Nightwalker

Twenty One

Riordan

The road leading to the edge of Solaris felt smoother than usual.

No yelling, no company.

No music, no sound.

Well, the no sound part was due to the lack of hearing in my right ear.

I lick my lips, hissing at the cut I'd gained yesterday.

My stomach groaned at the lack of food I'd given it since I woke up.

It was 10:52pm, and I was still ten mins away from Marvallia's home. I briefly considered a drive thru or a diner on the way there but decided against it.

My hands were ridiculously sweaty, and this was no surprise—I've been wearing these ugly grey mittens since last night.

I refused to take them off ever since I got off the field.

I guess you could say I'm running from what everyone saw last night, even though I've convinced myself that I wasn't perceived in order to feel better.

Truth is, I was far from feeling better, and everyone I love thinks there's something seriously wrong with me.

~~~

17 hours earlier

Martie

I noticed something wasn't right when they did the first scrum.

About 8 of the strongest players from each team go against each other in a battle to win the ball and for some reason, Coach Crosse put Ri in there in an odd position.

"Binoculars, please." Thor hands me his binoculars that he brought from home.

"I don't even know why you wanted me to bring these— you can clearly see them playing."

"Dude, I need to be able to see every single detail in 4K quality. Without these, I'd be lost."

I zoom into the scrum that was forming and frown seeing Riordan's curly ponytail in the formation.

"Uh, what's Ri doing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Look." I pass the binoculars back to Thor and his mouth falls open.

" I think coach put her in the scrum. She's the hooker isn't she?"

"No, O'Reilly Gray is the hooker look at her jersey— Ri's supposed to be the hooker and since she's not in back right now—"

"That would make her another front position and she's never been another front—ohhh. Yeah. This is bad."

"Ri's only ever played hooker because she's amazing at throwing—not running."

Stacey. She did this. She had to have switched O'Reilly and Ri.

"Well, let's hope she's not second row or something." Thor hands me the binoculars and the crowd goes wild.

"We got the scrum ball!" He yells and dances around.

I take a huge bite out of the chilli cheese dog I got before the game, managing to get some sauce on my white t-shirt.