The Rules

by Nancy Holder

  Heather was in trouble. Big trouble.

  I shouldn’t be drinking this, she thought. Clutching the wine bottle to her chest, she turned off the lantern so that they wouldn’t see her coming and hung a U-turn back down the hall. From the safety of the shadows, she searched for Kyle and realized with a pang that he had left.

  The three girls were still dragging the very long, heavy rope across the floor. They reminded her of sailors on a pirate ship. August pointed to a sign he had placed over one of the coffins that read PENALTY BABES. Heather noted the hangman’s knot at the end of the rope and blew air out of her cheeks. August’s hunts were always edgy, but tonight that edge was sharp.

  She was a jittery mess, all her emotions about to spill out over her barely maintained surface tension. She hadn’t realized that so many people knew about Mr. Riker. But they didn’t know the worst part—her deepest darkest secret.

  She hung back as August approached the trio of girls, admiring their handiwork. He was holding a little black box in his hand and as he waggled a joystick, the moldering corpse in the girls’ coffin shifted around like it was trying to get comfortable.

  “August, you need to make us do our Truth or Dare so we can go get our next thing,” Thea prodded him sharply as she stepped away from the coffin and glanced fearfully upward at the screeching bats.

  From her vantage point, Heather could see an expression of vicious glee sweep across August’s face, the light from the lanterns lending him a positively demonic cast. She took another swallow of wine. He was freaking her out. He’d teased hard at these hunts before, but he’d never been mean. This was a new August. Or was she finally just now seeing the real one?

  “Okay, so decide, Truth or Dare,” August challenged the girls.

  Beth looked petrified. Then Robin Brissett stepped forward. “I’ll do it. Truth.”

  “Sorry, Robin, but you’re just along for the ride.” August waved her off dismissively. “It’s up to Thea and Beth.”

  “Dare,” Thea and Beth said simultaneously.

  August nodded. “As I expected.” He held out a black envelope. “Here you go.”

  Thea took it while Beth sucked in a deep breath. Heather shot daggers at Beth Breckenridge Bitch the First. She had no idea how Beth had learned about Mr. Riker, but she had no doubt that Beth was the one who had spread it around.

  “We’re the third ones back with an item?” Robin asked, studying the coffins.

  “Yes, and it’s amazing how fast you’re catching up. That fifteen-minute delay in your start clearly wasn’t long enough,” August told her.

  Robin was still busy taking inventory, though.

  “Rope, crowbar, a gas can on the way. Except for the sweater, aren’t these all very…I don’t know, Colonel Mustard–like?” she asked.

  “Like Clue,” Beth said with false brightness. Thea struggled to rip open the envelope. Beth reached out to take it from her but Thea frowned and shook her head, giving it another go. “You know, August, Robin is a killer gamer.”

  Robin looked shocked and frowned at Beth, who ignored her and kept smiling at August.

  “Really,” August said, inclining his head in Robin’s direction. “You have hidden depths, Ms. Brissett.”

  Robin flashed Beth a dirty look. “Not so much. But I do play Clue.”

  Thea smiled at a satisfying rip and pulled out a page from the envelope.

  “Welcome to the Second Act of Cheater Theater,” Thea read. “You’ll feel ever so much better if you get things off your chest. So your choice: take off your tops or your bottoms, and then tell us the person you’ve most recently cheated out of something, and how.”

  Beth paled. “August.” Her voice was strangled.

  Heather shrugged. That wasn’t so mean. It was vintage scavenger hunt. And she herself had stripped down to less than that on dares.

  “That’s not a dare,” Robin said. “That’s a truth.”

  “Excuse me?” August cocked his head.

  Robin crossed her arms. “You’re asking them to tell you something, not do something.” She gestured dismissively with her hand. “Taking off their clothes isn’t the main point. Confessing is.”

  “It’s my hunt,” he said.

  “You’re breaking your own rules,” she shot back. “You’re cheating.”

