“Mrs. Midnight! Mrs. Midnight! Come quickly.” Jessica was going to the bathroom and came across a boy foaming at the mouth on the ground.

Nora looks at Jessica as she came bragging into her fifth bell government class. She could tell that Jessica was concerned about something.

“What is it, Jessica.” As Nora mark her spot in her government book.

She follows behind Jessica as she led her towards the bathrooms. She spots the boy on the ground.

“Jessica, go and find one of the security officers and give me your phone, please.” Nora kneels next to the boy and does what she can for him.

“Yes, ma’am.” Jessica hands her cellphone over to Mrs. Midnight and runs off to find one of the security officers.

Nora spots a small package in the young man’s hand. She removes it and notices it had a blue cloud stamped on it. While she dials 911, she pockets the small package that had a little needle attached to it.

She had a friend at the DEA that might know what the drug was. Jessica comes back with security officer Newton. She knew he was just hired this school year.

“Jessica found this young man. He was foaming at the mouth and his vitals are very shallow.” Nora looks towards security officer Newton.

“We’ve been getting reports from other areas of the school today. At least five so far.” Newton was on his way to help another guard when Jessica found him.

“It sounds like we have a drug problem going on. The paramedics are on their way here.”

“Well, I’m glad you were here.” Newton smiles at Nora as she walks back to her classroom.

Some of Nora’s students were out in the hallway when she came back. She looks at them “everything is under control, class. Now back to your seat before I give you extra homework.”

The students head back to their seats and sit down. Nora looks at all her students and takes a deep breath and slowly let it out.

“I know how hard life is for you all nowadays. Things used to be a little simpler when I was your age. However, there is no excuse for any of you to use drugs. Drugs don’t do anything helpful for you, except destroying your mind and body. If someone comes up and offer you any type of drug, tell them no.” Nora hopes her little speech will convince her students to say no to drugs.

Just as Nora finishes her speech, the lunch bell rings.

“Your homework tonight is to finish reading chapter 8 and answer the chapter questions.” Nora watches as her student leave the classroom.

Once the students leave the classroom. Nora pulls the drug package out and snaps a picture of it. She sends it to her friend in the DEA.

During lunch, Nora speaks with Carol’s and her daughter’s teachers. She gets the class work they missed and any homework they need to turn in. She explains to them why the girls aren’t in school and why Ginger and Carol may miss more this week.

Once Nora had all their assignments, she heads towards the teacher’s lounge to have lunch. She was still puzzled why Carol’s parents were murdered. She’ll have to ask Carol when she gets home what her parents did. That might explain why that guy was there.

NorthStar Coffee Shop, Memphis, Tennessee:
Hex watches as the people in her favorite coffee shop drunk their coffee and ate their pastry. She had her headphones on and was listening to the police band. They still haven’t figured out who broke into the Check into Cash building. A smile forms on her face as she knew she’ll get away with it.

The job was perfectly executed. She by-passes all the camera systems and the security system inside the building itself. She knocked out
surveillance systems within a three-block radius of the place. She wore gloves, so they had no fingerprints to dust for.

She picks up on the emergency frequency and police band that her former high school had five kids that overdose on some drug she never heard of before. She had dropped out of school last year, because of how much trouble she got into.

She got caught hacking the Marine frequency and misdirecting several cargo ships on the Mississippi River. It was by pure luck that she got caught. She was able to escape from jail by stealing a guard’s keys and disguising herself as a police officer. Before she left, she erased her police record and loaded a virus into their computer system that any time someone did a search of her name. It would delete her record from their database. She stole a car from the impound lot.

She found the program on the darknet at a hacker’s site. She wasn’t a true hacker with computers. She preferred to hack the airwaves.

As Hex kept listening to the airwaves, she picks up on a cellular signal. She presses a key on her laptop to record the conversation.

“The job is done. Deposit the rest of what you owe me, or I’ll come after you.”

“Did you kill the whole family, including the young boy?”

“You didn’t hire me to kill the whole family. Your instructions were just the parents.”

Hex watches as a text message is sent to the same cellular number she was listening to. She watches as $500,000.00 appeared. She looks around her to see if she could spot the person she was listening in on. The cellphone the person was on, had to be nearby.

She looks out the window where she was sitting and spotted a person across the street talking on a cellphone. She accesses their camera function and takes a snapshot of them. She sends the photo to her cloud account. She continues to listen and when the person is done. She watches as they remove the sim card and toss the phone.

Hex wonders who the man was supposed to have killed last night. She accesses the local radio stations and searches the internet, but nothing comes up. She’ll have to access the emergency database to find out.

Before she gets started searching. She gets a refill on her coffee and grabs a pastry herself. It felt nice that she could buy something when she wanted too. Even if it was just a coffee and éclair. As she heads back to her table.

Her birth parents never showed her any type of affections and kept putting her down. Calling her a boy because she never developed like her older sibling. Even her older sister picked on her. Her older sister was the Princess and could never do anything wrong. She, on the other hand, was the ugly duckling. Her older sister and brother were the ones her parents doted on. She was a mistake and her mother never failed to remind her.

She couldn’t remember how many times her mother said that she wishes she was never born or that she should have had an abortion. Her father wasn’t pleased with her at all. He was abusive only towards her. If her brother or sister did anything wrong, they placed the blame on her.

She couldn’t count how many times she had been backhanded, spanked or whipped by a switch. She started hanging with a bunch of kids and learned she had a knack with technology. She learned how to hack the airwaves from a group of ham operators she ran into.

Two of the people in the group used to be communication experts in the navy. She would hang with them and learned whatever they were willing to teach her. She loved hanging with them and learning from them. They never mistreated her or tried any thing. They just treated her as one of the guys.

One guy worked for a home security company and taught her how to install and disable security systems. He would let her come to work with him and treat her like his son. Hell, most of the guys she hung with treated her like a boy, because of how flat chested she was and her mannish looks.

Another guy in the group was a locksmith and he taught her how to install safes and how to open them. Those skills she put to good use breaking and entering places. Her parents and sibling didn’t even notice the fact she never came home or went to school. She ran away from home and dropped out of school at the same time.

She starts searching through the emergency call center logs after she hacked into it. She starts from the beginning of the day and records the ones that might hold some clues to what she was looking for. It was going to take her all day to find what she was looking for.