Mona Liza Lies

12 | More Than That

Fin met her eyes quickly, his mind going blank.

"Don't look like I confessed to a murder." She scoffed. "The same student who told me you sold him the drugs also told me you were reluctant to give them to him. As if you had second thoughts. I believe his exact words were — you better buy as much as you can because he doesn't look tough enough to be in the job for too long."

"So that's why you didn't go to the cops."

"If I help throw you in jail but there's still someone else selling these drugs, what's the point?" Liza said smugly. "So I'll ask you again. What is this new drug and who's making you sell them?"

Fin suddenly felt like he was being suffocated by her glance. There was something about her that he didn't like at all. But someone was offering him a way out. He'd be an idiot not to take it.

"It's a synthetic drug." He started, slowly. "I'm not involved with the manufacturing part of the process, but I do know it's something no one's sold before. Or made before. Quite possibly, it's legal."

"What?"

"Most of the synthetic drugs are legal because people don't know about them. Just imagine LSD, yeah? What if someone made a new form of pills that work like LSD but doesn't have its chemical composition?"

"Then it becomes legal?" Liza asked, surprised.

"As long as they're not tested by the government, yes. New drugs are being added to the banned list every single day, but the fact remains that we can always just make another type of drug. We just simply need the resources. And money."

Liza folded her hands. "How did you get the resources?"

"I don't know, because being asked to be a drug dealer was not in my five-year plan." He snapped. He knew he shouldn't say what he was going to say but he went on, "There's a street gang called Shadows. They're making me sell the pills because they don't wanna get their hands dirty. I'm their easily exposable middleman."

"Street gang? Here?" Liza was alarmed. "Why didn't you just go to the cops then?"

"I needed the money. For something important. I couldn't say no." He gulped. "And I know that makes me as bad as them, but I didn't know it would get this bad."

"How bad is this bad?" Liza asked tentatively.

"Your source didn't tell you the main part." Fin whispered. "Shadows wanted a new business method. Something to get all the teens in Larnswich hooked on the new drugs."

"More quantity?"

"More accessibility."

Liza frowned.

"The pills are free." He said sadly.

Her mouth fell open. "What do you mean?"

"Not forever." Fin explained. "For each customer, I give the pills free two or three times, then they're willing to pay for it."

"Holy shit, you're making them addicted." She had a look of pain on her face that Fin was sure would haunt him forever.

He thought he would never be caught, that he didn't need to worry about hell or heaven as long the Shadows had his back. But now there she was — as if the angel on his right shoulder suddenly decided to transform to a human and give him a lecture on how he's everything he hoped he would never be.

"I wanted to back out! But they threatened to hand me over to the cops. It was either rotting in jail or doing this."

"Then you should have rotten in the jail, Jesus Christ." Liza stood up. "They can't go to the cops. They literally asked you to sell the pills."