” she said earnestly, her speech
slurred around the mouth guard protecting her upper
teeth.

“Good.” I smiled,
encouraging her. “The goalie is
left-handed,
so you have the
advantage of shooting for her right,” I instructed.

Anna Beth nodded, her brown ponytail
bobbing behind her. “The girl that whacked you is really fast. You
need to get your shot off quick before she can get her stick in
there,” I continued, reiterating details I was sure she knew. Anna
Beth listened patiently, drinking in all my advice like it was
gospel. “You’ve got this.”

The fog came thick and fast
this time. In the blink of an eye, I was standing in a cloud,
nothing but white in every direction. I stiffened.
No, not again
, I
thought, half expecting to see Ninjas or something equally bizarre
storming the field. Instead,
Anna Beth
threw her arms around me in a suffocating bear hug. “We did it!”
she squealed in my ear, spitting her red mouth guard onto the
Astroturf next to my foot. I returned her embrace. Pride swelled in
my chest, as though I had a part in the victory she’d just
claimed.

“That shot was unbelievable,” I
whispered. “How did you know to pump fake?”

As fast as it had come, the fog was
gone, and once again I was standing on the sidelines in the
Westwood High Stadium. The sun was sinking below the horizon,
casting the field in shadows. For the past four years, every time I
entered this stadium my pulse quickened, the corners of my mouth
involuntarily rose to form a smile, and the taste of victory awoke
my taste buds. But now, standing in a place that had always filled
me with joy, I was suddenly uneasy. The vision was nothing special,
nothing serious like the one about the Bronco. But the fact that
the visions were happening at all was enough to throw me off
balance.

“Eel? You okay?” Anna Beth asked,
bringing me back to reality. The younger girl’s eyes were slightly
unfocused, but there was no mistaking the concern they
held.

I shook my head. “Good luck?” I said,
my sentiments coming out more like a question than a
statement.

Anna Beth smiled wearily and then
started trotting back onto the field as the ref blew her
whistle.

“Anna Beth, wait!” I shouted after her
retreating form.

She paused mid-stride and craned her
neck over her left shoulder to look at me. I sprinted to cover the
distance between us.

“Forget what I said,” I urged her.
“Cradle three times, pump fake, and then aim stick side,” I
ordered.

She looked doubtful, but I knew she’d
score if she followed my instructions. “Trust me,” I said, lowering
my head to look directly into her eyes, which was not easy since
hers were darting erratically from side to side. She nodded
dazedly.

The ref blew her whistle a second
time, giving Anna Beth an angry glare. Anna Beth ran toward the
opposing goal to take her penalty shot before the ref penalized her
for delaying the game. Just as quickly, I retreated to my end of
the metal bench.

“What did you say to her?” Coach
Peters asked, sounding more interested than irritated.

“Just reminded her to keep an eye on
eighteen,” I lied. Eighteen was the girl Anna Beth had to thank for
the concussion she was clearly suffering from.

On the field, the ref blew her whistle
a third time. Anna Beth wasted no time in charging the goal. She
cradled her stick across her chest three times and drew it back
farther over her right shoulder on the fourth pass, like she was
going to release the ball tucked in the mesh pocket.

“SHOT!” a girl on the opposing bench
screeched.

The goalie deftly crossed
her own stick over her chest as she moved to her weak side,
anticipating where Anna Beth’s shot would’ve gone had she taken it,
but the ball was still nestled in the pocket of her stick. Anna
Beth cradled one last time, drew her stick back again, and fired
her ammunition for real. The
ball sailed
cleanly past the goalie and found a home in the back of the
net.

The sound of the ref’s whistle was
drowned out by the screams erupting from the girls sitting next to
me. Anna Beth tore across the field, her arms wide, and nearly
collided with me when she reached the bench. She engulfed me in a
suffocating bear hug.

“We did it!” she squealed in my ear,
spitting her red mouth guard onto the Astroturf. I returned her
embrace, just like I had in my vision. Only now, fear made my chest
constrict, and I gripped Anna Beth tighter to make sure I was
living in the here and now.

“That shot was unbelievable,” I
whispered, because I knew I should. The shot was amazing, but if I
hadn’t known I was supposed to say those words, my mind wouldn’t
have been able to formulate the thought.

“How did you know I should pump fake?”
This time she asked the question instead of me, or at least a
version of the same question I’d asked her in my vision.

“Just a feeling.” I smiled, releasing
her and shooing her toward the open arms of her
teammates.

How
had I known
what was going to happen
before it did? Where had the vision come from? Was it like the
feeling of impending doom that people experience, only kicked up a
notch?

