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When the clock struck 6 am on Wednesday morning I was relieved. I'd spent the last two hours laying in bed, waiting for a respectable time to get up without making my parents curious. Never had I ever been a morning person. I'd always been a night owl who had to be dragged out of bed in order to make it to my 9:30 classes on time.

Even at BU all my friends knew I'd be in the library till 2 am the night before a test. If you ever wondered, I was the reason college libraries are open 24 hours during finals week.

But last night,  I couldn't wait for it to be daylight again. I'd never craved that first peak of sunlight before so earnestly.

This was, of course, because my sleep had unsurprisingly been plagued by nightmares.

Some were memories of that night simply being replayed over and over till I woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. Others were simply me running through a dark void and I didn't know what it was I was running from but the terror I felt was so real I only woke when I tripped over something in shadows my legs disappeared into with each step.

Once I was awake I knew what I had been running from. And they weren't just part of a nightmare. They were real, I couldn't escape them by waking up and the sun wouldn't chase them away.

Lethal and Bomber were real and the relief I felt after awaking from my dreams was very short lived as I realized my life was actually in danger. Here, in reality. In the present my life was on a tightrope. One wrong step and I'd be on a one way trip to... well, I didn't want to think about it.

By the time I woke for the third time at 4 am I couldn't fall asleep again so instead I sat in the dark jumping at every creak of the house and scratch of a tree branch against my window.

When I got downstairs my mom was setting up the coffee machine. She was the morning person in the house. Though I guess she had to be seeing as she worked at the hospital. If she worked a night shift she had to be a night person, so she flip flopped When she had to.

"Morning, sweetie. You're up early. Did you sleep alright? How's your headache?"

I gave her a smile and pecked her on the cheek as I passed by to get to the fridge, "Yeah, and it's was fine. I just figured I'd go on a run or something."

Shit. Now I had to go on a run. Great.

"A run?" My mom's voice sounded surprised as she echoed me.

Don't worry mom, I'm as surprised as you. I hated running. I used to be on the track team in high school and I hated it. I'd been average at it, and only did it because I was uncoordinated athletic wise. There was a lot of pressure at my school to be on a sports team. If you weren't that was fine too, but you were socially excluded from a lot of things. So I joined track.

"Yeah a run. I thought it'd help clear my thoughts."

"Have you put any more thought into med school?" She emphasized the word 'thought' and raised an eyebrow.

No. It'd slipped my mind recently, but for good reason.

Instead I replied, "You know I have."

I grabbed my favorite mug and filled it up at the coffee machine. My mom slip the sugar bowl my way. I hated the taste of coffee so I loaded it with three spoons of the brown crystals and a big dollop of the creamer I'd gotten from the fridge. I'd need a coffee to get through the day on so little sleep.

"You should get on top of that. You're gonna be a junior this year, Ainsley."

The familiar ball of anxiety, that formed every time medical school was mentioned, welled up inside my chest. It's not that I didn't want it. I'd wanted to be a doctor ever since my mom got me my plastic stethoscope at 4 years old. It's just. It's just now it was actually happening. Or at least it would be. Soon. Growing up scared the crap out of me a little bit.

"I know, mom."

"Your father and I just don't want you to get behind. That's all. We don't want to put anymore pressure on you or anything."

"I'm gonna talk to my advisor when I go back in September." I muttered as I sipped my now overly sweet beverage.

I did end up going on a run and when I got back both my parents cars were gone. I was kind of relieved by it actually. Although talking to my mom this morning really helped me forget about Lethal and Bomber for a while and think about actual normal problems a twenty year old should have.

But now, the stress of med school didn't seem nearly as daunting as it did at the end of the semester in May. Now I had faced bigger problems. I had to get through this sleuthing mission, or whatever it was the boys wanted, alive. Then I could worry about where I would be after graduation. In fact, I'd happily take those issues back over what I had now any day.

I also realized to, to my embarrassment, that I was out of shape. Thirty minutes into my run and I already was getting a stitch. Maybe I should get back into it, if only to save face while jogging through town. I avoided Main Street though. I didn't want to pass The Scoop. I wasn't ready to see it. I'd deal with it tomorrow.

