Lightspeed: Drug Detectives

Chapter 17 (Act II): A Deceptive Dinner

Hello, everyone! Ariel Axilas here, and welcome back to yet another chapter of my second novel, "Lightspeed: Drug Detectives"!

Do any of you believe in witchcraft? Fortunetelling? Divining everything about a person's being just from a few precious moments of concentration? Then you're going to fucking LOVE where my crew and I ended up. .....Kind of. We followed a lead from the drug junkies at the apartment complex, and found ourselves at Celeste's Clairvoyance Shop, which honestly looks like an otherworldly palace hovering around an unknown galaxy. What can I say? Girl knows how to pull off both exterior and interior decorating!

I sent Erica Shields, Marle Atkins, and Herman away to explore the interior while I spoke with the owner, Celeste, about a meeting that took place between one of the apartment complex drug junkies and a representative of their so-called "superiors".....only to find that Celeste knows pretty much nothing since she focused more on self-preservation rather than eavesdropping.

I can't blame her. A person's first and foremost concern should always be their own well-being. Still, it fucking sucks knowing that our trail's gone cold once again. But thankfully, it wasn't all shit, piss, trash, and dog water. Celeste offered to shelter us for as long as our investigation goes on, and even provide her services to us free of charge.....though I know she's just sucking up to me and kissing my ass 'cause I'm a superhero. But this is an instance where it actively helps my friends and I—specifically, by saving money—so who was I to turn her down? Anyways, that chapter pretty much ended with me giving the alert to the others, telling them that the Clairvoyance Shop is now our home away from home and letting them know to start unpacking.

This time, after an afternoon spent resting, we have dinner with Celeste, and I tell everyone my next steps. I'm not giving up, I assure you. The Celestial Syndicate will be going down before the weekend is up. No, not "Celeste". The "Celestial Syndicate". Their names are similar, though, I'll give you that. For reference, it's Saturday afternoon around dinner time. By this time tomorrow—or sometime past it—the Syndicate will be destroyed.

I'll even bet you $5 for it. .....Oh, who am I kidding? You're a reader, so you couldn't accept my bet even if you wanted to!

.....Whatever. On with the novel!

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I, Lightspeed, have recently woken up from an afternoon nap shortly after my team—consisting of myself, Erica Shields, Marle Atkins, and the Paragon Herman—finished unpacking our belongings inside Celeste's Clairvoyance shop; the owner, Celeste, kindly offered to shelter us for as long as our investigation persists.

You don't really find a lot of kindhearted and accommodating people like her anymore. Bless her soul. Bless it. Bless it. Bless it now.

.....Don't know where that came from. Whatever.

We've basically turned the Clairvoyance Shop into our home away from home; our "base", if you will. Celeste's never really asked us a lot of questions; if other customers came in and saw us, she'd just tell them the truth.

And the truth is that my badass posse and I need to use the Clairvoyance Shop as our "base".....or our mission will fail, the Celestial Syndicate will win, they'll maintain a cast-iron grip on the drug trade, countless families will be doomed, and numerous lives will be ruined. Oh, and overdose deaths will continue to claim people.

.....Do you think I'm being too dramatic? 'Cause I honestly don't think I'm stressing this enough.

But back to me. For some stupid reason—or just out of an abundance of caution to not reveal my true identity to Celeste—I napped while still in my costume. Sure, it felt unfamiliar as hell, but it actually wasn't really that bad once I got used to it. I literally just laid lengthwise on one of the long couches and caught some Z's for a few hours alongside the rest of my friends while Celeste continued to run her business in the meantime.