I know that it’s not
unheard of for people to have a feeling when something bad is going
to happen. After 9/ll, people who were supposed to be on the planes
that hit the towers claimed that something had told them not to
take the flight. Many episodes of that
Unsolved Mysteries
show were based
on a similar phenomenon.

Knowing that Anna Beth
would score if she faked the shot and then aimed for the goalie’s
stronger side was likely a byproduct of the years of
training
, I told myself.
You’ve been playing lacrosse since you were
six
. Besides, the goalie wasn’t exactly in
the running for player of the year or anything, so using a pump
fake was a surefire way to score a goal.

“Well whatever you said to her
worked,” Coach Peters said, startling me out of my anxious mental
rambling.

“Huh?”

“Whatever you told Anna Beth to do, it
obviously worked. That was an amazing shot. You’ll make a great
coach one day, Andrews; you’re great at reading the players,” she
praised me before disappearing to shake hands with the coach for
Mt. St. Mary’s.

Her words hit home.
I
was
great at
reading opposing players. That was part of what made me such a
lethal opponent, according to every coach that I’d ever had. Even
my mother frequently told me I was too observant for my own good.
There was nothing weird going on.

My own teammates were trickling onto
the field now, prompting me to assume my role as captain. Elizabeth
and Devon were laughing as they made their way around the rubber
track to join me on the bench.

“Looks like they won,”
Devon observed,
nodding to the JV girls
who were still
a huddle of screaming
excitement.

“Yeah, good game,” I said absently,
freeing my stick from the bag Elizabeth handed me.

“You feel okay?” Devon asked, her eyes
darting across every inch of my face.

“’
Course. Why?” I retorted
sharply.

“Well, for starters, you’re jumpy as
hell, Eel. And then there’s the fact your pupils are so dilated you
look like you’re on drugs,” she said, matching the tone I’d
used.

“Sorry. Nerves, I guess,” I
apologized, truly sorry that I’d practically bitten her head
off.

Devon’s expression softened. “They
aren’t even in our conference, Eel. The game is a glorified
exhibition. It’s totally not a big deal if we lose.”

“You know that this is more than just
another game for me,” I said pointedly. “This is
personal.”

“Jamieson?” Devon guessed.

I nodded. Jamieson Wentworth, my
former best friend, played for Mt. St. Mary’s. I’d thought about
Jamieson a lot over the past week, ever since the text from
Kannon.

“Andrews!” Coach Peters screamed my
name across the field. “Let’s get this party started. I shouldn’t
have to tell you that your job is to be leading warm-up drills
right now and not having social hour with Holloway and
Bowers.”

“On it, Coach,” I yelled back. Then I
exchanged an eye roll with Devon and Elizabeth before taking up my
post.

The game wasn’t exactly a slaughter,
but we were leading them five to one by the end of the first half,
which was a decent spread. Instead of dwelling on the visions, I
funneled all of my nervous energy into the game. I ran harder and
faster than normal, as if I could outrun whatever was happening to
me. Midway through the second half, Coach Peters decided to make
some changes to the lineup.

“Holloway, you’re on fire. I want you
setting up shop in front of that goal, first home,” she
declared.

First home was the offensive position
closest to the goal. Devon looked grateful for the reprieve; she
was sucking wind from having to run the length of the field so many
times.

“Bowers, I’m moving you to second
home. Everybody else, get the ball to one of those two.” Twenty
heads bobbed in unison. “Andrews, take center,” she ordered
me.

She continued
to bark out positions
,
but I’d stopped paying attention. I never played center; the
position was both offensive and defensive, and shooting was not my
strong suit.

The ref blew the whistle to resume
play.

“Um, Coach? Are you sure you want me
at center?” I asked hesitantly, knowing that questioning her
authority might land me on suicide duty until the end of the
season.

“That’s what I said, wasn’t it,
Andrews?” The question was rhetorical.

“Um, right, you did But
why?”

Her patience was wearing thin. “You’re
one step ahead of everyone else on that field and I need you where
you can direct this game. I want to finish strong, win big,” she
said, exasperated. “Now go.”

She shoved me towards the
circle where the other team’s center was already waiting to take
the draw. I jogged to take up my position opposite her. I’d never
taken the draw in a game. I frequently helped Devon practice,
though, so I knew the technique. Only problem was ― I sucked at
it.

I mimicked my opponent’s
stance: right foot forward, right knee bent, right forearm skimming
the top of my thigh. Gripping the wooden handle of my stick so hard
that my knuckles turned white, I pressed the pocket against my
opponent’s, wedging the hard, white ball in the middle. I closed my
eyes and waited for the sound of the ref’s whistle.