Free Web NovelChapter 74: Chapter 74 - Mystery in the Locker Room
By game call time, the stadium was already alive outside.
The band blasted uneven notes near the field. The student section screamed at nothing. Cars filled the parking lot, and the air smelled like wet grass, popcorn, and rain that had not decided if it wanted to happen.
Roxie arrived early because she needed a minute before everyone saw her sitting out.
She told herself she was only going to her locker for her jacket.
Maybe her water bottle.
Maybe the last pieces of her pride if they had rolled under the bench.
The cheer locker room was empty when she walked in.
Her locker stood at the end of the row, looking normal again.
Roxie hated it for that.
She spun the combination and opened the door.
Then she stopped.
A black garment bag hung inside.
Plain. Clean. Zipped up.
Hanging exactly where her ruined uniform had been.
Roxie’s hand stayed on the locker door.
The noise from the stadium blurred into one low roar behind the gym walls.
For a few seconds, she only stared.
She did not touch it.
Touching it meant accepting help.
Accepting help meant owing someone.
Owing someone meant there was a string attached somewhere, and Roxie was so tired of strings she could feel them around her throat.
Her eyes moved over the bag.
There was nothing attached to the hanger. Whoever left it had not signed anything, claimed anything, or left her a single clue to hate properly.
Roxie reached for the zipper and pulled it down.
Inside was a current-season uniform.
Black and red shell.
Clean Ravens lettering.
Matching skirt.
Red bow clipped neatly to the hanger.
Regulation.
Perfectly folded.
Exactly her size.
Roxie’s chest squeezed so hard it almost hurt.
She looked over her shoulder.
The locker room was still empty.
No Angela.
No Karen.
No Kendall standing by the mirrors with that smug little mouth.
Just Roxie, the locker, and a uniform that had appeared after she had already accepted disappearing from the field.
For a second, she hated it.
Then she hated how badly she needed it.
She thought of Karen offering her own uniform without blinking.
Angela looking ready to cry and fight a photographer, a cheerleader, or God.
Zac saying he could pay and the way her pride had sliced both of them open.
Kendall’s face yesterday, unreadable in the locker room while everyone tried to push them into a fight.
Too many possibilities sat inside that garment bag.
Roxie closed her eyes.
The game started soon.
Suspicion could wait.
Pride could limp for one night.
Whoever had shredded her uniform had wanted her sitting in regular clothes while the Ravens ran out under the lights.
Roxie pulled the garment bag out of her locker.
That was not happening.
By the time the first cheerleaders came in, Roxie was sitting on the bench in full uniform.
Hair done.
Bow tied.
White sneakers clean.
Pom-poms beside her like she had not spent the entire day mentally preparing to sit in the bleachers and hate everyone with working lungs.
The locker room door opened, and two juniors walked in laughing.
They stopped.
One of them bumped into the other.
"Ow," the second girl said, then saw Roxie.
Her mouth fell open.
Roxie lifted an eyebrow. "Do you need medical attention?"
The girl blinked. "Captain, you’re in uniform."
"Sharp eye."
"But..." Her gaze dropped to the shell, the skirt, the bow. "How?"
The other junior looked around the locker room like the answer might be hiding under a bench. "I thought yours was ruined, Captain."
"It was."
"So whose is that?" freewёbnoνel.com
Roxie leaned back against the locker, acting casual with the kind of effort that should have earned school credit. "Mine."
The girls stared.
For once, Roxie wanted the room to look. She wanted whoever had waited for her to sit out tonight to hear the gossip before kickoff.
Roxie Jones had a uniform.
Roxie Jones was cheering.
Roxie Jones was apparently harder to kill than school spirit.
More girls came in.
The reaction spread fast.
Angela and Karen arrived together, both mid-argument.
They stepped inside and froze.
Roxie watched their faces change.
Angela’s eyes went huge first. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Karen’s mouth parted slightly, which for Karen was basically close to fainting.
Roxie smiled. "Hi."
Angela dropped her bag.
It hit the floor with a loud thud.
"Oh my God."
Karen looked Roxie up and down, slow and sharp. "That’s a uniform."
"Very good. Everyone is doing observation exercises today."
Angela crossed the room so fast Roxie barely had time to brace before Angela grabbed both her arms.
"Where did it come from?"
"I don’t know." She whispered. "It was on my locker."
Karen stepped closer, eyes narrowed. "Was there a note?"
Roxie shook her head. "Just the uniform."
Angela’s face twisted. "That is creepy. And you need to change your passcode."
Roxie stood and smoothed the skirt down, trying not to show how good it felt to have the right uniform on again. The fabric fit the way it was supposed to. The shell sat clean against her ribs. The skirt hit exactly where it should. Everything matched.
It was stupid how much fabric could change a person’s breathing.
For the first time all day, Roxie felt like herself again.
Or close enough to fake it.
A girl from the junior line pointed at the uniform. "Did Captain Kendall let you borrow hers?"
The whole room shifted.
There it was.
The thing everyone wanted to ask but nobody wanted to be first to say.
