Free The Rules by Nancy Holder Page B

on them. They kept yammering; Morgan wrapped her hands around another dangling doll body and pulled the head off. She ran forward, grabbing them and pulling them down as if they were tiny piñatas.
    “What the hell?” Cage said, following her, stepping on fist-sized torsos and heads.
    Then he came upon a small wooden table with a black velvet cushion on top. On the cushion was a very familiar cardboard box tied up like a present with a green measuring tape. And a small ceramic sea lion.
    Cage’s stomach clenched. His jaw tightened as his heart went into overdrive. His anger was nearly overpowering—a side effect, he had been warned, of what was in the box: it contained the same brand of anabolic steroids in the same dosage that he was using. He had never told anyone, not one person, that he was on steroids. Not even his coach.
    But somehow Alexa DeYoung had found out. And she had threatened to tell the world unless he got her something to help her lose weight, fast. He had been shocked. Her wrists were sticklike, and her face gaunt. She sure as hell didn’t need to drop any pounds.
    She was trying to lose weight so she could become a cheerleader,
he realized, looking from the box of steroids to the doll bodies to Morgan. That’s why she was freaking out, too.
    “So what did he leave for you?” Morgan snapped as she picked up the box. He grabbed it away from her. “Hey. What is it?”
    “Nothing,” he mumbled.
    If his coach found out he was using, he’d kick him off the team. Coach always said that the players at Callabrese High played clean or they didn’t play at all. Cage had told himself he’d take them for just one more game, then just for the season, but what about the college scouts?
    He’d heard that collegiate coaches would look the other way, sure, but not if someone publicly denounced him before he even got accepted to a university. He’d be blackballed before he even got his chance to make his mark, hopefully go pro. He was a superstar at Callabrese, but high school was almost over. Who would he be without football?
    I have to talk to August,
he thought desperately.
Alone.
    He could feel the vein in his forehead throbbing in time with his accelerated heartbeat. At school they laughed and called him Hulk on the field, but they had no idea how accurate that nickname was. His strength and speed came from rage. It was a side effect that he usually kept under control.
    Alexa must have told August that he got her some speed to help her lose weight. And now August was making him sweat.
    All I did was get it for her,
he thought, ripping the dangling measuring tape off the box and stuffing the steroids into the pocket of his letter jacket.
    Morgan let go of him and picked up the sea lion. “Alexa collected sea lions,” she said. “This is weird.”
    Then she crossed her arms over her chest and stomped on the nearest chattering doll.
    Obviously he wasn’t the only one standing there with a guilty secret.
    “Oh my God, she was so uncoordinated,” Morgan said in a rush. “I don’t know why she even tried out for the squad. She had to
see
what a klutz she was.”
    “Shit, Morgan,” he said as they gave each other a long, hard look.
    Confessing.
    “What was I supposed to say to her? ‘Alexa, you’re too short and too weird to be a cheerleader’? So I told her what we always tell girls we don’t want. What’s he going to do about it? He can’t do anything. Because I didn’t
do
anything.”
    Cage was rooted to the spot. “Morgan,” he said thickly, feeling both dizzy and sick, the blood roaring in his ears. It sounded like the world was crashing down around him. “I have to talk to August.”
    “What a crummy trick,” she said. “Lure us all here for one last major party, fool us into playing for big prizes, and then dis us. I didn’t do anything illegal.”
    But I did.
He was reeling. They say sometimes you just
know
things. And he had a funny feeling that his life was over.
    From out of