Ashlyn 

The light hadn't even stretched beyond the dusty curtains of this cheap motel, yet my eyes were already wide open staring straight up at the hotel ceiling. 

It was an odd feeling- a concoction of delirious excitement and giddiness. Shutting my eyes, I draped my arm over my forehead and sighed. There was another strange feeling. Regret? In the face of my restlessness, I huffed out another sigh and flipped over on my side.  

There he was, Dane, on the other bed fast asleep with his mouth wide open.

Cute. 

I chuckled, snuggled my head against the pillow, and just let my eyes linger on him for just a little while longer. In the past, I never would have imagined Dane being my type, but with how adorable and cute he makes everything it's hard not to be charmed. 

Though, he was far from cute last night. 

Clasping my chest and flipping back onto my back, I felt the frantic thrum of my heart through my fingertips. My thoughts stirred with it's rapid speeds, and soon Dane's words and face flitted through my mind- the way the warmth of his hands traversed the dip of my neck and back. The tingle he placed on my bottom lip with his- no. 

I can't let myself be involved in this. 

Careful as to not wake him, I swung my feet around the bed and lifted myself out from the covers.

Things were messy as it was with Mike. What other catastrophe would it cause to also be involved with Dane?

My fingers clamped around the edges of my sweater when I pulled it around my waist. I didn't get myself involved in a love triangle, did I? 

The momentary thrash of panic was dulled at the thought of Mike. I scoffed at myself and shrugged on my jacket. When did Mike care about anything else besides himself and getting laid? It was a fact I knew from the very beginning. It was his constant pestering presence that was wearing my guard down, so now that I almost have him out of my life I am back to my senses. 

It's refreshing.

I'm finally back to who I was and what I came to Ridgewood high school for- giving my family the life we used to have and exposing the truth behind Daniel's death. 

A dull smile crept up my lips when I fished Daniel's wallet out from my jacket pocket, twirling the brown, worn leather between my fingers. Now that it was Thanksgiving break, I had the time to start finding some answers, and the fish market had my name on it. I will find out why Daniel visited that place so many times before his death and how Garrison and his gang was related as well. 

It has to be correlated. I just have a feeling. 

Lifting my head in confidence, I reached out towards the handle of the door to leave, but a sudden rustle behind me caused me to hesitate.

Dane. 

I feel bad leaving him in the morning like this without notice- like his thoughtful night out for me was some cheap one night stand. Not like it was. Dane was a gentleman that knew how complicated things were and didn't want to pressure me. However, I failed to see how twisted his situation was as well. 

What happened between him and Jacquelyn must have broke his heart. Breaking any relationship that lasted as long as theirs would bound to be painful.

We must have both been out of our minds yesterday. 

Nothing was meant to be between us either.  

Nodding my head to make sure I had this truth confirmed to myself, I slipped out the door and took the bus to the fish market after sending a quick text to Dane. If anything, I should at least tell him where I was going.

Not sure how far it was from the hotel Dane booked us, but I can remember a bus stop being close by from the last time I visited.

The first time was to visit Daniel. He sent me an urgent, vague text message a few weeks before his death, and despite the many times I called him he didn't pick up. It was while I was at school, but I was so worried about them that I left to go see if he was alright. It's funny how all these memories flooded back the instant I hopped onto the bus. 

I almost forgot. Such a large memory of him almost slipped past my fingers, will everything else I remember about him slip away too? 

Clenching his wallet in my lap, I bit my lip and closed my eyes. Guilt cornered any sort of rationale into the back of my mind and threatened to rise panic and tears from my chest, but I could almost hear Daniel's voice in the back of my mind telling me that it was only natural for me to forget due to all that was happening to me right now. I could almost hear him scold me for being ridiculous to almost cry over such a small thing. 

A light smile replaced the crease between my eyes. He would say something like that, however, I couldn't let myself forget. Not yet, at least. 

I almost died of a heart attack that day when I thought something terrible happened to him. 

Thankfully, Daniel had such a nasty habit of leaving his phone behind in the most peculiar places, so he entrusted me to have it tracked. So, when I went to track it that day, it led me there, to the Carleton Fish Market. 

I flipped the business card that Daniel kept in his wallet and swept my thumb across the embroidered indentations of it's name. For a fish market, it sure made it's cards look fancy and expensive. One would never be able to guess that Carleton Fish market was comprised of industrialized metal buildings. 

It looked quite ugly from the horizon, and it didn't seem to me that things changed much when the bus approached the stop. 

Tugging on the wire to stop the bus, I slipped off to only be slammed in the face with the smell of rotting meat, fish, and polluted ocean. 

Things really haven't changed. 

They really haven't. 

"I'm going to puke," I gasped into my jacket sleeve. However, as I looked around, the memories flooded back in a wave that swept me off my feet and into a trance. Everything, the color of the buildings, the chipped paint on the bus stop, and the graffiti on the highway ramp walls, was exactly the same. 