Kendall was near the far lockers, zipping her bag with her own uniform already on. She looked over slowly, like the question had physically offended her.
"As if," Kendall said.
The junior flushed.
Kendall shut her locker. "I wouldn’t let her touch anything I own."
Angela’s eyes narrowed. "Wow. Warm."
Kendall gave her a look. "I’m being honest."
Roxie studied Kendall’s face.
Nothing.
No smug smile.
No guilty twitch.
No hidden little victory.
Just Kendall looking polished, irritated, and mildly offended that anyone thought she would hand Roxie a lifeline in public.
Which either meant Kendall had nothing to do with it, or she was better at lying than Roxie wanted to admit.
Kendall’s gaze slid to Roxie. "Besides, mine wouldn’t fit her."
A few girls made sounds.
Angela stepped forward. "Do you want to try saying that again without being a nightmare?"
Kendall rolled her eyes. "Sure. I’ll make sure to put that in my calendar."
Still a bitch. Roxie was relieved.
A bigger, more exhausted part of her wanted to believe the uniform was real and safe and not a trap with better stitching.
Coach Miller came in five minutes later with a clipboard and a face already prepared to yell.
Then he saw Roxie.
His steps slowed.
His eyes moved over the uniform, checking the fit, the logo, the skirt, the bow. Coach face. Inspection face. Please-do-not-give-admin-a-reason-to-email-me face.
"Jones."
"Coach."
"I thought we had a problem."
"We found a solution."
"Good. Field," he said.
The squad moved.
Pom-poms lifted. Bags slammed shut. Shoes squeaked against the floor. The locker room filled with last-second panic, lip gloss checks, bow fixes, and the familiar game-day electricity that made everyone louder than necessary.
Roxie stood in the middle of it, uniform on, heart still sore, and felt the first dangerous spark of belief.
She was going to cheer.
Whoever had wanted her in the bleachers could choke on that.
They walked out through the gym doors and into the stadium noise.
The air outside was cool and damp, the sky low with clouds that had been threatening rain all afternoon. Stadium lights glared white over the field. The student section was already packed in black and red, bodies pressed together, faces painted, signs waving.
PROTECT THE NEST.
UNDEFEATED.
QB1 FOR PRESIDENT.
Roxie rolled her eyes at that last one.
Mason had definitely made it.
The band hit a loud, messy note as the cheer squad lined up near the track. The football team was warming up near the forty-yard line, helmets off, shoulder pads making them look larger than life in that ridiculous way football boys loved.
Roxie told herself not to look.
So naturally, she looked.
Zac was near the sideline with Dylan and Mason. He had his helmet in one hand, chin tipped down while Dylan said something close to his ear.
Then Zac saw her.
Everything about his face changed.
It was not dramatic.
That was why it hit.
His shoulders dropped a little. His mouth parted like he had been holding a breath he did not know what to do with. Relief moved across his face so clearly Roxie felt it from across the field.
Roxie’s stomach pulled tight.
Dylan followed Zac’s line of sight, saw Roxie, then immediately shoved Zac’s shoulder.
Zac blinked.
Dylan pointed toward the field with an expression that clearly said, Focus, idiot.
Mason leaned in too, probably adding something deeply unnecessary.
Zac looked away from Roxie, but not before his mouth curved.
Roxie looked down at her pom-poms before her face betrayed her in front of four hundred people and a marching band.
That was when she saw Bianca.
She was sitting close to the track.
Too close.
Bianca usually sat higher, where people could see her without her looking like she cared. Tonight, she had chosen a lower row near the cheer line, legs crossed, hair perfect, mouth painted in a soft pink that looked expensive and mean.
Lily sat beside her, whispering something.
Bianca was not listening.
Her eyes were on Roxie’s uniform.
Not Roxie’s face.
The uniform.
Her expression was tight in the tiny space between shock and fury. It flickered for half a second before she smoothed it away, but Roxie caught it.
Of course she caught it.
She had spent years reading girls like Bianca because girls like Bianca survived by making their cruelty look accidental.
Bianca’s gaze moved from the clean shell to the matching skirt, then slowly to Roxie’s face.
Their eyes met.
The stadium noise pulled back for one strange second.
Roxie understood.
Bianca had sat close because she wanted to watch.
She wanted front-row access to Roxie in regular clothes. Roxie embarrassed. Roxie benched. Roxie standing uselessly while the squad performed without her.
She had come prepared to enjoy the damage.
But Roxie was not sitting.
Roxie was in uniform.
Bianca’s smile disappeared.
Just for a second.
That was enough.
Roxie’s fingers tightened around her pom-poms.
First the hair.
Then the uniform.
The note.
The timing.
The way Bianca had placed herself close enough to see the result.
Roxie did not have proof.
But certainty settled in her chest anyway, sharp and hot.
Bianca Reeves had done this.
Or she had helped.
Or she knew who had.
Roxie stared at her across the track, smile slowly fixing itself onto her face because the music was starting and the squad was about to move.
She lifted her chin.
Bianca wanted a showdown.
Fine.
She’ll give her one.
