Don't Stop Believing

Chapter 23

Ch. 23

"IZZY! IZZY! IZZY!!!!" I was woken up by a very loud, very high pitched squeal in my ear, scaring the shit out of me, making me shoot up out of my deep sleep and comfortable bed.

"What the hell is wrong?" I asked, climbing out of the bed and heading for the door. "Who's hurt? What's the emergency?"

When I realized that everything was quiet behind me, I turned around and stared at Lillie. When she didn't say anything, I crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow at her. She smiled a guilty smile at me and then shrugged. "Sorry. I couldn't help it, though. I was excited to come and tell you something!"

"And what would that be that you had to wake me up in a fright like that?" I asked, tapping my foot at her. This better be good if she's going to give me a heart attack like that.

"Well..." She said and smiled. "We have a lead on where Lexi is at."

With those few words, she had my full attention and I felt like I couldn't breathe. They knew where Lexi was and she could be within reach. Obviously she's okay by the tone of her voice and the excitement. Okay, this is way better than anything I expected to hear from her when she opened her mouth. She can wake me up for something like that any day. "Continue on! Don't stand there leaving me hanging!" I managed to say.

Before she even started telling me anything, I walked back over to my bed. I had a feeling I was going to need to sit down for this before I fell over for some reason. She smiled and sat down on my bed with me as well. "Well, we found out that she is okay, and that she has been getting taken care of. She is in the city somewhere, but we aren't sure where, because Katy can't get that far and Ian can't find it online, but she is with Gavin." She frowned at that part. "So, of course with the good news, there is always some bad news as well." She said and bit her lip. I knew it was too good to be true. At least I knew she was safe; that counts for something, anyway. "Well, Gavin wants to keep her."

"How do you know this?" I asked. I would get to the other stuff in a minute.

She took in a deep breath and let it out before answering. "Katy told us that she's been trying to get into contact with him and when she found out that his sister actually works there, she has been talking to her, acting like she doesn't know you, and his sister said that he was going to go to the courts and get custody of her, and change her last name to his and take him from you." She said all of this and all I could feel was my heart breaking. I knew he was going to use her against me, and the worst part was, he would get his way, because they would look back on my history and deem me as unfit. I felt like someone just punched me in the gut. "But!" Lillie said and cheered up a little. "Katy is trying to convince her to, you know, hang out after work and find out more details about where he lives and everything."

"But she'll get fired if they find out that she gave me any of this information. All of this is supposed to be confidential." I said. "And you two..." I narrowed my eyes at her. "You guys aren't helping, and are going to get yourselves into trouble as well." I mean, I was glad to hear all of this, but I wasn't trying to risk one of my friend's jobs over this. Of course it's important to me to get Lexi back, but I can't imagine me being the reason someone gets fired. She could get fired from both jobs, possibly, the way I see it. And then my little twerp siblings have to go and get themselves into it also...

"But we're trying to get Lexi back for you!! Don't you understand that?" Lillie pleaded with me. "I thought that's what you wanted!"

"Of course it's what I want!" I nearly yelled at her. "But I don't want one of my friends to get hurt trying to get her back for me, and I don't want you guys to get in trouble either!"