Chapter 5: Tryouts
[Beacon Hills High School — Lacrosse Field, Tuesday, September 20, 2011, 3:30 PM]
Coach Finstock's whistle could strip paint.
The sound cut across the field like a blade, scattering the thirty-odd players who'd been milling around the goal into something resembling formation. Jackson adjusted his gloves and took his position at midfield, stick balanced in both hands, and watched the chaos organize itself the way Coach's chaos always did — through volume and the implied threat of running laps until someone vomited.
"All right, ladies and gentlemen and whatever Greenberg is," Coach shouted, clipboard pressed against his chest like a shield. "This is tryouts. You know what that means. It means most of you will not be playing. It means some of you will be crying. It means Greenberg is somehow already on my nerves and practice hasn't started."
Greenberg raised his hand.
"Put your hand down, Greenberg."
Jackson scanned the field. Danny was in goal, adjusting his helmet with practiced efficiency. Three juniors he recognized from last year's bench were warming up near the sideline. A handful of freshmen who'd be cut by Thursday.
And Scott McCall, standing near the far end of the line, holding his stick like he'd just remembered how it worked. Stiles was beside him, bouncing on his toes, radiating nervous energy that could probably power a small generator.
"McCall," Coach said, squinting at his roster. "You're starting in the cage against Whittemore. Try not to die."
Scott jogged to the goal. His movement was different — Jackson clocked it immediately because he'd been watching for it. The old Scott moved with the careful deliberation of a kid who'd spent most of his life on an inhaler, calculating effort against oxygen capacity. This Scott moved like something had been recalibrated at the firmware level. His feet hit the ground lighter. His turns were sharper. He didn't even seem aware of it — the body was running new software and the conscious mind hadn't updated yet.
The first drill was simple. Shooters lined up at the thirty-yard mark, five shots each, keeper tries to stop them. Jackson took his position third in line and watched the two players ahead of him launch their best efforts.
Scott caught the first shot one-handed. Not a deflection — a catch. His arm extended at an angle that shouldn't have been possible from a standing start, and the ball stuck in his net like it had been placed there by hand.
Stiles made a sound from the bench that fell somewhere between a gasp and a squeak.
The second shot came high and to the left. Scott didn't just block it; he moved before the shooter's arm completed the motion. The ball hit the pocket of his stick with a clean thock and he was already resetting his stance before anyone could process what they'd seen.
Jackson took his shot. He aimed low corner, hard — a placement shot, not a power shot. Scott intercepted it with a casual efficiency that bordered on insulting.
"Good save," Jackson said.
Not sarcastic. Not loaded. Just two words, one athlete to another. Scott's helmet tilted. Behind the cage, Jackson could see his expression — confused, wary, waiting for the follow-up that didn't come.
The tryout continued. Scott caught everything. Not most things — everything. Shots from the wing, shots from the crease, a rocket from a senior named Lahey who'd clearly been lifting over the summer. Scott moved with the kind of fluid anticipation that experienced goalkeepers spent years developing, and he was doing it on his second day holding a lacrosse stick with enhanced reflexes he didn't understand.
When they switched to field drills, it got worse. Scott dodged three defenders on a single run, his footwork impossibly precise, his acceleration coming from nowhere and going to everywhere at once. He scored from the twenty, the thirty, the forty. Coach Finstock was vibrating with a joy that bordered on religious experience.
"McCall," Coach said, and his voice cracked. "Where the hell have you been all my life?"
Danny caught Jackson's eye from across the field. The look was specific: you should be furious right now. Why aren't you?
Jackson met the look and shrugged. One shoulder, minimal. The gesture said good player, what about it and he knew it was wrong — he knew the real Jackson would have been seething, threatened, humiliated by a benchwarmer who'd suddenly outperformed him in front of the entire team. But he couldn't perform fury he didn't feel about a development he'd been expecting for five days.
The cost of that shrug was Danny's attention. Jackson could track it — the way Danny's gaze lingered, the slight furrow between his brows, the mental note being made and stored. Danny Mahealani was building a file on Jackson's behavioral changes, and Jackson had just added another data point.
---
[Locker Room — 4:45 PM]
Steam and deodorant and the ambient noise of twenty guys changing at once. Jackson sat on the bench unlacing his cleats and deliberately not looking at Scott McCall, who was three rows over accepting a series of stunned congratulations from teammates who'd barely acknowledged his existence a week ago.
Stiles hovered near Scott like a satellite, grinning wide enough to split his face, already narrating the tryout back to Scott at triple speed. "— and the thing from the thirty, dude, the angle you took, I literally thought you broke the laws of physics, like Newton is somewhere right now crying —"
"Stiles." Scott's voice was quiet. "Something's wrong."
"Wrong? Are you — did you not see — you were incredible, that was the opposite of wrong, that was —"
"I can hear Coach's phone conversation. From here. He's in his office."
Stiles went quiet. Jackson, three rows away, continued unlacing his cleats and filed the exchange.
Danny appeared at the end of Jackson's row. He sat on the bench, still in half his gear, and angled his body toward Jackson with the deliberate casualness of someone about to have a conversation that isn't casual.
"You're not mad."
"About what?"
"About McCall. About the fact that a kid who couldn't complete a suicide drill last spring just outplayed every guy on this field, including you."
Jackson pulled his left cleat off and set it in his locker. "He's good. Why would I be mad about having a good player on the team?"
Danny's jaw worked. The silence between them stretched long enough to become a statement.
"Jackson, you threw your helmet at a freshman last year because he scored on you in a scrimmage. A scrimmage. And now McCall just ran circles around everyone and you — clapped? Once? From the sideline?"
"People change, Danny."
"Not this fast."
The locker room noise filled the gap — showers running, a freshman singing off-key, someone dropping a bottle that rolled across the tile. Danny sat with his elbows on his knees and his eyes on Jackson and waited with the patience of someone who'd been doing this for years.
"I'm fine," Jackson said. "I've just been thinking about things differently. About what matters."
Danny exhaled. Not a sigh — something more controlled. "Okay. But if something's going on — if you need to talk about anything — I'm right here. You know that."
"I know."
Danny held the look for another second, then stood. He squeezed Jackson's shoulder once — firm, genuine — and walked toward the showers.
Jackson sat alone on the bench. The locker room emptied around him in increments, voices fading, footsteps receding, until the only sounds were dripping water and the hum of the ventilation system.
Coach Finstock's voice echoed from the hallway: "First line, McCall. FIRST. LINE. I'm putting that kid on varsity if I have to fight the school board with my bare hands."
Jackson laced up his street shoes and shouldered his bag. Through the locker room's high windows, the afternoon sun was cutting sideways across the field, and the tree line beyond the lacrosse goals was a solid dark wall of green and shadow.
A figure stood at the edge of those trees. Arms crossed. Leather jacket despite the warmth. Too far away for details, but Jackson didn't need details. He knew the silhouette.
Derek Hale wasn't watching Scott McCall.
He was watching Jackson.
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