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*

"Please stop..." I cried.

I tried to roll over, but it felt like a ton of bricks were resting on top of my body.

I heard a deep chuckle. "I shoulda put more shit in there. She still resistin'."

"She's a fighter." I heard a softer voice giggle.

I felt his rough hands slide up my thigh before I tried my hardest to kick him away from me.

"I think you should stop, Dri." Another soft, familiar voice chimed in.

A scoff came from next to me. "I think you just jealous." His rough hands found my face, turning my head to the front. "Look at me, baby. Open ya eyes. Look at me."

I tried, with everything in me, to lift my eyelids. To just open my eyes so I could see what was really unfolding in front of me.

So I could see who was doing this to me.

I tried so hard. So so hard.

*

"Baybeh, wake up."

I jumped up, feeling the sweat dripping from my forehead. "I-I'm sorry."

"It's okay. You good?"

"Yea."

Angel searched my face. "C'mea."

Scooting closer to him, I wrapped my arms around his torso and laid my head on his chest. It didn't take long for one of his hands to find my butt and the other to find my hair.

I pulled my duvet up to my neck, cuddling into him even more if that was possible.

"Anotha' dream?"

I slowly nodded. "Something like that."

Silence came over us, but I knew it was only because he didn't want to pressure me into talking about it. I hadn't told him, or anyone for that matter, about what happened at work.

Part of me felt like I should, but the other part of me felt like if I just pretended none of this happened then maybe I would really start to believe it.

I don't want to live with these demons forever.

❦

"Since when do you work out?" McKenzie questioned me, folding her clothes as I sat on her bed.

I shrugged. "I don't, but I want to start. Maybe it'll help me clear my mind from all of this shit going on with me."

"Maybe. Talking about it will also help."

"It could, but-" she interrupted me with a look that could kill. "Okay, okay. You're right."

She smirked. "I know, now talk. I'm all ears."

"Okay. Don't get upset with me, alright?"

"Why would I be upset with you, sis?"

"Because I didn't tell you..."

She raised her eyebrow at me. "Are you pregnant? Cause if you are, I definitely won't be mad. I'll be more happy than anything, but ma. Whew, ma might be mad because you kn-"

"I'm not pregnant, Kenz."

"Well." She frowned. "What is it then?"

I took a deep sigh, repositioning myself on the bed. It's not that I was afraid to tell McKenzie about my night at work recently, I was just afraid that she was going to be upset for not telling her sooner.

I hadn't told anybody thought so maybe she won't get that upset.

Hopefully.

"The other night at work with Delilah was super slow, man."

She gave me a stale face. "That's what you want to tell me, Dri?"

"No... we finally got in a customer. It was a guy with a dog named Brent. He was a first time customer, said he and his dog were new to town so he came to La Vie because he heard we were the best."

"That's good, right?"

I shook my head. "No, yea. That's great, it's just..."

"It's just what?"

I gulped, not saying anything as I held eye contact with her. I felt my eyes beginning to water, but the last thing I wanted to do was cry.

I've done enough of that lately.

"Dri, why are you crying?" She quickly put her clothes down and sat next to me on the bed, wrapping her arm around me. "What's wrong?"

I sniffed. "It was him, Kenz."

"It was him? Him who?"

"The guy."

"What guy, Dri?"

I wiped my tear as another one took it's place. "The guy from the hotel, Kenz. It was him."

"The guy from the hotel? What gu- oh my goodness. The other guy that was with Cedrick?!"

I nodded.

"Audriana, why haven't you told anyone? Wait. Have you told anyone?"

I shook my head. "You're the first person I've told."

"Audri, we have to take this to the police. Don't you guys keep records of your customers at your job? All they have to do is run the cameras, see what he looks like, check the sign-in and get his name and they can start actually arresting them for this shit. Why haven't you told ma?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I kind of just want to keep believing that nobody did anything and that nothing happened."

"But that's not the case, sis. Somebody did do something and something did happen and now that you're putting pieces together, you need to take it to the police. You can't let shit like this go. Hell, he knows you and he knows where you work now so that's even better for him. You're not getting anything out of keeping this to yourself but more sleepless nights."

