The Fab Five- Pentagonix

Chapter 22- Alyssa

Alyssa's P.O.V.

"So where were you last night?" My mom questioned casually as I walked into the kitchen. I was not in the mood for this conversation. I spent the night at Dakota's house after our waterfall picnic date thing, and let's just say things got pretty heated. Haha just kidding. Dakota doesn't want us to do anything and then find out a few weeks later that oops! I'm pregnant! He doesn't want to be a dad yet. So yeah that didn't happen. I'm a good kid, and I don't know why she doubts me. Either way, we were just hanging out and we fell asleep watching a movie, and when I woke up it was like 4 in the morning. I woke Dakota up and he took me home. I used my key to get into the house and went to sleep. Innocent enough right. Of course I couldn't tell my mom that. She wouldn't see that as innocent at all. She doesn't even know about Dakota. She knows of him, but she doesn't know anything about him and I don't intend on her finding out. She would go absolutely ballistic. Even if Dakota wasn't an adult and way too old for me in her eyes, she still wouldn't find it okay that I was at a boy's- ahem I mean man's- house until 4 in the morning. I guess I don't blame her.

"I fell asleep watching a movie at Beck's." Enough of the truth right? Don't judge me.

"Right..." Oh great. She wasn't buying my shit. "Just don't let it happen again. I don't need to be worrying about your whereabouts at unholy hours of the morning." She says while focusing more on the news than my reason for being home so late.

"Sure thing." I grab a granola bar and head towards the door.

"Wait." I hear from behind me. I turn to see that my mom's attention is now fully on me with her eyes fixed on my hand holding the door knob.

"Yes?" I ask hoping she didn't catch on that it was a lie. She looks up at my face and frowns a little.

"Just be careful, okay? I trust you, just don't make any stupid decisions." I can't tell if she has figured out where I actually was, but all I know is that she seemed genuinely concerned. Her gaze flickers to the TV she was just watching intently a moment ago and I freeze. On the television screen is Claire's mug shot.

"Mom...I..." I try to figure out what to say to make her feel better about the fact that my best friend since I was 5 is in jail, but she cuts me off.

"You are going to be late." She returns to her coffee with a bored expression and I know that this conversation is over. I start to walk back to the door, and as I do I look over my shoulder just in time to see a tear roll down my mom's cheek before she quickly wipes it away. I open the door and practically run to Dakota's car that sits humming on the side of the road.

+ 

"We have enough." We all gathered around Viv staring at the money she was holding in disbelief.

"We have exactly enough to get her out." I felt a smile start to spread across my face. I haven't seen Claire in a while, and to be honest, I really miss her. She is like my other half. Out of the whole group, she is the one I am closest to. We are basically the same person. It really hurts that we only get to see her occasionally, and every time we do she is staring at us through those damn metal bars with a sad expression. I feel like a part of me went into that jail with her, and for the first time in over a month, I will get that part back.

"I will hold the money until the end of the day." I say holding my hand out to Vivian. She hands the money over and I fold it up and put it away in my purse. "Dakota is going to pick us all up after school and we are going to go down to the jail to get Claire out." I announce. Everyone murmured their "okay"s and "alright"s and we all turned our separate ways to go to home room.

This was going to be a long day.

+

The last bell rings, releasing us for the day, and we all file into Dakota's car nervous about what is coming next. No one talks as we travel the 15 minutes it takes to get to the jail. When we get there Dakota tells me to go in with him and everyone else to stay in the car. There were a lot of protests but eventually everyone just shut up and agreed. We walked slowly over to the door and Dakota opened it and motioned for me to go first. We walked up to the counter and the police officer there looked extremely uninterested in the fact that he had visitors.