It was like I was here yesterday. 

"Please, be okay." 

I could hear the silent prayers I cried as I ran towards his destination that one day. 

"Please, just answer me," I sobbed as I dialed his number one more time on my phone. At the moment, I would have done anything to hear his voice, but instead all I heard was the ring of his voicemail. 

The memories. It blended with my currently reality, but instead of fighting to keep my head above the past I let it swarm and overcome me. 

"Daniel, I'm seriously going to hurt you if you're okay," I spat under my breath.

Anger. It was the only thing keeping me sane at the moment, the only thing fighting the voice in my gut warning me that something was terribly wrong. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. I had no power if this ended up involving his past gang, but I wasn't able to hold myself back. 

I had to know if he was okay. 

He was the only one I had. 

Hanging up, I focused on the tracking application and sprinted towards the flashing blue dot on my screen. 

I didn't know if it was a good or bad sign that Daniel's phone was at the same location for the past hour, but I could only hope it meant that he was doing some work or accidently left it there while having a good time with some friends. What friends, though? What friends would he meet here? 

Before I could question my logic, I was nearing the building, taking right turns across crates of fish and left turns around metal shipping containers. The entrance, or the backside-  I couldn't tell which, was a large open space like a parking garage. 

There were a lot of men hard at work in blue, pushing and hauling crates in and out of the building, but Daniel was no where in site. 

Not thinking twice about how I would stick out like a sore thumb if I entered, I ran in until I reached the back office. The doors were closed and the blinds drawn, but I could hear several voices from within. 

"What the fuck did you do to the program?"

"This is the second time this week that you've caused us to lose hundreds and thousands of dollars in operations. You have the money to repay us, you broke ass punk?" 

"I'm sorry. I noticed that there was an inefficiency within the system, so I tried to reprogram-" 

My eyes widened at this voice. It was Daniel. 

"Who the fuck told you to reprogram it?" A voice screamed. 

"This won't do," A deeper voice chided. 

My heart started to race at the sounds of rustling approaching the door, but not being able to anticipate it opening I leapt back in surprise and froze in panic at the site of two men in suits opening the door. They held Daniel by the cusp of his shirt, and the man's hand stopped in mid-air as if he was going to throw Daniel out. 

Daniel's brown eyes widened when they settled on me, "Ashlyn?" 

The largest man of the two chuckled and peered down at Daniel, "That's who you were texting? Your girlfriend? Don't worry, you aren't in trouble. Yet," Then, he released his hands from Daniel's shirt, letting him fall to the floor. Though, after the two men left, he quickly shuffled a silver coin into his wallet.

Could it be this silver coin? 

Snapping myself out of my memories, I dug around in Daniel's wallet and found the same silver coin that he snuck out that day, holding it up to the office door. I never seen him having it before, so why did he try sneaking that out? 

What was so special about it? For a coin, it was a bit odd since it had engravings that made it look more like an arcade coin than anything. The edges were also rather thick, too thick to be any kind of currency.

But, then, holding it up to the light revealed the smallest hairline fracture in the center of the coin. It seemed to run through the middle of the coin. 

How have I not noticed this before? 

Could there be something inside? 

Was this why Daniel died? Was this why in his dying moments he made sure that Garrison wouldn't get a hold of his wallet? 

The mystery behind Daniel's death grew with the growing list of questions, and entranced in the sudden complexity I dared to pull the two pieces apart. At first, they refused to budge, making me doubt whether this was all in my imagination, making Daniel's death larger than it needed to be, but then it jutted apart and revealed a small black square. 

Swallowing hard, I plucked it from the second half of the coin. It was an SM card. 

There was something on there. 

My fingers started shaking as all the pieces came together.

Daniel wasn't murdered over some meaningless gang quarrel. When he told me that one night that he was going to set everything right, he was going to turn himself in along with some corrupt corporation. And, he was going to do so with whatever he had on this card, however, they got to him before he could. 

He was killed over whatever was on this SM card, and I walked right into their turf. 

Shaking, I turned to run, but instead I found a group of men in suits, a lady with blonde hair, and Mr. Blade, the loan shark that has tormented my family all these years, step out of a car and walk towards the building. I wished they were here to talk about fish, but my gut knew otherwise. 

I walked into something I shouldn't have, and under no circumstances could I be caught with this silver coin. 

Though what seemed to be the main players in deep discussion, several of the men behind them had their eyes locked on me. After all, I was terribly out of place, but they were still far enough for me to run. I could try going behind those crates, but why do they seem so calm about letting me escape. 

"Excuse me," a scruff voice mused from behind me, "I believe that card is ours." 

Though, before I could twirl around to see who it was, I felt a hand reach behind me to cover my nose and mouth with a white napkin. In seconds, my vision faded to black and I felt my body tossed over a shoulder.







a/n: 

yay, things are happening. never thought I would get here lmfao. 

but important question. 

laurel or yanny?