"Okay..."

"Okay what?"

I nodded. "I'm going to tell my mom and then we can take it to the police."

"I just want this to be over for you, Dri." She sighed, letting a tear race down her cheek. "I just want everything to go back to normal."

I scoffed. "Things will never be normal, sis. I'll never be normal again."

"Don't say th-"

"No, I'm serious." I shook my head, staring down at my twiddling fingers. "No matter who gets arrested and charged for this, no matter how much time goes by, I'll never be the Audriana Rumi Ibanez I was before all of this. This will never be over. I just-"

Mom walked in, stopping me from finishing my sentence. Her face expression changed into a frown once she seen Mckenzie and I crying.

"What's going on? You girls okay?"

I nodded. "Yea, we-"

"We're not." Kenz interrupted, not even looking at me. "Dri has something she needs to tell you and if she doesn't, I will."

"You got it, son?"

I nodded. "I got it, pops. What time the new kid start?"

"He should be here in about..." Pops looked down to his wrist at his watch. "Twenty minutes."

"And you sure we'ca trust 'em enough to work hea'?"

Pops chuckled. "I'm positive, son. You know if anything goes wrong, we always handle it."

I nodded, feelin' my phone vibratin' in my pocket. I stepped back to excuse myself. "I'a be right back, Pops."

"Alright. Get back here soon, we have to get Gloria's boys in the system before it's too late."

I nodded again, joggin' off the the side so I'ca answa' the phone real quick. My eyebrows squeezed togetha' when I seen it was Mrs. Ibanez callin'.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Angel. Are you free right now?"

I looked back at Pops. "Uh, it depends. Is somethin' goin' on wit' my girl?"

"Something like that." I heard her sigh. "We're heading down to the police station. She gave us some new information which I'm not allowed to disclose over the phone. I'm sure she would like if you could meet us down there."

"I'a be thea'."

I heard shufflin' on her end of the phone. "Alright, Angel. See you soon, thank you."

"Ain't nothin'."

Hangin' up, I stuck my phone in my pocket. I noticed the new boy walkin' up as I made my way back ova' to my Pops.

"Here he is." He greeted me, turnin' towards me. "Son, this is the new guy on the team, Adrian. Adrian, this is my on Angel. Get to know each other because we're going to be doing a lot of work these next few days. You know it's holiday season and people wanna be with their families during this time."

Me and the boy Adrian shook his hands befo' I turned my attention back to Pops. "Pops, I gotta go take care of somethin' real quick."

He glared at me before turnin' to Adrian. "Head on over there, Adrian. I'll be over." He nodded before walkin' off into thedirection my dad pointed him into. "What's going on now?"

"Dri is headed to the police station. Mrs. Ibanez said she figured out some new information about what's going on."

His entire mood changed at the sound of Audriana's name. If it was ever a girl that my parents adored the fuck out of, it was Audri.

"Go ahead. Make sure everything is okay and tell them that your mom and I are here to help whenever necessary."

I dapped Pops up. "Aight, I'a see ya lata'."

Goin' inside the crib, I grabbed my keys off the hook befo' goin' into the business room to say bye to my mama.

"Aight, ma. I'm out. Pops outside wit' the new kid, I'a be back."

She looked up from her laptop. "Okay. Everything okay, Deondre? I thought you were supposed to be working with your dad and Adrian all night."

"I was, but somethin' came up wit' Dri. Gotta make sure she straight."

"Oh, of course." She gave a soft smile. "Let them know we're always here if they need anything, okay?"

I nodded. "I will, ma."

"Okay, drive safe. I love you."

"I luh you mo'."

And wit' that, I was in my car and out the driveway in twenty seconds.

I ain't know what to think about what could be goin' on, but I just hope it was somethin' that was gon' get us closer to figurin' this shit out for my baybeh.

All I know is, anythin' she say tonight might come off as a surprise cause she ain't told me shit about nothin' recently.

Parkin' my car, I quickly hopped out and headed inside. I jogged behind Dri dem once I seen them walkin' into a room.

