A game of Dodgeball (2/2)

On his way back picked Jacob the ball up and reached it to Charlie.

The continued refusal of him to throw for himself irked Sophie, especially since Charlie was nowhere near the better thrower. Which she had proved just a few moments ago.

'Does he want to lose, or what?'

Charlie seemed to share the sentiment and took the projectile only with hesitation, her shoot going far away from Felix, so that Sophie could catch it.

She ran around the sideline to get a better angle on Felix, but he moved the other direction, which left her only a small window to aim at him.

Her throw missed and almost flew over to Felix's teammates, but Jacob caught it.

Now right beside his target, Jacob still gave the ball away to Charlie, passing their opportunity.

Sophie grit her teeth at the wasted opportunity, yet moved in position to flank Felix and put him in between herself, Charlie, and Lucas, who hushed into a standing position while trying not to cough.

Their ruse worked.

Charlie's faint tricked Felix to concentrate on Sophie, while the actual throw landed in Lucas' arms. His shoot hit the team captain at the ankle before he realized what happened.

Dropping Felix's lives down to two.

'Where's that arrogance now, you dumbass?'

The hit eased the tension of Sophie's entire team and reinforced the field with Lucas once more.

Although he wasn't much of a help right now, the frustration of Felix's team was still worth it.

There was a little more of his former confidence in Felix's stance when he picked the ball up. Making it obvious how much he enjoyed the game.

His shoot came unexpected and much stronger than the weak tosses he gave earlier.

That sight made Lucas flinch, but the actual throw hit Charlie's leg before bouncing off in an upward arch away from her.

Jacob ran after the flying ball, threw himself in line just before it could hit the ground and caught it

The spectacular maneuver caused an annoyed uproar from Felix's teammates, who couldn't do anything but watch.

Jacob passed the ball to Lucas, who threw right at Felix, probably in the hope it had also distracted him.

But Felix grabbed the ball with ease and launched it right back at him.

Lucas ducked to dodge, with clear fear in his posture, and the ball landed in Kim's arms.

Izzy snatched the ball from her hands before she could finish the cowering Lucas.

To Sophie's surprise, kept her victim just standing there, still in throwing position, as if in a daze from that theft.

Kim didn't move a centimeter, even as Izzy hit Lucas when he came back up from his defensive position.

The entire ordeal garnered a sharp whistle from Coach Warren.

"And what was that, Torres?"

Kim looked up like she just noticed what happened and glared at her. Equally interested in an answer from Izzy.

"What? As if she could stay alone on the field for even five seconds. I just acted in the interests of the team. I'm the best here and you know it, second only to that muscle head."

'I mean, she's not wrong…'

Felix left the field while Warren looked at her with clear disdain.

"We'll talk about that alone after the game, young lady. Now keep your hands by yourself, or my boot will act in your back's best interest."

Even though Sophie knew Warren's attitude, a threat of violence for just stealing the ball seemed excessive. He was probably just sore from Felix's incident earlier.

Izzy didn't seem to take the complaint seriously either, and displayed no signs of regret or guilt while she took her place on the field.

Charlie took the ball after the dejected-looking Lucas joined the sidelines and tried to pass to Sophie to repeat the tactic they used on Izzy before.

Yet Izzy jumped in between and disrupted the plan by throwing the ball back at Charlie, hitting her and turning the game into a one-on-one fight with Jacob.

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A smug smirk lit up on her face when Jacob took the ball.

"You can give right up, Jacob. You can't win against me without throwing."

Without an opportunity to corner her, could Sophie just agree and express her frustration.

"Shit! What the fuck is even wrong with you, Jacob? If you would just play like normal, we would have long won already! Just throw!"

Now that the others noticed his unreasonable handicap, she would have to turn the game herself, and each duel with Felix had a predetermined winner.

Jacob didn't look like he would change that tick of him either, only sending her an agitated look and another one of his confusing hand signs.

Sophie thought for a moment he just acted the whole time when he jerked forward to throw, but it was an obvious faint at second glance.

Which made it even more surprising when Izzy twitched heavily at the sight and turned afraid away instead of dodging.