I was just heading up stairs to take a shower, after having some water and a bowl of cereal when the doorbell rang. It was only ten am. I knew I wasn't seeing Lindsey today. I'd told her I wasn't feeling well and she'd understood.

At least I thought she had until I opened the door to see two police officers standing on my front step.

I almost gasped at the sight of them and my stomach dropped to the pits of hell.

Had Lindsey told them? She'd promised she wouldn't tell anyone about it. But she also had wanted to go to the police at first. Had she changed her mind and gone anyway?

The first blue uniform was a man. He was round faced and bald. Probably mid to late thirties. His whole complexion was cherry red. Most likely from a combination of wearing that gear in the heat as well as his slightly overweight build.

He offered me a somewhat slimy smile. Or maybe I was just being paranoid.

"Hi Ms. Oakley, I'm Officer Topper and this is my partner Officer Ryan."

He gestured to the sturdy looking woman behind him. Her hair pulled back in a tight slick black bun that made her look severe. Still I instantly liked her better than Officer Topper who's sticky smile seemed phoney and unnerving. I forced a smile back at them.

Before I could say anything he continued, "We're here to ask you a few questions about Randal Webber?"

My nerves continued to churn.

They wanted to talk about Randy? Had they found something? Did they know he was dead? Maybe Vinny had missed something while cleaning up and Bobby had discovered a drop of blood.

I forced myself to maintain a composed expression.

"Randy? Honestly I'm not really sure how much help I can be. I barely knew, Randy."

"You barely knew him?" Officer Ryan spoke up with a frown, cutting off her partner who had opened his mouth to speak. He left it hanging open like a fish.

"That's right." I responded hesitantly.

I turned back to Officer Topper as he began speaking again.

"Well, as of this morning he's a missing persons. Please anything you know about him would be extremely helpful to us."

Missing persons? That was good. Lindsey hadn't reported me and Bobby hadn't found anything at the crime scene.

I don't know why I didn't think of Randy being reported as missing before now.

"I really don't think-"

"Is something wrong, Ms. Oakley? Would you rather we have this conversation down at the station?"

If Lethal or Bomber saw me there I'd be dead. Then again, if they had eyes on me now I'd be dead. So at this point it was a lose lose situation. I didn't want to make the cops suspicious of me. As of now they were just doing routine questioning. They didn't suspect anyone, there was no real crime in their eyes. Not unless I gave it to them, which I had no intention of doing.

I was pretty sure by washing my clothes yesterday I'd become some kind of accomplice to the murder. Maybe it was under duress, but still. The law wasn't very black and white.

"No, I- please come in." I answered defeated.

I hoped I was making the right choice as I opened the door to let the officers in.

"Can I get you anything? A glass of water maybe." I offered, shifting from one foot to the other, rubbing the sweatband I'd put around my wrist to hide the rings that were starting to bruise from the handcuffs. Luckily the swelling had gone down.

Officer Ryan shook her head. Topper looked like he wanted to disagree, but pinched his lips together instead.

We stood in an awkward silence for a moment. I'd never felt so small in my own house. Two policemen stood in my entrance way, their guns strapped the their belts. Big black radios sitting on their shoulders in case the needed to call for back up.

Suddenly I jumped out of my thoughts, "Sorry, um why don't we go sit down."

I didn't wait for them to respond before I headed for the living room. I perched in the single blue club chair and left the couch for them. I didn't want to sit next to one of them.

I continued to play with the fabric of the sweatband, I found a loose string and began to twist it around my index finger.

Topper sat down across from me on the couch, but Ryan stayed standing by the door. I glanced at her, she was watching me steadily. Her eyes flickered to my fiddling hands and I immediately stopped. I slipped them under my thighs so I wouldn't start back up again.

Topper took out a little flip notebook and a pen from his breast pocket, "So, Ms. Oakley, Randy's step mother reported him missing this morning."

"Okay." I replied, unsure what else to say.

"She hasn't seen him since Monday afternoon."

