Annabel POV
~Edited~
It was now Monday.
The day that Cam and I were going to tell Tyson what we found and give him the evidence, and the day we were going to confront Ellie.
I was extremely nervous.
I was nervous that this would all be for nothing and they would find some way to evade the law. I was nervous that something was going to go wrong and Elizabeth, Carter, Ellie, or even that random guy Tim was going to do something to one of us. I had terrible luck with the law, so who knows what could happen with me being there.
I told Cameron how I felt about the whole thing and the whole day he was being an enormous help with calming my nerves.
He was telling me about how the police couldn't deny that this was going on because of the proof they had and if they did we could go to a higher level of government and complain to them. Someone eventually had to realize that this wasn't right instead of being blinded by money or blackmailed. Hopefully we wouldn't need to do that, but we were trying to be prepared for anything.
He was also being a little more touchy-feely than normal and I wasn't sure if that was because of the stress or something else.
I hope it wasn't all because of stress.
Aaron told me that he thinks that Cameron likes me, but I'm not sure. Other than comforting me he doesn't seem to be interested in me than more than a friend. Then again, I probably haven't been dropping any major hints myself.
But I can't be dropping any hints so either way it doesn't matter.
I don't even know why I want him to reciprocate my feelings, we couldn't be together anyway. I can't risk him getting hurt by Tony. I wouldn't be able to take it if anything happened to him. Plus if we did date Tony would try to hurt him, and he'd probably bolt the minute Tony showed up. I'd rather keep him as a friend then lose him as a boyfriend.
I can't be worried about these things right now. I'm in my last period of the day and although this class usually feels like my slowest class, today it's going by faster than ever. I feel like I just got here and we're already 5 minutes to dismissal.
"You alright?" Cameron whispered from his seat next to me.
"Yeah I'm fine," I answered with a smile.
I was anything but fine.
After a couple more minutes of my math teacher droning on about today's lesson she let us pack up and Cameron and I went over the plan one more time.
"You know what to do right?" Cameron asked me in the middle of putting away one of his books.
"Ask her about the weed and say that I heard that she and a couple of others were selling it. Then, once she starts giving me details I send you an already typed message to cue you in. After that, you'll-"
I was cut off by the bell.
"You got it, make sure to type that message before you see her and I'll be waiting not too far away." He winked at me and walked off.
I made sure to type "Do your thang GB" in our chat to try and ease some of the tension before walking off to find Ellie.
I spotted her strawberry blonde waves bouncing in the crowd and quickly walked up to her.
"Hey! Ellie right?" I asked tapping on her shoulder.
"Yeah! What's up? Oh... you're Anna right?"
"Yeah... how do you know my name?"
"Uh... Lizzy and I are best friends. Sorry for the whole lunchroom fiasco. I was standing right next to her and I probably should've done something."
She had a guilty look on her face that I could tell was real. Out of everyone's lives that we're going to ruin, she's the only one I'm going to feel bad about. I have a feeling she was just roped into this by her parents and best friend and didn't mean any of it.
"Oh! It's all good. I'm over it and I get not wanting to interfere when your friend is kinda going crazy. I don't hold anything against you."
I felt so bad for saying all that to her face when I was just about to basically ruin her entire life. She might go to jail and live her life wondering "what if" she did this and "what if" she did that. I felt like such an awful person, but this had to be done.
For Tarah.
She was getting ready to say something when I cut her off.
"Look I have to talk to you about something in private."
"Alright come on, I know a quiet hallway that no one really uses."
She led me down a few hallways and part of me was scared that she knew what my plan was and just leading me to a room where Elizabeth and Carter were just waiting to kill me.
When we got to the empty hallway and she turned to me and said, "Alright what's up?" I nearly cried in relief but had to pretend I was fine.
"I just wanted to talk to you about the uhh... " I looked around to add more suspense, even though I knew no one —except probably Cameron— was around. "the weed. I heard that you, Elizabeth, and a few others were selling it and I was wondering if you guys could hook me up with some."
"Where'd you hear that from?" Her face was all of a sudden very worried.
"Some kids were telling me about it, I can't remember their names though... I think one of them was named Tim? I heard that it's really good weed and I just wanted to know if you guys could get me some. I'll pay whatever."
"Dammit, Tim!" She whispered to herself quietly before addressing me. "Uhm... you know this weed is very dangerous right? Like some people have died from it?"
"Is this how you get all your customers?" I tried to joke around.
"Sadly, yes," She said, still very serious.
"Well... do you take cash upfront?" I said trying to ease the tension a bit.
She sighed and pulled out a container filled with money from her backpack. I discreetly clicked the send button and sent the pre-written message on my phone.
"Okay, well depending on how much you want it's 50-"
All of a sudden she was cut off by the sound of Elizabeth's voice.
"Last year Ellie and I met this girl named Tarah. She was an extremely sweet, but also extremely curious girl."
Ellie's face stiffened and Cameron came from a corner with the recorder in his hands.
"Wh- where'd- where'd you get that recording?"
The recording only continued.
"We didn't know how... the thing affected people at the time because we hadn't tested it on anyone. We had already all agreed that we weren't going to turn it over to the authorities."
Ellie closed her eyes, which were welling up with tears. "Oh god." was all we heard her say as the recording continued.
"We had met Tarah's parents before. They weren't alcoholics or drug addicts by any means, but they smoked and drank now and then.
Once she heard her voice on the recording she lost it. She slid down against one of the lockers and started sobbing. It's like she was just hoping that her voice wouldn't have been on it.
Cameron turned off the recording and I knelt by her.
"Ellie, I know you're a good person. All I need is to you confess to what you, Elizabeth, and the rest of the families did. We will do as much as we can to get you out of trouble but we can't promise anything."
She was still sobbing, but spoke through her tears, "Even if you guys do get me out of trouble where am I supposed to go? My parents will be in jail! It's not like I can live with my best friend she'd be in jail too, she did worse than I did!" She lifted her hands in exasperation.
"Don't you have family you can live with? Grandparents, aunts, uncles?"
"Well... yeah I guess..."
"All we need is your confession, and we'll leave you alone for now."
She wiped her eyes and sniffled, then she slowly nodded her head and took the recorder from Cameron.
"Hello, I'm Eliana Aldridge. Most people call me Ellie. I'm here to tell you, whoever is listening that I am the one on the recording you're probably going to hear after this. The other person on the recording is Elizabeth Kings. We illegally had possession of and distributed an unknown strain of weed to teenagers. Everything said on the recording is true."
She started crying again, but before she gave the recorder back she said something else.
"I- I just want you to know that no one died on my watch. Elizabeth didn't care if any of them lived or died, but I... I couldn't bear to watch anyone else die. I knew that there'd be no way I'd be able to get away with telling the police what was happening without getting caught by Elizabeth so I gave them more. It probably made it worse and I know that doesn't make me a better person but it was the only way I knew to keep them alive. I know a few others died. Some of them were because they wouldn't take the extra weed from me and some were because I didn't know they were customers and Lizzy didn't care what happened to them. That's all, thank you."
Ellie broke down as soon as she stopped the recording and just sat there crying her eyes out.
We didn't know what to do so we just stood there staring at her, but after a while she told us to go and turn it in and do what she couldn't.
So that's exactly what we did.
A/N
Hey Guys!
Did you guys like this chapter?
What do you guys think of Ellie now do you think she's a good person? Or do you guys think she's still sus?
Do you think Anna and Cam are going to face any complications turning in the evidence?
If you liked you should comment & vote :)))))
Bye loves~
Syd.