"Perfect timing." Mrs. Ibanez softly smiled at me as we walked into the room.

Dri glanced at me, but the smile on my face faded when I seen the look of worry on hers. Mrs. I took a seat next to Dri, Kenz and I took a seat across from them and the investigator took a seat at the end of the table.

"So." The investigator started. "Tell me what's going on? You remember something?"

Dri hesitantly nodded and exhaled, not lookin' up from the table. "I was at work the other night and uh- a guy came in with his dog. He said he was new to town and that he had heard La Vie was the best in town so I turned around and when I did..."

"It's okay." Mrs. I rubbed over Dri's hands.

My stare was intent on Dri, but I couldn't help it. I hated seein' her like this, so scared and so vulnerable.

"I realized it was him, the other guy that was at the hotel that I told you guys I couldn't remember. It was him. I dropped everything that was in my hands and ran to the back."

"Okay." The investigator nodded and continued writing on his notepad. "What was his name? And what happened after that?"

I zoned out from the conversation that was goin' on. I felt my blood boilin' knowin' that whoeva' the fuck nigga was knew whea' my baybeh worked at. That ain't sit too good wit' me.

"...I tried not to give too much away like you guys asked, but I couldn't help it. As soon as I ran to the back, I threw up so my co-worker, Delilah, took over for me. She even let me leave early so I waited in the back until-" She pointed in my direction. "Angel came and got me."

The investigator smiled up at Dri. "You did great and we're glad that you came down and let us in on that. Anything we can get will help to ending this entire thing. What we're going to do now is run the cameras and get his full name from your job and then we're going to check his record."

"And then what?" Mrs. Ibanez asked. "Is this going to end anytime soon?"

"What we can hope for, which might be a long shot, but is every possible, is that he has some kind of warrant out for his arrest. If so, we get his address from your place of work and arrest him. From there, we try to pry any little thing we can get out of him. Until then, you guys have to continue to lay low about this entire thing. Act like nothing happened and if it did, act like you know nothing about it. You guys have been doing great with that so let's keep it going, okay?"

We all nodded, standing up from the table.

"This will all be over soon, guys. We promise you that."

"I'm going to ride home with Angel."

My mom and Kenz nodded. "Okay, I'm going to get dinner started. Head home soon. Angel, are you joining us for dinner tonight?"

"I can."

"Alright, don't wait too late. The food will get cold."

We all shared short good-bye's before running off into the different directions we were parked in. It was raining, hence why we were running.

"You straight, baybeh?"

I nodded, buckling my seat belt. "I'm fine. Just a little cold from the rain."

"I'm not talkin' bout the weatha', I'm talkin' bout how you feelin'. Mentally."

"It'll get better soon."

He glanced over at me as we pulled out of the parking lot. "Why you ain't tell me?"

"Tell you what?"

"That shit that went on that night. You told me I was pickin' you up early cause business was slow."

"It was slow..."

"But you ain't tell me the important shit, Dri."

I sighed. "Please don't be upset with me, Angel. I didn't tell anybody."

"Why is that though?"

"Because I want this shit to be a nightmare. I want to believe nothing happened, I want to believe no one was involved. I want to believe the drug test was wrong and that everything is a made up scenario in my head. I don't want to live with this shit."

I instantly felt myself get more upset at the fact that I was crying.

Again.

"I'm sorry. I just... I'm so tired of living with these demons, babe. I just want all of this to be over. I want to be the old Audriana I was before all of this happened."

He grabbed my hand. "You will be, mama. You just gotta give it time. I'm sure a lot of this stress will come up off you once all they fuck asses get arrested. Until then, don't bottle that shit in. We talked bout this."

"I know, babe. Trust me. I got lectured by Kenz and mom the entire ride there." I chuckled. "Only reason I rode back with you was so I didn't have to hear it again."

He raised his eyebrows at me. "Ohhh, so you usin' me? Aight. Say less."

"Not necessarily." I laughed, causing him to laugh too. "I'm just saying, you're like my peace in the midst of all this chaos."

"Yea?"

I nodded. "Of course."

"I luh you."

"And I love you."

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