I opened my eyes slowly as I regained consciousness. I had blurry vision and was overcome with the sharp pain of a pounding headache.
I tried to lift up my arms to rub my eyes but found I couldn't move them - I was restricted. I suddenly became more aware of my surroundings and realized I was tied to a chair. I moved my hands around, trying to release myself - when that didn't work, I grew frightened. I looked around the room in confusion, hoping for a sign that someone was there. The darkness in the room only scared me more as I could barely see anything.
What the hell was going on?
The tape around my wrists, arms and legs was tight enough that I could already feel it cutting off the circulation in my hands. I continued struggling to break free from the classroom chair, using any strength I could muster.
"There's no use," I heard a familiar voice say, hiding in darkness in the corner of the room.
Suddenly I was blinded by fluorescent lights as the dark figure flicked the switch next to them. The room instantly bright enough for me to see. I was frazzled as I tried to readjust my eyesight.
"You're not going to escape the tape. It's layered too thick and tight," the voice continued as I watched them, too shocked to look around and gather my surroundings. My heart missed a beat and I turned pale in fear. I was in pure disbelief.
I found myself questioning everything that had ever happened since my arrival at Kennedy High but was too confused to make sense of it all. How did I miss this? It was right in front of me all along.
The figure grinned at my discomfort as they stood in front of me in their long bright pink ballgown with their blond hair resting on their shoulders.
...Tasha?
"What are you doing?" I croaked in a hoarse voice, feeling like I was in a dream. I was in denial, searching for another reason for why she was there. She couldn't be...
She continued grinning, taking a few steps forward to the center of the room where I was, defenseless and strapped to the chair. "Oh honey, haven't you figured it out yet?" She teased, leaning forward and playing with a few locks of my hair. I winced at her touch, moving my face out of her reach.
"You're the dealer," I froze. My blood ran cold instantly at her confirmation.
She clapped her hands lightly, smiling sickly. "Yay, she figured it out," she giggled.
I heard a throat clear behind me and tried to turn my head, shocked by another presence in the room. "Don't forget me," Violet smiled, walking up to Tasha and standing next to her.
"You too?" I cried in disbelief. I tried to turn my head around to look behind me. "Who else?" I whimpered. I was already outnumbered - things weren't looking good.
Tasha shrugged her shoulders simply. "Just us."
I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry. "What about Henry?"
Violet giggled, "A daft idiot, we wouldn't have involved him in this."
"Yeah, he was the biggest idiot of them all," Tasha added as she began to slowly walk around me. "Didn't even realize he was making drug deals in a dark room with his own sister every week,"she continued laughing as I tried to follow her with my eyes as she walked behind me. "He makes a good scapegoat though, doesn't he?"
"What the hell is wrong with you two?" I piped up with anger. I was terrified at how insane they looked with their psychotic grins, yet calm behavior. "Why would you do this?"
"What? Tie you up or make drugs?" Violet asked as she moved back and sat on the teacher's desk at the front of the room. She glided around the room like a child, swaying around the place in a relaxed manner.
They were trying their best to scare me. This is what they wanted - me under their control.
"I'll answer both," Tasha grinned, standing in front of me again. "We made drugs because, well in the simplest terms, we needed money. My father cut me off after I spent a few grand on a purse last Summer. He told me that anything I wanted to buy would have to come out of my own pocket - something about me needing to learn the value of money or whatever. "
"Wait," I interupted, furrowing my brows. "You're telling me your motive for this was shopping? You created a deadly drug...to fund your shopping trips?"
Was I really hearing them correctly? Of all the goddamn motives...
"A girl's gotta shop. Let's face it," she sighed. "Being a drug dealer pays well. If you've got good shit, people will do anything for it. You get them hooked and they just keep coming back."
It was taking everything in me to take her seriously. Her story was so outrageous that I could barely process it. The only way was to simply accept it and move on to the more pressing issues.
I peered at them both still confused, "Why did you tie me up?" I asked. "I was coming here for a hookup! You texted me remember?"
She pouted at me, head dropping slightly. "Drop the act, Rebecca."
I felt my pulse quicken. A shiver ran down my spine as I heard her say my name - my real name.
"That's right, I know who you are." she grinned, "I know quite a bit about you, gymnast freak." She took a step closer to me. "Maybe if you're going to come to school at night time with your little friends, wear a mask," she whispered near my face. "By the way, did you enjoy those kicks and punches Violet gave you?"
I looked over at Violet who looked smug, "Four years of Taekwondo paying off." she shrugged.
They'd known. They'd worked out who I was the night of the school fight - almost two weeks ago. All this time - and they'd played along like they were completely clueless. Holy shit.
"Did you enjoy getting beat up against a locker by one of my 'little friends'?" I shot back at Violet, making her lose her grin. I turned back to Tasha, "And how about you? Did you enjoy your beat up? Throwing a desk a someone isn't exactly a guaranteed winner move."
I felt her hand slap against my cheek, making it burn. It had been so quick that I'd barely prepared for it. "Wouldn't keep that up if I was you," she whispered near my ear, breathing down my neck.
I moved my head away from her, disgusted. I wanted to be as far away from her as I could now that I wasn't sure what she was capable of. I felt powerless knowing I couldn't fight back against her, stuck in a chair where I could barely move my limbs.
She moved closer to me, enjoying my discomfort before she began explaining more to me, "We'd been at the school, returning some lab equipment for the science room we'd used when we stumbled upon you idiots. So once I realized that people were trying to take us down, I realized that you," she pressed her finger to my nose before continuing, "must have been helping them."
I grew sick at her touch but she continued, enjoying watching me squirm, "Didn't take too long to work out who you were. Rebecca Winters, the seventeen-year-old gymnast star." she mocked. She began pacing around me again, "The FBI vans during school hours were a pretty big giveaway. You're working for them?"
