Page 2 of Deceit & Destruction

Things spiraled from there.

Jennings wanted Webber to eliminate Victoria. It was one thing for my buddy to run his mouth, but to physically harm someone was too much for him—hence the overdose.

But that didn’t save Victoria.

Jennings took matters into his own hands and wound up brutally beating Alex’s girl. She barely survived and Jennings…well, he went missing after that. Three months and still no one knows what happened to that piece of shit. It’s like he vanished into thin air.

“Look, we did our time,” Webber says, dragging my thoughts away from the past. “There is no reason to believe Coach Riley isn’t going to lift the suspension.”

Following Webber’s overdose, the cops brought me and Alex down to the station for questioning since we were the ones who found him. Stonewall has a strict no drug use policy when it comes to their athletes and even though our piss tests came back clean, we were put on a ninety-day suspension. Most would consider that a slap on the wrist, but the scouts have been at every game and with the draft coming up, sitting on the fucking bench hasn’t done much good for the three of us. If we want to play for the NFL, we need to be on the field.

The door to Coach Riley’s office opens causing us both to divert our gazes to the man who holds out futures in the palm of his hand. Coach’s eyes lock with mine, a blank expression filling his face.

“Robinson, you’re up first.”

Now would be a good time to send up some prayers, but God isn’t my biggest fan. Hell, I don’t even think the Devil likes me much these days.

“Wish me luck,” I mutter.

* * *

I googled my symptoms,and it turns out I’m fucked—with a capital F.

“Alright so we need a plan,” Webber says as he shoves a handful of chips into his mouth. He calls it stress eating but I’m not sure what the hell he’s stressed about. Coach lifted his suspension. The guy is free and clear to play.

Me—not so much.

I’m failing two courses and until I get my grades up, Coach is keeping me on the fucking bench. The fucking guy completely blindsided me.

I swipe a hand over my face.

“We need to find you a tutor, someone who can help with Physics and Humanities,” Webber says, crumbling his empty bag of chips in his hand. He stares at me for a beat. “I can’t believe you’re failing Humanities. It’s Shakespeare, man. We learned that shit in high school.”

I glare at him.

I wouldn’t be failing shit if I wasn’t so goddamn tired. When I’m not practicing, I’m working as a bartender at Dizzy’s—a gig I got after everything went down with Webber. The campus was too hot for me to continue selling drugs and with Alex moving in with Victoria, that left me and Webber responsible for his share of the rent. Unlike most of the students at Stonewall, I don’t come from wealth—things were already tight for me. Now, I’m bringing in half of what I used to with double the expenses and on top of everything else, I’m going to have to pay for a fucking tutor.

Yeah, like I said, I’m fucked.

“You know there’s this girl in my ethics class—Cassie Phillips.”

The name doesn’t ring any bells.

“What about her?”

He tosses the empty bag of chips into the trash at the end of the table and brings his eyes back to me.

“She used to tutor Jennings.”

I’m fucked, but I’m not looking to bemotherfucked.

“No thank you. I don’t want no part of anyone associated with that piece of shit.”

He shakes his head.

“Nah, I don’t think she’s one of them.”

When he says one of them, he means the Scorpio Society.

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