Who She Is

~69~

Alyx's POV

After a nap, I wake up to the sound of my mom getting home. I send a message to Amaya asking if she's okay before climbing out of bed. I slip downstairs to see if I can talk my mom into making us something to eat. When I turn the corner into the kitchen, I see her elbows propped up on the counter and her face buried into her hands.

"Hey, Mom. You okay?"

I startle her because her body jumps at the sound of my voice. "Oh, you scared me. Yeah, I'm fine. Just a stressful case."

"I'm sorry. How bad is this one?"

"You know I'm not supposed to share any information about the cases."

"But...?" I tease.

"Don't say a word to anyone. I think we've got a new dealer in town. A lot more people are getting caught with drugs, and there is some new type going around. We've had a poor, young girl get admitted into the hospital for an overdose. Claimed she didn't take anything so I'm thinking she's either lying and whatever she took was laced with it, or someone slipped it to her."

"Does she not remember anything?" I ask, feeling sorry for the girl.

"Not a thing," Mom says, burying her face back in her hands.

"How old is she?"

"Fifteen."

"Who is she?"

She lifts her face up and looks at me with disbelief. "I can't tell you a victim's name, Alyx. You shouldn't know her, though. She goes to Briar High."

"Oh." That's the next town over. "Well, that's awful. Is she going to be okay?"

"The doctors believe so, but the drug did some damage to her organs."

"Well, I hope she recovers."

"So do I. I also hope I catch the sorry excuse of a human who is going around distributing it."

My gut instantly clenches up. It's not her, right? Amaya's not selling something deadly, right? I mean, it's not like she has much of a choice. Amaya did say other people sell for him, so there's a possibility it's not her. "Yeah, so do I," I try to say without sounding like I might know something. I really don't, though. I only know one of his sellers, and I'm never giving her name up.

"Oh, yeah. I was going to ask. Did you have a fun over at Wesley's?"

I attempt to control the heat trying to make its way to my cheeks. "Yeah, I did. We just played some games on his PlayStation," I lie. Well, I definitely did have fun this weekend, so that part wasn't a lie.

"What'd you do today? Just hung out here?"

"Yeah." Another lie.

"Oh, I should be off Thanksgiving. I requested time off and got accepted."

I'm practically beaming at her statement. "Really?!"

"Don't get your hopes up too high, though. With the way this case is looking, things could go either way." I let a groan out. "I'm sorry. Were you still wanting to invite Maya?"

I chew on my lower lip. "I kind of already did."

She lets a sigh out. "You're putting me in a tight spot. I'm scared I'm going to end up disappointing two people now."

"I mean... you could just be here," I mumble, kind of hoping she didn't hear me.

"Alyx," she scolds.

"Sorry."