I'd Sell My Soul

Chapter 4: Town Hall

Alison Monroe's POV

We settled into our seats at town hall with Katie on my right in between Sophie and I. Levi sat on my left and was reading the pamphlet town council handed out on what would be covered during the meeting. I was looking around the room and slowly recognizing most people around us. People we knew from church, former teachers I had, some former classmates, friends of Farrah. It was almost overwhelming in a way. The town hall itself was the church, they had just rearranged the pews to accommodate the people who actually attended.

"Alright ladies and Levi, here's the goods." Katie produces a grocery bag from in her purse full of snacks. She hands Sophie a bag of sour candy.

"Katie, you rock." Sophie smiles as she tears the bag open, early to consume the sugary mess.

"I know. Here's your faves." Katie turns to me and offers kettle corn which I promptly accept. "Levi you want your chips?"

"So wildly inappropriate of you to bring snacks, this is a meeting about the future of our town Katie." Levi looks over at her. I blink at him and offer some kettle corn to which he rolls his eyes and grabs a handful. I giggle slightly at this.

"Okay folks the fall town hall is officially in session, first order of business, the raccoons. People we've been over this, you gotta quit feeding them." Mayor John Hagen takes the stage.

"But they're cute and hungry!" Katie calls from our seats in the back.

"Kathryn, they're scavengers. They can find food in the forest." Mayor Hagen pinches the bridge of his nose, already over Katie's schemes. Mayor Hagen was the principal at the high school. He's familiar with Katie and seeing her in his office for a many of offenses she committed during her four years at Colfax High School.

"Lame!" Katie yells and throws kettle corn. People turn around and stare daggers at the both of us to which I respond with my pointer finger pointing directly at Katie.

"Quit it!" Levi leans down, facing towards the right and whisper shouts at Katie.

"Shhhh!" Someone turns around and shushes Levi.

"Nami Yakamora, you better not shush me again or I'll stop serving fish sticks at Dawson's." Levi warned her to which she raised an eyebrow and turned back around. "That's what I thought."

"Okay so next order of business, the supermarket parking lot is getting repaved." Mayor Hagen presses on. There's a huge groan from the crowd. "Now I'm aware at how inconvenient this is so I'm opting for drive up orders becoming a thing ."

"I don't know how to use my damn computer!" A woman as I recognize as Lesli Marks pipes up. "My daughter gets too frustrated trying to reach me."

"Lesli the senior center has started offering classes for that exact reason." Mayor Hagen grips his clipboard harder.

"Are you calling me a senior?" Lesli leans forward in her chair. People around her pull away a bit.

"Oooo no he didn't." Katie whoops to which I elbow her.

"Stop it!" Levi hisses at her.

"You can't change me!" She whisper squeaks back at him as Sophie laughs. I put a hand over my mouth to muffle my laughter. These were the times I missed.

"I'm gonna kill her." Levi whispers to me. I snort.

"Okay people, moving on, we have a new old resident, please join me in welcoming back Alison Monroe and thank her for not taking our Sophie back to Seattle." Mayor Hagen gestures to me. My cheeks burn as everyone turns and looks at me, clapping. I put a hand up in a wave and scrunch down in my seat a bit as Katie hollers.

"WHOOOHOO GO ALI!" Katie stands up and cheers.

"Alright, you're done." Levi stands up and sauntered over to Katie who gathers up her things and walks out the back door. Sophie and I give each other a look before standing up and following them out.

Sophie claimed she was tired so I gave her the whole 'home alone' speech; Not to open the door for strangers and call me if anything goes wrong. I left my number on the fridge. Katie promptly gave Sophie her cell phone number too. Levi drove out to Farrah's house and dropped Sophie off who got out of the car without a single word. We decided to drive around town for a bit as Levi was showing me everything that had changed since I left. Spoiler alert, not much had changed.

"Let's go out to the creek. I've got beers in the back." Katie turns to Levi from the passenger side .

"That's fine but it'll be cold." He warns her as he steers onto the road.

"Theres a blanket back here." I lift an old knit blanket up from the floor.

"Perfect. We'll use that and Levi can fuckin freeze." Katie chuckled.

When we arrived at the creek there was shadows of a lot of people around a fire pit with a rather big bonfire. Levi stopped the car.

"Bunch of teens drinking." Levi points to one walking by holding a beer.

"Gross. Let's go somewhere else." Katie sighs. Something caused the hair on the back of my neck to raise and I began to scan the line of teens when my eyes fell on a young blonde girl with a beer in her hand and a man that looks too old for her kissing her neck.

"Wait! That's Sophie!" I put myself between Levi and Katie and point out the windshield at the blonde.

"That lying little girl. She wasn't tired, there was a bonfire she was trying to go to." Katie exclaims.

"I gotta get her." I open the door and jump out of the car as do Levi and Katie. They follow me over to Sophie. I storm right up to her and her eyes look like they could pop out of her head.

"Too tired huh?!" I cross my arms and scowl.

"Aunt Ali...what are you doing?!" Sophie blinks.