  Heather snorted as August flushed. Look at that—Albino Man was pink. And pissed.

  “Fine,” he snapped. “Then strip down to your underwear and run a lap around the warehouse.” His look included Robin, and she shook her head.

  “I’m just along for the ride,” she said firmly.

  Heather almost whooped. Robin, you have got a pair on you!

  She wished she could stand up to her mother like Robin was standing up to August but that was unthinkable.

  August locked gazes with Robin. Neither blinked. In spite of everything, Heather giggled. Robin turned her head in Heather’s direction and Heather backed a few steps down the hall. At this point she was feeling a little stalkerish; she did not need to watch other girls strip to their undies. She spared a couple drops of pity for Thea because it was so cold and wet outside, but none for Beth. If there was any justice, Beth would fall off the cliffs, hit every rock with her face on the way down, and drown in the ocean, where sharks would devour her conniving flesh.

  With Kyle gone, she didn’t see much point in letting August know she had started to weaken in her resolve not to play. She defiantly carried her wine bottle back down the hall and flicked her lantern back on. Maybe there were objects hidden back here that she could snag and hide to screw up the other players. Maybe that would help Kyle out. He was a nice guy. He’d do better in the hunt on his own. And if he won, maybe she’d still win, too.

  There were rooms upon rooms of junk—piles of old ledger books, chains, hooks, and serrated knives. A rectangular room was crammed with bed frames on wheels, metal cabinets, and mirrors covered with jade-green mold. Why did they need a hospital at a cannery? Gross.

  She heard Hiro Yamamoto drumming, and she smiled faintly. Maximum Volume was a great band. They were going all the way to the top. Just like her.

  At least, just like she should be.

  Her stomach shifted uneasily and she pressed a hand over it. She was four weeks pregnant and desperately trying to figure out what to do about it. The simplest thing would be to have an abortion, but she knew there were risks involved with those, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to do that to her body. The thought of it made her queasy. Then again, giving the baby up for adoption meant actually having to carry it nearly a whole year and getting fat in the process. She couldn’t afford the time or the pounds. Plus, she could get stretch marks.

  And could she really do either of those things? Get rid of it with an operation? Give it to someone else? Wouldn’t Mr. Riker have to know if she did that?

  She sniffled a little, scared, and as mad at herself as she was with Mr. Riker. They’d flirted for years. The looks, the sighs, the occasional brush of his hand against hers.

  All his promises to help her make it in Hollywood. The people he claimed to know. The auditions he’d set up for her. For three years, he had kept telling her it was only a matter of time. Freshman year, he’d said she was at an awkward age, too old for the little-kid parts, a little too young for the ingénue roles. She’d reminded him that Miley Cyrus had been fourteen when she’d booked Hannah Montana, but he had countered that Miley Cyrus’s dad was famous. Then sophomore year he said she had such a unique look that casting directors were having trouble deciding how to “position her.” He said he wished he’d known “back then” that the DeYoungs were rich. That could have been “a big help.” For who? she wanted to ask him, but she was afraid to.

  Then this year, junior year, he’d started talking about her going to college and majoring in theater. Just in case Hollywood “didn’t click right away.”

  But she didn’t want to go to college. She wanted to go to L.A. She wanted to have a movie deal that
she had to skip high school graduation for, like a real kid actor.

  Her mother was always on her. She said Heather needed more voice lessons. Needed more coaching. She kept telling Heather that she had refinanced the house to give her only child everything she needed to become a star. So what was Heather doing to make that happen?

  “I want a return on my investment,” her mom said over and over. “I mean, honey, really, are you serious about this?”

  Heather tried to defend herself, but it was hard when everything her mom said was what she was thinking herself. Was she serious?

  Then they had a huge fight and she’d slammed into Mr. Riker’s office and informed him that she was quitting acting. No more auditions, no more plays, nothing. But the moment she said it, she started breaking down. That wasn’t really what she had planned to tell him at all. She didn’t want to quit. It was like she was speaking lines written by someone else. She kept crying and trembling and she really, really wanted him to shut her up and tell her that he’d just gotten a call from one of his director friends and she was now able to audition for a big-budget movie. To know that all the wishing was over.

  And he did stop her. With a kiss, their first ever, even though she had fantasized about kissing him for years. He was as handsome as any movie star; when he led her drama class through their creative movement exercises, all the straight girls and the gay guys fanned themselves because he was so hot.

  His kiss burned her alive. It immolated her world.

  And when it was over, he had folded her in his arms and called her his angel, explaining that while he would always love her and support her career, it would be bad for her image to have a boyfriend as old as he was. He would be thrown in jail. They had a real love, yes, but it could never be more than it was now. This one time.

  Except for the second time. And the third. And all the others. She was irresistible, he told her. He couldn’t stay away. He loved her so much.

  For a while she had bought it. She had actually believed him.

  Until she’d seen him with his real girlfriend at the Starbucks on Vineland. Holding hands. Gazing into each other’s eyes. Feeding each other pieces of a flakey, buttery croissant.

  All the softness inside her turned to stone. She thought of all the things she’d done to make her mark that had hardened her, sharpening her ambition with a diamondlike precision: getting rid of the competition, talking him into choosing the plays that her mom said worked for her…

  In the filthy warehouse out in the middle of nowhere, Heather wanted to throw up. Her mother was going to kill her once Heather told her she was pregnant. She could never know it was Mr. Riker. Being knocked up by her drama teacher was not the kind of fame Heather’s mother was looking for. Besides, scandal was fleeting.

  Stardom was forever.

  Heather hadn’t told Mr. Riker, either. But God, what if someone else knew? What if Beth knew and he found out from her?

  How could she know? Heather reminded herself. But Beth knew everything.

  She heard someone run into something behind her and curse quietly.

  “Hello?” she called, lifting her lantern.

  Hiro Yamamoto blinked in the sudden light. A white T-shirt was stretched across a molded set of pecs, and tight jeans accentuated narrow hips. Hiro had the makings of a rock god. He was even hotter than Mr. Riker.

  “Hey,” he said, coming up short.

  “I was listening to you drumming,” she said. “You’re really good.”

  He gave her a little bow. “The drummer never gets the love. It’s always the lead guitar.”

  “You’re a lot cuter than Mick,” she said.

  “Don’t let Mick hear you say that.” He laced his fingers, stretching his arms. “August said we won’t be playing again for a while yet. This is a weird gig, even for us. Everyone taking off all the time.”

  She remembered that he’d been on the stage when she’d thrown her tantrum. “I hope you got paid up front,” she said, even though she had no reason to believe that August would cheat them. He was so into his integrity tonight. Jerk.

  Hiro got a funny look on his face and rolled his shoulders. “I’m sure he’s good for it.” He stepped into the room. “I was just looking around.”

  She looked more closely at him and felt a familiar heat at the base of her spine. Six-pack, and a drummer, on his way to the top. Getting together was half the reason everyone came to these parties. It wasn’t like it mattered anymore. She could do it if she felt like it. The heat fanned outward, and she smoothed her hair with her free hand.

  “So, what are you doing back here?” he asked. “Hiding?”

  She set her lantern down so that the light bounced off the ceiling, wrapping them both in a muted, flattering glow. “I needed to take a moment away from everyone. I have this neck ache,” she said, stealing the idea from the way he cricked his own neck and rolled his shoulders. “I’ve had it all night and I can’t even think straight. I pulled something.”

  “Oh? I get a lot of those,” he said. “Drumming.” He held out his hands, an offer, and she turned around. Lifting waves of blond hair off her neck for him, she licked her lips and took a slow breath. His hands dipped lightly against her skin as he began kneading her neck and upper back.

  “That’s so nice,” she said, rolling her head, daydreaming about being in Hollywood together, the actress and the rock star. The classic story. It could happen. People who weren’t on her career path had no idea of how likely it actually was.