I bit my lip and nodded. When I didn't say anything else he continued, "You work with him is that correct."

"Yes." I whispered.

"We talked to your boss, a Mr..." he paused to glance at his notes, " a Mr. Robert Evans? And he said you were working the closing shift with Randal that night? Is that correct?"

"Um yeah. We usually worked the night shift together."

"Did you and Randal get along?"

It was weird hearing them call Randy, Randal. He'd always just been Randy to me. Randal made him sound older, more mature and less like a kid who'd asked me to deep throat a waffle cone.

"Uh, honestly not really." I answered. If they talked to Bobby then they might know I'd asked to changed partners multiple times.

"Is that so? And why is that?"

I hesitated, "Well, Randy was a little, inappropriate. Not just with me, but with all the girls. I could handle him better than most though, so Bobby kept me with him."

"And how did Randy seem that night? Was he acting strange at all?"

I couldn't help but scoff slightly and the two officers exchanged glances, "Strange was kind of normal for Randy. He was always making rude jokes and innuendoes. He'd skipped out on me multiple times, leaving me to clean up the place by myself. I tried to talk to Bobby about it, but,"

I paused, surprised how much had come out of me.

"But what, Ms. Oakley?"

"But Randy was," I looked for the right word, "troubled. I think Bobby saw him as a charity case. Everyone knew his home life kind of sucked. We gave him the benefit of the doubt because of it."

"Yes, we know of Randal's run-ins with the law in town." Topper chuckled slightly at himself.

"So he seemed normal then? On Monday." Ryan cut in, clearly not as amused as her partner.

I shrugged, "Normal for Randy, I guess."

"And what do you mean by that?"

"He stood around while I cleaned the machines and stuff. And then," I paused. Everything I'd said up till now had been the truth. I hadn't lied.

I swallowed. Lying to my parents or to Lindsey seemed so much easier than lying to two policemen. But I had no choice. "When I took the trash out I came back to find him gone. I assumed he'd ditched me again."

"And what time was that, would you say?"

"I guess around 11 or so. I'm not sure."

Topper jotted some things down on his notepad, his head bobbing like a bobble head a he did so.

The back of my neck was sweating and as the silence lingered I began to feel itchy. They eyes of Officer Ryan were burning into me and I couldn't stop as I chewed my bottom lip till it stung.

Topper closed his notebook with a resounding slap that made me jump. He looked up and grinned at me widely, "Well! Thank you for your time, Ms. Oakley. Randy is probably just another troubled runaway. According to his kin this is not the first time he's disappeared without notice. Please, don't trouble yourself. We'll be in contact if we have any further questions, but it's unlikely."

That was it? It was over?

Thank fuck. I thought I was gonna shit  myself if I was subjected to another minute under the hard glare of Officer Ryan's dark eyes.

Topper stood up and I mirrored him on shaky legs.

"Of course. Happy to help." I couldn't even manage one last smile.

My head was so tired, my body and mind ached. I was sure there were bags under my eyes from my restless night and I smelled from my run. The questions had drained the last source of energy from my bones and I couldn't wait for the officers to leave so I could get under the cold streams of the shower.

How I got through it without breaking down I'd never know. At some point I think I just became numb. It felt like it wasn't me talking anymore and listening to myself was like listening to the voice of google translate.

I followed the two uniforms to the door in a daze.

"Again, thank you for your time." Topper chirped and it almost made me cringe. A kid was missing, or dead, and he was fine with it.

I nodded one last time as they filed out.

As I shut the door behind them I couldn't help but dread the idea that they could possibly need to talk to me again.

I don't know if I'd make it through another round of questions like that.

I couldn't decide what I hated more.

Topper's sick niceties or Ryan's intruding inspection. Still, I hoped I'd made it through without rising suspicion. Or without Lethal or Bomber knowing.

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A/N- Yikes! Ainsley has to speak to the police. How do we think she handled it?

I know I'm a day late with this update, I'm sorry! But I have the next chapter coming soon to make up for it ;)

I thought this chapter was gonna be meh but I actually really
like how it turned out!

Please vote and comment if you can!