“Whatever, I don’t care. I just need to know what it was so I can press charges against Trace and clear this whole thing up.”
The nurse and Faye handed me a cup and followed me toward the restroom. I could hear the girls whispering in their room, and I felt sick to my stomach. With shaking hands, I unscrewed the lid to the urine cup, followed her instructions, and peed inside it, laying it to the side. While I wiped and put my pants back on, not even caring how humiliating it all was, she put on a pair of gloves, screwed the top back on and walked off. I washed my hands and met her back at the table while Faye watched.
I sat down in one of our rickety chairs and offered my arm, not even bothering to hide my tears any longer. She swabbed my arm and stuck me with a needle, took three test tubes’ worth of samples, and placed them in a tight storage container. She placed a cotton ball and a band-aid over the site and instructed me to stand up and turn around, to lift my hair, so she could obtain a hair sample. I did exactly what she asked then watched as she placed the sample into a plastic envelope.
When she was done, and without another word, she took a disposable pipette, unscrewed the lid to my urine sample and stuck ten to fifteen test strips through, laying them on a plastic sheet she’d laid out. She put the lid back on and we all stood in absolute silence as she peered over the strips.
“Marijuana,” she dryly spit out and Faye aggressively scribbled. “Ketamine,” the nurse added as if in slow motion, like a punch to the gut and there was Faye with her evil pen once more.
“Can I file a police report?” I asked the cop.
He snorted and rolled his eyes. I swallowed hard. “You don’t believe me.”
“You can file a police report at your local station,” he told me and looked away.
“I know how it looks, but that is what actually happened to me,” I explained, but it fell on deaf ears.
Faye began reading from a document in her stack of papers that I know was supposed to be for my benefit, but I didn’t hear a word she’d said because the cop had started to walk down the hall. I heard him instruct the girls to gather some things, that if they had a bag, they could put their belongings in them, but if they didn’t, he could get a few trash bags.
“Please think about what you’re doing!” I yelled at the Faye woman.
“Miss Hahn,” she gritted, “you have tested positive for a controlled substance and the living conditions here are deplorable.”
“I can change that!” I bargained. “I can change all of this. I know I can. Whatever you require, I can do it!”
She didn’t respond. Didn’t say anything.
The nurse had gathered her things and had walked out of the house toward her vehicle already. Another police officer appeared, throwing the screen door open, and stepped inside.
“You’re going to scare them!” I said. “You can’t imagine what they’ve been going through. Don’t do this. Don’t do this!”
“Please calm down. We’re trying to do what’s best for them,” Faye sputtered out and walked toward their room.
I buried a fist into the thin wall of my parents’ old house. It began to rain heavy and sudden on our shoddy tin roof, the sound hollow and horrible in my ears. I fell to my knees in front of the hall wall. My palms met crumbling wallpaper as their door opened, so I stood. They each held the hand of Faye Briar, a perfect stranger.
“Lily?” Eloise asked quietly as she passed me. My fingers grazed her hair as the woman led them toward the front door. Both girls tugged their hands back, visibly panicking, and reached for me.
“Lily!” Callie screamed, making me want to vomit.
“Lily, help us!” Eloise begged, tears streaming down her face.
I stormed forward, reaching out for them but the two officers reached for my shoulders, holding me back. An unholy noise escaped my lips when the door shut behind them and my knees met floor once again. I bellowed at the ground, slamming my fists.
“What have I done? What have I done?” I asked no one.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KATIE AND ANSEN SHOWED UP an hour later after I called them. When I saw them, I busted through the screen door, popping it off its hinges, and ran to Katie’s arms. She met me with open arms and held me. Ansen guided us inside.
“What happened?” he asked, throwing his keys on the coffee table.
“They took them, Ansen.” I sat on the edge of the sofa and wrapped my arms around my stomach. “I feel like my world is ending,” I confessed.
“Tell me exactly how it happened,” he demanded, his face red.
I relayed each moment to him and he shook his head.
“Why would you willingly take the drug tests, Lily?”
“Because I told them I was drugged. I wasn’t afraid of it. It was the truth.”
He brought his hands to his face and dragged them down in frustration. “Lily, you should have waited until the drugs were out of your system.”
“They said they were going to take them if I didn’t submit a test!”
“But they took them anyway, didn’t they!” he yelled back.
Tears streamed down my face. “It didn’t matter if it was today or next week or weeks from now. They sampled my hair.”
“Yes, but we could have hired an attorney by then,” he said. “We could have arranged for something else. Reported that fucking asshole Trace!”
I stood. “Oh my God, that’s who reported me,” I said, connecting the dots. “It was Trace! He knew he was about to get turned in, knew it would happen. He’s trying to make it look like it was all me.”
Katie rocked back and forth, side to side. “Would Trace do that?” she asked. She turned toward our back door and peered over the fence into Trace’s yard.
“He would,” Ansen said. In the blink of an eye, Ansen threw open the sliding door, scaled the back porch deck, and started barreling his way through our knee-high grass toward Trace’s.
Katie and I screamed at the top of our lungs.
“No!” Katie yelled. “Ansen!” she desperately screamed.
I ran through and caught up to him, Katie right behind me. We yanked on his sleeve and shoulder together, but he was bigger than us. Katie raced in front of him and held him with her palms, tears streaming down her face.
“Ansen,” she breathed and he stared at her. “Not like this. Please, let’s just go back inside. We’ll go to the police station and file a report.”
Ansen’s eyes appeared glassy. “I won’t do anything,” he gritted.
Katie shook her head at him. “Yes, you will. Let’s do this the right way. Let’s figure this out in such a way that no one else gets hurt worse than they already are.”
Ansen pointed at me. “More hurt than that?” he asked her, his chest dragging in large gulps of air.
“Hard to imagine,” Katie admitted, swallowing a sob, “but if you caught a charge, it would make Lily’s case that much less convincing, don’t you think?”
With that, Ansen visibly calmed. She led him back inside and I followed, the adrenaline leaving my body quick and painfully.
“Let’s go,” Ansen said.
I grabbed my bag, a million thoughts racing through my mind, and we piled into Ansen’s car. The police station wasn’t very big or busy. My heart raced as I headed inside. There was a cop sitting behind a sliding glass window so I stood in front of it. He looked at me but didn’t acknowledge me right away, busy writing something down. When he was done, he set his pen down, and slid the window back.
“Yes? Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’d like to file a police report.”
“What’s this about?” he asked.
“Three days ago I was drugged at a party. I don’t know what happened after I passed out, but I have photos others took where my clothes have been removed.”
The guy nodded his head. “Okay, let’s have you come across here,” he said, pointing to a door with an automatic locking mechanism.
“I’ll be back,” I told Ansen and Katie who sat in the lobby.
“We’ll be right here,” Katie assured me.