Chapter 81

  Making the Team

  (Darcy Renolds)

  College was amazing.

  People were so nice to her. Better still, Misha and Jasmine both managed to make the team, which filled her with an odd sense of pride, seeing as they all came from the same High School.

  Not that they had done anything yet, but they had earned the right to do something. That was what today was, a note that they had earned the right to be on the team.

  Speaking of which, Darcy herself was working towards a traveling assistant job as well.

  Just as she was always there with Misha and Jasmine both, the coach had noticed.

  Even when she tried to go through the fundamentals, the same ones that Misha had tried to teach Darcy while sweating in the basketball court in her back yard.

  While Darcy could not get her body to make the sets of coordinated movements that she wanted to, that were required to play basketball, at least at Misha and Jasmine’s levels, she did pick up what she was supposed to do.

  Which was huge, as she would often be giving the other girls pointers from the sidelines. Ways to post up, to create enough separation to shoot. It helped in so far as it made the competition of the remaining eighteen students that much tougher to compete against.

  All the while she was teaching the others from the bleachers, she could feel the gaze of Coach Shimms on her, seeming to bore into her.

  At first, Darcy swore that the coach would yell at her, but instead she just made eye contact with the scary coach, where they seemed to have come to a mutual agreement of some kind.

  After that one long, but completely silent stare down, Darcy was allowed to attend practices. Even being allowed to get off the bleachers and walk the students through the footwork that she was talking about. While she never had the speed and coordination to work the drills the way Misha could, she had been pushed through the paces enough times to have her body naturally settle in the movements.

  Actually, it was her paces that helped a number of students who had no shot of competing at all to quit.

  Not that Darcy was rude or belligerent in any way, but her ways of showing what to do, then using Misha as her real life sped-up example, proved to many competing for a free scholarship that they had no chance of catching up to even the slowest pack members.

  This was how, the group of close to sixty walk-ons and incoming freshmen participants were slowly whittled down, one casualty after another.

  ***

  (Misha Tulley)

  “Four, that is how many Full-Ride scholarships I had left for you incoming Freshmen. These scholarships are a two-way commitment, one from this University to you. And more importantly from you back to this University. By getting this scholarship, you are being entrusted to represent this University as one of its vaunted members. Being granted the right to wear their uniform, meaning you must express yourself with pride, honor, and most importantly grit.” Coach Shimms began.

  As she spoke, she made sure that the remaining twenty-two Freshmen and walk-on participants for open try-outs heard these words.

  Then she began calling out names, “Jasmine Sweet, a freshman who attended on nothing more than a spoken word to give you a fair shake if you tried out. Well, here you are, your size, power, and tenacity will do wonders for our team. Come forward and be recognized as one of the elites who made it through our summer tryouts.”

  With that Jasmine strode forward, excitement filling her body as she could barely contain herself. Moving forward and getting a rolled-up parchment that symbolized the full tuition that could be offered by the coach.

  “Next, we have someone who is not averse to these tryouts. Having attended the last four tryouts with nothing more than heart and a love for this school to motivate her. For that, there will always be a place for someone like that on our team, who will push themselves to be better each and every day and hopefully push our team to be better overall. Kelly Botchman, Senior and new anchor of the bench, step forward and be recognized.” Coach Shimms stated.

  Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

  With that, Kelly made the team. Excitement bubbling up from her as she all but burst out of the formation to join coach with a sweaty hug, and a beaming smile.

  What had helped with this decision was that Kelly would only be a one-year commitment from the scholarship, meaning that a roster spot would only be taken up for one year to host the exuberant Senior. That and the fact that she was a Straight A student, and destined to graduate in the summer, made her ideal for keeping up the team’s averages for grade point average, graduation rates, and other superlatives that are tracked and monitored by each program.

  Similarly, “Antoinette Diovik, another senior” was also called up for similar reasons.

  On the surface, this type of commitment and grandstanding looked good to the participants. As it showed each participant that even if they didn’t have the skills to make the main team, the top ten, they could make it to the bench with hard work and commitment to excellence.

  “And lastly, someone who we expect to make an immediate impact, both on and off the court, Misha Tulley, a Freshman, and someone who we hope to see in these halls for years to come,” Coach Shimms exclaimed as she held up the last of the honorary scholarships to.

  For her part Misha smiled brightly, and came forward to accept her token scholarship, knowing that records of these decisions had already been made and pushed by Coach Shimms and her staff to the registrar’s office.

  This was how, despite everything, Misha managed to remain calm and poised during the readouts, knowing that she was going to be one of those called.

  As for the others, that is the eighteen other students who did not get a scholarship from the coach, they would soon find themselves as potential recipients of Jarnic Foundation scholarships.

  That’s right, while the original Ms. Jarnic was in the process of being reincarnated for a new life, her scholarship and infrastructure that she had built up was still active and surprisingly easy to access.

  This was why, part of her plan was to use this foundation to both pave the way for students who could then give back to companies that made up the Jarnic conglomeration.

  Another important thing that Misha did was shore up some of the easier entrance and egress points of the security systems. While she didn’t close the doors entirely, she did make it so most of the paths were at least obfuscated.

  This was why the University of Tennessee would soon find a massive math and science grant, that would primarily be used to help build a new stadium for women’s sports.

  Yet, as she stood there, at the front of the group, looking back at the eighteen students who didn’t make the cut, Misha felt an odd wave of something.

  It wasn’t fear that she felt, for she was not afraid of those girls standing before her.

  Still, the very act of looking back at the girls, the fellow teammates that she just came from did make her question something.

  Looking at them, she tried to understand what exactly was wrong.

  There was something off, or at least her mind swore that something should be off, but for the life of her, she couldn’t explain the sensation. Or rather, she couldn’t explain why she suddenly had this ah-ha moment of something being wrong.

  They all looked normal.

  Unlike many of the students who came here with alternate sets of clothing, and most importantly shoes, some just came in wearing their shoes straight from their campus apartments.

  Not that there was anything wrong with not having a separate set of shoes to change into and out of. One for the court, and one for live outside of the court. It wasn’t the fact that some of the girls likely didn’t have money to buy a second pair of tennis shoes.

  No, the issue that she felt was much deeper.

  The differentiation of those who had a second set of tennis shoes was easy to determine, as they were students who had stains on their shoes. Stains caused by dirt, by running through mud and muck.

  Again though, such occurrences would not annoy her senses, there was something deeper that her mind was trying to tell her. Something that her mind was trying to tell her, but she was as yet unable to fully understand the process.

  Tingling.

  The more she focused on this odd occurrence, this discrepancy that her mind was trying to tell her about, the more her mind began to feel like tiny ants were coming alive and stinging parts of her.

  Then just as she swore she was bout to make an epiphany, for it wasn’t all the girl’s with dirty shoes that bothered her.

  In fact, only seven of the remaining eighteen had such dirty shoes. From those seven only three truly annoyed her, but she couldn’t explain why.

  “Congratulations!” Darcy exclaimed, coming over to embrace both Jasmine and Misha.

  With Darcy’s excitement, Misha found her mind being able to move on from the glaring distraction that was before her.

  Little did she know that this moment, this incongruity in time would come back to haunt her later.

  ***

  (Kelly Botchman)

  Four years.

  For four years Kelly had worked, pushed herself and strived for this very moment, and she finally got it.

  Relief.

  No, not just relief. But joy, perseverance, and above all the fact that now she could watch every game from courtside. Not just the home games either, but the away games as well.

  This was without a doubt, one of the greatest moments of her life.

  Holding the rolled-up parchment, in her hands, she gave it a cursory glance, but soon realized that this was to serve as little more than a physical reminder for the real scholarship.

  There, in the text was her name, handwritten by the same coach Shimms who signed her name at the bottom. That signature alone would make this document priceless. Mentally, she made a note to get this document framed.

  This document, along with her degree would be the two physical artifacts that she would need to prove to herself and others that she did in fact deserve to be here.

  In fact, she was so excited that rather than going back her typical way to her dorm room from practice, that she instead made a quick stop at the framing store. Well, it had a different name, but it was the store that was right outside of campus that sold nothing but frames that would be used to display one’s degrees.

  While this parchment was in no way a truly binding contract, it did signify the fact that Coach Shimms had seen her hard work and recognized her efforts.

  That was why she decided to go off campus, a fact that might have saved her life.

  For what she didn’t know, what no one knew right now, was that there was an enraged killer running loose on the campus, at this very moment.