  Hiro moved in closer, his body heat bathing her in toasty goodness. Then he kissed the flare of her jaw beneath her left earlobe, his breath tickling the inside of her ear.

  I’m going to do this, she thought, turning around to face him. As his lips met hers, a new thought suddenly occurred to her. She could claim he was the father. Young, impassioned artists in love, rocketing to the top together in Los Angeles sounded much better than the truth.

  As his kiss deepened and his arms tightened around her, she realized that this could work out really well for her.

  “Hey,” he murmured, “so…”

  “It’s okay,” she whispered in his ear.

  They kept kissing. Hands began to move. It only took a minute for bells to ring and his breathing went completely ragged.

  “How old are you?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine.” Her mom had initiated the process of emancipating Heather so that she would legally be an adult. Mr. Riker had suggested it, saying that it would make things easier for her in Hollywood. Heather wasn’t sure why, but she hadn’t argued because she had nursed another crazy dream that Mr. Riker would marry her.

  That was before Starbucks. Before she’d seen him all cozy with that woman.

  “I need to get a condom,” Hiro said.

  “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she murmured, pushing farther.

  He slid her arms from around his neck and kissed her knuckles. “I’ve got some in my bag. I’ll be right back.”

  “You really don’t need to do that.”

  She pressed herself against his chest before he finally took a step away and she realized she couldn’t protest too hard for fear of him guessing why she wasn’t so concerned.

  “Right back,” he repeated, trailing his finger down the side of her face.

  “I’ll be waiting,” she purred.

  “Don’t you dare move,” he said.

  He trotted into the darkness.

  His persistence put a minor crimp in her plan, but condoms weren’t a hundred percent effective. She could always say it was defective.

  A few seconds ticked by. Maybe half a minute. She stood in the dim light and looked at all the crap in the room, the cobwebs, the dust. It was gross.

  “God,” she whispered. “What am I doing?”

  She fanned her hands across her abdomen. This was pathetic, and it was wrong. She couldn’t do this to this guy. She didn’t even know him.

  A footfall on cement echoed behind her and she
spun around.

  “Listen,” she began.

  Then she staggered backward.

  And screamed.

  PRIME SUSPECT

  LARSON’S RULE #1: Don’t work if you can cheat instead.

  “What was that?” Larson said as he stepped across the threshold of a shed about fifty feet away from the warehouse.

  It had sounded like someone in trouble.

  “Praveen?” he called, ducking back outside. “Did you hear that?”

  The fog levitated in layers of bundled cotton and the beam from his flashlight bounced off the billowing white. No Praveen. Maybe she’d bailed. Gone home. Scratched herself to death.

  Weirdo.

  “Hello? Praveen?”

  Was she trying to scare him? Have some fun?

  This whole thing was anything but fun. She wouldn’t tell him what the deal with the sweater was, but he was sure it meant something big. Larson didn’t like August tonight. Not a bit. Albino Man was acting like a total a-hole.

  Finally he shrugged and entered the shed. Everybody was letting loose tonight. It was the nature of the game.

  August had installed some fun house mirrors and Larson grunted at the image of himself with no head, then super fat, and then skinny. Praveen had the paper with their clue on it but he remembered the lines:

  GoIng thRough life

  NicKing what you choose

  But Believe it or not

  Eye C u

  That had to be the clue: Eye C u.

  “Hi,” Larson drawled, waving. Maybe there was a camera or something. He tried to peer around the mirrors but they’d been bolted firmly to the walls. He waggled his flashlight all over the room for something to take. A pair of glasses? A telescope?

  He’d realized what the numbers in the sweater had been: part of Alexa DeYoung’s phone number. Larson figured he’d better set the record straight with August. Yes, he had given Alexa a ride to Jacob’s party. And yes, he had slow-danced with her. She’d stepped on his toes and sprayed him with spit while she’d talked so fast he had no idea what she was saying. His friends had made gagging gestures behind her back and Cage laughed so hard he fell down.