Human Pyramid
1413 Words
CHAPTER TWELVE
VIOLETTA
I regretted it within ten minutes.
The gym had barely started warmups and it was already divided in a way nobody announced but everybody understood.
A cluster of girls laughing together near the left wall.
Experienced flyers stretching in pairs by the mirrors, legs going places legs shouldn't go, completely unbothered.
And me, standing near the back pretending my shoelaces had suddenly become the most interesting thing in the room.
The door swung open and Sienna walked back in.
Every girl's spine straightened immediately. The clipboard appeared from under her arm and her captain energy filled the room before she'd taken three steps.
The atmosphere tightened around her like a fist.
She clapped once, sharp and clean. "Alright girls, regionals are closer than you think. So unless you want Lunadora humiliated this season, wake up."
The squad laughed lightly.
I frowned. There was nothing funny about what she'd said. I looked around the room and thought: either these are the strangest people I've ever met or they're all just terrified of ending up on her bad side. Probably both.
Sienna's gaze found me.
A tiny smile lit her features and she waved one perfectly manicured hand in my direction. "And welcome to our newest addition."
The room went quiet. The intentional kind.
A girl somewhere behind me muttered, "Still insane she's actually joining."
Another one: "This is going to be entertaining."
Sienna clapped once more. "Positions!"
The squad moved. Fast and automatic, everyone finding their spot like they'd been doing it for years. Because they had.
I stood there.
I had absolutely no idea where I was supposed to go.
I groaned internally and thought: this is the most ridiculous decision I have ever made in my life. I couldn't even remember properly what had pushed me into it.
Sienna watched me stand there for a few seconds. Then she smiled sweetly. "Oh honey, you'll be base support for now."
A few girls exchanged looks immediately.
From the bleachers, Petra lowered her textbook and looked directly at me with an expression that said very clearly: *you are a dead girl.*
She wasn't wrong.
I didn't know much about cheerleading but my friend Bridget back home was a cheerleader for three years and had complained about base support constantly. I remembered asking her once what the problem was with it.
Bridget had looked at me like I'd asked something obvious. *"V, base support is exhausting. You're holding everyone else up while they get to fly and you get to sweat and suffer in silence. It's given to the weakest girls. Nobody sees you. Nobody cares about you. You're furniture."*
*"That sounds awful."*
*"It is. I've been trying to get out of it for six months."*
I looked at Sienna.
The mischief dancing behind her eyes confirmed everything. She knew exactly what base support meant. She had chosen it specifically.
I moved to a position.
Practice became something else within twenty minutes.
Every correction Sienna gave me came out louder than it needed to. Every single one.
"No, not like that."
"Keep up."
"You're slowing everyone down."
"Are human reflexes always this delayed?"
The girls laughed quietly each time. And the worst part was how Sienna did it... the frustrated voice, the sigh, the tone of someone pushed past their limit by an incompetent student.
It sounded like coaching. It looked like coaching. But every word landed exactly where she aimed it and nothing she said could be pointed to directly.
That's what made it dangerous.
During stunt work she paired me with two girls who'd been exchanging looks since I walked in. We were mid-lift when one of them let extra weight drop suddenly onto my shoulder. Pain shot down my arm hard and fast.
I didn't react.
I reset my position and kept going.
Sienna noticed. Her eyes sharpened and she pushed harder.
Then came pyramid drills.
The squad moved into formation of three rows, the girls at the bottom dropping into wide stances, the middle row stepping up onto their shoulders, the top girls climbing above them.
The whole thing built in seconds. Wolf coordination, wolf speed, bodies moving with a precision and timing that came from something more than training.
The music started.
My job was a base position in the bottom row: hold my stance, keep my weight centered, and support the girl above me without shifting. Simple enough in theory.
In practice, the timing of the calls came faster than I could track and when the formation moved and rotated I was half a beat behind every single time. The girl above me wobbled. Someone in the middle row hissed something under their breath.
Sienna blew her whistle. "Again."
Groans spread through the gym.
"Maybe we'd actually finish if the human could move faster."
I heard it clearly. Across the gym Petra's head snapped up from her textbook, eyes narrowing, ready.
I shook my head slightly. Not worth it.
We ran it again. I was better on the second pass. Still not clean. The formation held but barely.
Sienna blew the whistle again. "Again."
By the fourth run my legs ached, sweat was sticking to my back and the humiliation was sitting somewhere behind my ribs building pressure.
Then Sienna looked directly at me and said, "This is why wolves usually stick to wolf activities."
Silence.
I stared at her.
And suddenly the cafeteria was in my head. Jason's voice. *Human.* The stairs this morning. The pain in my shoulder. All of it stacked up at once. I felt myself starting to go small and then something angry woke up underneath it and burned the small feeling clean away.
Near the end of practice Sienna called out a rotational transition. Three beats, a turn, footwork change, a controlled spin into the final position. Even some of the experienced girls shifted their weight uncertainly.
Sienna looked at me. "Let's see if Violetta can survive this one."
A few girls laughed.
The music started.
First attempt: my left foot went wrong on the turn and I went down on one knee hard.
Sienna sighed dramatically. "Shocking."
My face burned. I got up.
Second attempt: better. The footwork was right but I lost the timing on the spin and came out of it facing the wrong direction.
Third attempt: the spin worked but I over-rotated and stumbled on the landing.
Sienna opened her mouth. "Okay maybe this is beyond—"
"Again," I said.
She stopped.
The squad went quiet.
Sienna stared at me.
I looked back at her and waited.
The music started again.
I stopped thinking. I let the beat move through me and I stopped trying to count it and just listened to where it was going.
My left foot crossed right in an angled stance, my body following the music into the rotation, arms lifting to balance as I whipped around on the spot, one clean turn, feet finding the floor, hips dropping forward on the final beat as my arms fell and my left foot kicked back clean behind me. The music ended.
Perfect timing. Clean transition. The formation hit and held.
The gym went still for half a second.
From the bleachers Petra shot to her feet, both hands clapping above her head. "OH WE LOVE A CHARACTER ARC."
Several girls laughed despite themselves. Genuine laughs, the surprised kind.
I turned to Sienna.
I folded my arms and smiled smugly. "How's that for surviving?"
I winked at her.
Sienna's smile tightened until it was just teeth.
Practice ended and the girls filed out in groups, noise trailing behind them down the corridor.
Petra gathered her bag from the bleachers and came to me. "I've got an assignment to hand in before six. Are you good?"
"Go," I waved her off. "I'm fine."
She gave me a look that said she didn't entirely believe me, but she went.
The gym emptied.
I needed to practice. I can't allow Sienna to keep tossing about like some piece of s**t.
I stood in the quiet of it and then I moved back to the centre of the floor and ran the transition again.
It was cleaner this time.
I ran it again.
Cleaner still.
Again. Again. Again. The empty gym and the sound of my own feet on the floor.
Nobody was watching. Nobody was waiting for me to fail.
I ran it until my legs stopped hesitating and my body just knew where to go.
- Writer