Jacob pulled an even stranger move and rolled the ball like in a bowling match over the ground into Sophie's direction.

Asking no further questions about the situation, Sophie took the opportunity and aimed at Izzy, hitting her at the elbow.

Izzy protested after her premature removal, even more so when Kim made fun of her for her big words.

The bickering went mostly over Sophie's head as she tried to make sense of the strange behavior her brother displayed today. Although partially caused by Felix's bullying, there was still something off.

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Felix joined the field once more, visibly enjoying the opportunity to play against Jacob and drawing her attention back to the game.

Yet despite that display of excitement in his face, he still passed to Rudy without even trying to hit Jacob.

Instead, Felix simply passed each throw of his teammates at Jacob back to them, leaving him no space and increasing the pressure steady, while Sophie's own team watched in anticipation from the sideline how Jacob dodged every throw.

Until a stray shot hit his foot and flew over their own part of the sidelines.

With Max and Lucas out of commission, Charlie on the other side of the field, remained only Sophie to run and catch it.

She raced the falling projectile, jumped forward, slid on her belly and caught it barely before it dropped to the ground.

Sophie enjoyed the respectful cheering of her teammates while standing up, only to look at Jacob, who didn't even sweat, and that despite the bombardment he dodged.

None of the others in her team would be a real help for Jacob or herself, and Felix's team was still as fit and ready to join as the entire time.

Her fingers clutched the ball.

The only way they could still win this was if Jacob would finally pull his head out of his ass.

He needed a well-placed push in the right direction, and this looked just like the opportunity to make him stand up for himself.

"That's your chance, Jacob! Show Felix what you can and teach him he can't just push you around!"

Sophie passed to him after getting his attention, throwing hard enough to emphasize her point.

Kim somehow took that cue as an excuse to cheer Felix on as well, which caused a chain-reaction with her own teammates and resulted in a wild shouting contest between both sides.

'Well, it will at least be amusing to look at… if it just wasn't so loud…'

She could have sworn that even Felix joined in on the screaming, albeit it somehow sounded like he cheered for Jacob.

The increasing pressure from all sides made her brother visibly nervous.

Sophie could only scratch her head at the absurd turn of events, at least until Warren had enough from the excessive noise and shut it down with a whistle.

"Excuse me! Could you please shut your mouths!?"

His angry rhetorical question silenced the hall and put a glimpse of hope in Jacob's face, only to get crushed immediately.

"And you Tailor! Stop playing the injured puppy and throw!"

Warren waved dismissively when Jacob looked like he wanted to protest.

"No arguments here. You're drawing this out. Just throw at Ibrahim, or give up."

Sophie saw how he shivered, holding onto the ball like a safety line.

A part of her wanted to walk over and take the ball away, just like she had always protected him when he was smaller.

But then he stopped with it, closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

She felt a sudden cold shudder ran down her spine.

Then a painful pressure on her ears.

Sophie's eyes blinked involuntarily, before she saw how Coach Warren had appeared right in front of Felix on the field.

'How did he?'

In his hand rested the ball Jacob must have thrown at Felix while she hadn't noticed.

Felix's face had an almost ecstatic joy in it when he turned to face her and his black curly hair was in total disarray.

"Did you see that? Hahaha, you would have called me crazy if I had told you."

Her confusion at his words didn't last long. The sound of the bursting ball in Warren's hand turned everyone's attention to the crimson face of the Coach.

His words had an eerie calmness that was much more terrifying than his usual intens attitude.

"I must have gotten senile. Because I 'thought' I had asked you 'not' to do that…"

Whatever Jacob tried to stammer got swallowed on the way through his throat and ended as guttural nonsense.

"I …n't ..u s.i. I ..oul. …ow."

Warren let go of the deflated ball and used his now empty hand to lift Jacob up to his eye level.

"We two will have a talk about your lack of control. The rest of you home. Now!"

Like a backpack put Warren her frightened brother over his shoulder before disappearing into the other half of the hall, where he shouted a similar command to the rest of the class.

Quickly, everyone disbanded, probably afraid to be the next to get abducted by the angry teacher.

Which left a baffled Sophie behind, unsure what even happened before her eyes.