A Silver Summer

Chapter 23

Chapter twenty three

Anika heard a voice mixed in with Gelsey's as she stood outside the office door. Her palms were damp and clammy with moisture but her throat was dry and made her tongue feel like sand paper against the roof of her mouth. 

When lunch had ended and Anika said she had to visit Gelsey. Her friends didn't need to verbally ask their questions; they burned in their eyes along with a sense of worry. But after many assurances that she was fine, Anika branched off from the group as they headed off to kick ball. 

Ryleigh had been absent from sight and Anika couldn't stop the guilt that slammed into her gut. Hours before he had been trying to help, thinking she was in physical pain when she had emotional pain. And now that she accepted her hearts calling for him, he probably had forgotten about her already. After all, she had told him to leave her alone. 

"Everything will be okay." Gelsey promised. Anika wondered when she had opened the door but the officer in Gelsey's office had Anika freezing briefly. 

"Hello. I'm Officer Keye." Anika looked between Gelsey and the other lady cop. She was thin, and professionally dressed in her black pants and her blue uniform shirt tucked in with a thick black belt. Her chestnut brown hair was pulled back in a bun much like Gelsey's. 

"Hi." Anika tried to smile, but she was sure it came out more like a grimace. 

"Can we do this quick?" Anika shuffled nervously. 

The officer nodded with a pity smile on her face but Anika ignored it and kept her eyes on her hands all throughout the questioning. 

Anika was asked to give a description of the five guys in the alley as best as she could. This was one of the things that she could recall very easily since she saw them nearly every night in her dreams. Anika didn't miss the angry glint in Gelsey's eyes when she had to go through the night again. 

"Thank you, Gelsey and Anika. There have been complaints of a group of men in the area and now we have a profile to fit them. When we do arrest them, they will be charged for this crime." Officer Keye said as she stood up along with Anika and Gelsey. 

"Thanks for coming out here." Gelsey showed the officer to the door and gave her the camp's phone number. She left after another minute of talking and throwing another sad smile in Anika's direction. 

"Thank you for coming back, Anika." Gelsey tiredly slumped in her seat. Anika frowned at the worried creases in her camp leader's forehead. 

"I said I would." she mumbled. 

Gelsey lifted her eyes from the stack of papers on her desk to meet Anika's grey ones. A small smile lifted her lips as she quietly sighed. 

"Well, there's ten minutes left till second activities are over." Gelsey announced, staring at her wrist watch. "You've been dismissed from them but you could cheer from the side lines. Or you could pass by the nurse. She might want to check up on you." Gelsey said, gesturing to Anika's back. 

"Oh, sure." Anika walked across the room to the door but turned around. "Um, do we get phone calls? Being the delinquents an' all." 

"Of course. The phones are on the backside of the office building." Gelsey smiled which Anika returned before heading to the infirmary down the hall. 

The nurse asked a few questions and had Anika rate her pain on a one to ten scale as she checked over her bruises. Most of them were now a stormy purple or green. 

After being given a different pain reliever, Anika set around the building to find the phones. On one of the sides, the whole shingled wall was lined with the chipped black painted phones.