The Trouble With Destiny by Lauren Morrill Read Free Book Online

been a change.”
    I glance around the room and notice a distinct lack of oversized instrument cases. All I see are mirrored café tables pushed up against the wall with black chairs stacked on top of them. One of the freshman Athenas has dragged a chair across the shiny tiled floor and is balancing on top of it while she tries to take down a disco ball that’s hanging low over what I assume is a dance floor.
    The band crowds into the open door behind me, jockeying for position to watch the showdown.
    “What did you do with our instruments?” My blood is pounding in my ears. I’m already picturing them settling onto the ocean floor, a cloud of sand rising up while tropical fish swarm around them. She’s not
that
evil, is she?
    A stormy look crosses Demi’s face. I follow her gaze and see that she’s glaring at Russ, who’s just wedged himself through the crowd.
    “Hey, Coach,” he says, then catches the combination stress-and-rage face I’m making. “I mean, uh, Liza. I was looking for y’all. I thought we had practice.”
    Staring at his innocent smile, I worry my brain might explode and ooze out of my ears. I take a deep breath, determined not to lose my cool in front of either the band
or
Demi and her posse of singing dancebots.
    “We do, Russ,” I say in a voice so icy and controlled that I hear Huck gasp. “Do you not remember me asking you to make sure our instruments got to our practice space? Which is here?” I gesture around the room, empty of instruments.
    Russ grins. “Yeah, but Missy said that there was a mix-up, so I moved our stuff. She gave me a luggage cart and everything. C’mon, I’ll show you.” Russ turns back toward the door. I shoot Missy a death glare. She gives me a smile and a finger-wagging wave.
    “Let’s just go,” Huck says. He loops his arm through mine and leads me through the door after Russ. The rest of the band falls in behind us. “Not worth it.”
    We make our way back down the mirrored hallway. “Huck, what am I going to do?” I whisper.
    “About what?”
    “What do you mean
what
? It was already going to be an uphill battle to beat the Athenas, but now they’re using Russ as a saboteur!”
    “Um, I doubt Russ is a saboteur. I think he’s just dumb,” Huck says. I glance at Russ’s back, a gray Holland High Football T-shirt stretched over his broad shoulders. We follow him down two flights of stairs. “Besides, didn’t Demi just dump him?”
    Huck has a point. Still, better safe than sorry. “Please, that’s probably all just a ruse. Or maybe he’s trying to get her back by sabotaging us. Either way, he can’t be trusted.”
    “Uh,
drama
much?” Huck rolls his eyes, but I ignore him. I don’t trust Demi, so I can’t trust Russ.
    Russ leads us down a third flight of stairs, down another hallway, and around a corner to another doorway. A sign overhead reads PARADISE ALLEY BOWLING , and a handwritten note taped to the door reads
Sorry, Closed for Repairs.
    Russ throws me another grin, then shoves through the door into the darkened bowling alley. He flicks on a light, and I see all our instrument cases stacked in an impossible tower, crowding the small lobby area and reaching over into the seats at the end of the four lanes. Against the back wall, a ladder is set up surrounded by caution tape, an open duct exposed on the floor. The room is almost the same size as the studio upstairs. Unfortunately, most of the space is taken up by orange plastic seats bolted to the floor, racks of bowling balls, computer scoring units, and a
freaking bowling alley.
The rest of my fellow musicians crowd in behind me, leaving almost no room to turn around, much less rehearse.
    “This won’t work!” I hiss to Huck, my panic level reaching code red. My iron grip on my cool is loosening with each passing second.
    “Maybe if we unpack everything and move the cases out into the hall, there might be some space?” Russ runs his hand through his beach-blond hair. Everyone