"Yes." I lied, not wanting to give her a single piece of true information. "But I have a question for you," I turned my head to face her as she walked back near the front of me.
"Shoot." she grinned.
"How do two of the biggest idiots in the whole school manage to create a drug so complex, or any drug at all really?" I asked, glaring at them both.
"We're actually a lot smarter than you think Rebbecca." she turned to a gleefully smiling Violet before looking at me again. "Well, at least I am." I watched Violets face drop.
"I'm not as stupid as you thought I were," Violet snarled at me, trying to recover from Tasha's diss.
"Was," I muttered.
"What?"
"It's, I'm not as stupid as you thought I was." I corrected with amusement. Their scare tactic was already starting to disappoint.
Tasha turned on Violet, eyes glowing with rage. "Can you shut up before you make us look any more stupid you unevolved eggplant?"
Violet pursed her lips together and lowered her eyes to the floor.
Watching them both was like watching a circus going off the rails. I felt like I had a front seat to a badly rehearsed sitcom.
"You were about to answer my question..." I reminded, feeling truly lost at the events unfolding in front of me. God, what the hell was this freak show?
Tasha regained her posture, taking a deep breath in and out as the angry red color faded from her face. Her throat cleared as her eyes left her embarrassed companion. "In the general world of today's society, there's really only two things teens are into - sex and alcohol." She began explaining, her voice as calm as ever. "Why alcohol? because it's addictive, it relieves pain and makes you forget, what else can do that and is even more addictive? Drugs. And with such a love for both things, why not combine them?"
"I don't know, because you're fucking stupid and don't understand the health risks?" I growled. "You two are reckless! But, that still doesn't explain how you were able to make drugs."
Tasha rolled her eyes at my cluelessness, "I'll spare you the cooking class but it all boils down to one heavenly ingredient - oxytocin."
I continued staring at her.
"Guess someone didn't pay attention in Science and I know a bit more you think," she grinned. "Oxytocin was recently used in an experiment with couples and determined it created more intense and genuinely better orgasms."
I scrunched my nose at the thought. Teenagers - keeping it classy as always.
"It makes sex better!" Violet cackled like a little girl, her curly brown hair swaying past her shoulders.
I shot her a glare, not amused by her unnecessary commentary.
"And just a little snort of it up your nose, and you're ready to go." Tasha continued. "We made them into pills to disguise them as medicine but all our clients needed to do was break them up into a powder and snort it. Just a bit of that stuff with cocaine and a few other ingredients and you're good to go." she laughed.
"Cocaine? Do you know how dangerous that is? What the hell were you thinking?" I snapped in horror.
Tasha shrugged, "It needed to be addictive. You can't blame me, I didn't know it would be so bad."
Yep. It was truly idiot palooza down in classroom A3.4. Because somehow the value of a Fendi purse, meant more than a human life.
"I get that you might not have known how serious it was," I began calmly as I stared at her. "But why would you continue making and dealing it after what happened to Misty? And Charlotte just this afternoon? One of your own friends for god sake!"
"Well, Misty would have been no great loss, and as for that daft bitch Charlotte, she wasn't my friend - more of an ally." she sneered. "When we were working on getting more people involved in dealing the drug to widen our business, she was considered as an option - but first we wanted to test her loyalty."
"So we told her to take the drug, and if she didn't, she couldn't be our friend." Violet joined in on explaining.
"She had until the beginning of lunch to take it and boy did she really push that time." Tasha raised her eyebrows. "Right before the bell, she snorted that shit and then proceeded to have some weird seizure in the bathroom. God, if Henry hadn't heard her when he walked out of the guys bathroom, she'd probably be dead right now. Then again, no real loss there."
Henry really was innocent this entire time. I felt bad for grilling him that afternoon. He had been telling the truth - he'd saved Charlotte's life. I couldn't believe the two girls I'd spent the most time around for this entire case, that I hadn't even considered as suspects, were the dealers all along. Their popularity and stupidity made me underestimate them and I silently cursed myself for it.
I worried about how I was going to get out of this situation. There was no way anyone from the school was going to find us in this room and I had no way to contact the RUA. My spy device and phone were in my clutch, which now sat on the teacher's desk at the front of the room, right beside Violet. All I could do was buy myself some time.
I titled my head as I looked up at Tasha. "So tell me, if you are so smart and everything, why the hell would you name a drug 'Naughty Time'? Had you been watching too much Sesame Street? I mean, come on, that has to be honestly the stupidest name for a drug I've ever heard!"
Tasha scowled at me taunting her, fuming with anger.
I continued to address them, "You two have got to be the biggest idiots I've ever met! You're going to get caught soon, everyone's going to know what you did! I hope you like the taste of prison food." I spat.
"Listen here bitch," Tasha snapped. "No one's going to find out about us because guess what? You're not going to be able to tell them!"
I looked at her confused as I watched her storm to the front of the room behind the teacher's desk where Violet sat. She bent over and lifted up a large black duffel bag that she placed down on the table. Violet watched her, amused, while I continued staring, unaware of her plans.
I heard the sound of the zipper as Tasha opened the bag as I peered, trying to get a good look at its contents. I rested my head back having no luck. She dug her hands in and I heard her going through, obviously looking for something.
"Ah, here it is," she smiled, pulling out the object.
I froze I watched her, now realizing what her little plan was. She stepped towards me, showing excitement.
"You see little Becky, no one will hear about your story because after tonight," she held the gun up near her face, playing with it teasingly before giving me her evilest smile yet
"You won't live to tell it."
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A/N:
Tasha @ Becca: