The shrill sound of a whistle pierced the air, and even from her place on the pitcher’s mound, Jocelyn flinched as the noise rang inside her ear. “Damn that’s loud.” She muttered under her breath, stopping to look up at the coach expectantly. Today’s torture was a game of softball, and as always, Jocelyn had been drafted as the pitcher, although she never figured out how the airheads in her class had discovered it was a position she had a knack for. The coach, a rather butchy looking woman with short cropped hair, and a masculine face was glaring over at her from home plate, her hands on her hips. “Jocelyn, you’re not supposed to be trying to hit the batter with the ball.” Smoothing her expression to one of complete innocence, Jocelyn blinked owlishly at the woman. “I’m not? This isn’t dodge ball? Oops, my mistake.” The disgruntled teacher shook her head, her thumb jerking over her shoulder in a silent order for her to sit down on the bench. “Candice, you’re pitcher.” The rest of Jocelyn’s team groaned, but she happily ripped the glove off her hand and made her way over to the bench she was forced to sit on for the remainder of the class.

It really hadn’t been her fault, she had not started class with the intention of hurting anyone, but little Miss Homecoming Queen had decided to open her mouth and act like a complete bitch about things she did not know about. Things had been going fine, Jocelyn having struck out two of the other team when Jenna Linden came up to bat. The plan started out as simply striking the girl out, but the girl had to start opening her mouth. “Come on, freak. Let’s see what you got.” Jocelyn could have easily ignored the mild insult, and had been about to when Jenna decided to open her mouth once again. “You might want to use your left side. Wouldn’t want you to rip your scar open. What did you do? Try to stab yourself in the heart and you were too stupid to realize you didn’t have one?” Jocelyn growled loudly at that insult, knowing that her scar had been because of an attempt to stab her in the heart, but it had not been her own doing. The one thing she was grateful for was that no one knew the full story about what had happened to her when she was five, and if they had learned, she didn’t doubt she’d be taunted for it every day.

Jocelyn had thrown the ball, by all appearances aiming it down the center of the plate, but she’d added enough of a curve to it that it had ended up hitting Jenna square in the stomach. The gasp for air and the sight of the girl doubling over in pain had been enough to satisfy Jocelyn’s urge for revenge, but watching as she dropped the bat on her toe in her rush to double over only added to it. Jocelyn all but rolled around on the ground laughing as Jenna was half carried off the field, the two other girls shooting her glares as she continued to find amusement from the girl’s pain. It was then the coach decided to end Jocelyn’s fun and send her off to the bench to sit out the rest of the class, which really wasn’t much of a punishment since Jocelyn hated the class. She could sit around and do absolutely nothing, and she wouldn’t even get in trouble for hitting Jenna with the ball, because there was no way to prove it had been intentional. For Jocelyn, it was a win-win outcome, and as she sat down on the bench, she smirked darkly at the glaring faces looking in her direction, completely proud of herself for what she had done. ‘Serves her right. She’s lucky I didn’t hit her in the face.’

Jocelyn was content to sit and do nothing at all, taking no joy in watching the game as her team lost the lead that she had gained them and began to lose. Her eyes were drawn to the woods behind the baseball diamond, searching for the same flash that she had seen earlier in English class. She did not see it, but she did hear her name again, this time whisperer in an ominous tone that sent chills down her spine. She glanced around the area, looking at her coach, and then at the other girls in her class, waiting for one of them to smirk at her, or show some signs that they had heard it. No one looked as if they were responsible, and they showed no signs at all that they heard the sound, which only further confused her. The voice was male, she could tell that much, but she could not determine the distance it had been spoken, or even who might have been responsible for it. She tried to push it aside, but it repeated again, this time followed with a laugh that did little to put her at ease. Again, no one around seemed to hear it, and Jocelyn began to question her own sanity.

By the time class was over and the coach had sent everyone back into the school to change for their last class, Jocelyn was convinced she was losing her mind and hearing voices. Her entire demeanor changed, her face pale and her eyes wide with shock. She was silent as she went through the motions of changing out of her gym uniform, ignoring the jeers and taunts from Jenna and her cronies more than she usually did. She couldn’t have told anyone what the obnoxious girls had said to her, paying them absolutely no mind at all while she went over the voice that had been calling her name. When Jenna moved o stand in front of Jocelyn as she made her way out of the locker room, the redhead had shoved the other girl out of the way and walked out, leaving the petite blonde sputtering and huffing angrily behind her. She walked to her Civics class in a daze, still confused over who would waste their time toying with her in such a way. She knew most of her classmates disliked her, but it seemed like a complete waste of time and effort to play that type of joke on her. When she reached her classroom, Jocelyn sat down at her desk and silently placed her belongings on the table to wait for class to start, still completely disoriented and unable to understand what was going on.