Ghost City

56

Pow! Pow! That was the sound of two gunshots going off and disturbing my sleep. I jumped up from the couch only to find Sierra and Emily's bodies nearing where I was. I then looked over at Carter, who was now tucking his gun away. I looked over at Sierra again and shook my head in disbelief.

"You lied to me!" I angrily yelled at Carter as I stared at her dead body. "You promised me you wouldn't kill her!"

"I changed my mind," Carter shrugged callously.

While shaking my head, I asked, "So what- gonna kill me next?"

"She lied to you and used you!" Carter yelled at me. "Why are you defending her?!"

I glimpsed at her lifeless body and turned my back while saying, "Doesn't mean she needed to die."

"They were about to kill you!" Carter yelled, and it was then that I noticed the syringe in Sierra's hand and the knife in Emily's. Timely, everyone came running out of their rooms to see what had happened.

"What's going on?" Sagacity asked for everyone.

Carter explained, "I doze off for five minutes and woke to these two idiots trying to drug Damien instead of trying to escape."

My mother walked over to me and stopped at Sierra's body. She then took the bloody syringe out of her hand and suggested, "If you can find out what type of drugs are in this, we might be able to find out where they got it from. Brian died from getting drugged. Maybe it's the same drugs."

"That's a good idea," Junior nodded before grabbing a tissue from the tissue box near him. He then took the syringe from my mother and informed, "I'm gonna drop this off at The Lab."

"The Lab?" I frowned as Junior left.

Rico chuckled, "Mafia stuff, lil man. Don't question it." Rico then said, "You got a lil something on your shirt." I looked at my shoulder and noticed a speck of blood on it, and in disgust, I took my shirt off, leaving me in a tank.

I then checked the time on my wrist. We had only been working on this case for three hours, yet it felt like eternity. What was worse was that I had three hours to make shit right with Sagacity, and I couldn't even get that done.

"I'll have this cleaned up. Y'all could go back to y'all rooms until new info comes in," Carter said, and we all nodded, only I didn't really have a room to stay in. I decided, however, that I'd go to the room Aurora and Sagacity were in because I was sure that Aurora had been woken by the sound of gunshots.

Sagacity and I entered the room together, and I flicked on the lights. Like expected. Aurora was wide awake and scared.

"What was that?" Aurora innocently asked.

"Nothing to worry about, sweetheart," Sagacity said as she climbed into bed and wrapped her arms around Aurora. "Go back to sleep."

"Not without Daddy," she shook her head, and I looked over at Sagacity for permission. City gave a gentle nod, so I turned the lights off and went on the side of the bed that was opposite to City's so that we could sandwich our daughter.

I placed a kiss on Aurora's forehead before encouraging, "Get some sleep, Princess."

"Okay," she yawned before taking my hand and wrapping it around herself and her mom. City's body immediately tensed up, but she didn't say anything. I'd remove my hand when Aurora would fall asleep, but until then, I decided to enjoy the possibly last time that I'd be touching my fiancé.

The following day
The warm smell of food caused my eyes to flutter open. I didn't even know what exactly I was smelling. All I knew was that it had my stomach grumbling.

I looked beside me on the bed, but neither Aurora nor City was there. The sun shone brightly through the curtains, and I shielded my eyes before rolling out of bed. After a yawn and stretch, I made my way to the dining room, where everyone was casually eating in silence.

"Finally," Titan teased. "Thought you'd be knocked forever."

"Long night," I sighed.

"Shorter day," Junior smirked before sipping orange juice.

Mother then informed, "The drugs from the syringe Sierra had immediately stood out to the person that examined it."

"So?" I frowned.

"He knew who made the drug," Carter answered.

"Yeah, but we still don't know who killed my pops," I said before yawning.

Carter looked to Sagacity and asked, "Is he this slow without food in his system?" Sagacity cracked a faint smile before connecting eyes with me.

She explained, "The guy who examined the syringe is the one that makes the drugs."

"So you found the guy?" I frowned. "He's responsible?"

"The drug analyst is Mikey Aruba. He used to be a member of Et Reprobi until I found out about his chemistry degrees and felt he'd be more useful in specific areas that I won't mention right now," Carter answered. "Mikey's ex is Josephine. He gave us her address and phone number, and we paid her a visit. What I have left to say, I think you'll want to take a seat for."