Irish Throwdown (What Happens In Vegas Book 4) by Matt Lincoln (short books for teens .TXT) 📕

do you take then?” I asked Penny as I wordlessly gestured for her to stand against one of the alley walls. There were two other cops in the alley as well as me and Naomi, so I wasn’t worried about her running away.

“What?” she glared at me.

“You said that you’re not a crackhead,” I reiterated. “So what kind of drugs do you take? Because you definitely took something the way you attacked your boyfriend.”

“I already said that he deserved it,” Penny scoffed. “And I’m not stupid enough to take that stuff. Weed only. Maybe a little E or something when I want to party, but I’m not going to take any of that hard stuff.”

“Why did your boyfriend deserve it?” I asked curiously.

“He thinks he’s better than me,” she shrugged. “I offered him some of my fun stuff so we could have a good time, but he was all snobby about it. I told him it wasn’t a big deal. It’s not like meth or anything. It’s just a little something to give you energy and make you feel good.”

“Is that what you took today?” Naomi asked.

“Yeah,” Penny rolled her eyes.

“Do you have it on you?” I asked.

“There’s some in my purse,” Penny responded, looking around the alley as if searching for it. “I don’t know what happened to it. I must have dropped it when I hit Robbie.”

“You did more than hit him,” Naomi replied curtly. “You put him in the hospital, Penny.”

“What?” She asked incredulously. “Geez, he’s such a baby. He didn’t have to go to the hospital over one little punch.”

“Hold on a minute,” I turned to Naomi. “I’m going to go speak to Chance for a second.”

I walked briskly over to where Officer Chance was still waiting by the car.

“Finished already?” he asked.

“Not quite,” I responded. “Did you happen to find her purse? There’s something in it I need to see. Also, I know this is a weird request, but do you have any photos of Robbie’s injuries?”

“Yes, we have the purse,” Chance nodded as he reached into his car to retrieve the evidence bag he’d placed the purse into. “And I’m fairly certain we took photos of the injuries as evidence, but why?”

“I have a hunch,” I replied. “I think Penny might need a little push so she can realize the scope of what she’s done.”

“Alright,” Chance shrugged. “I’ll have them forwarded to your phone.”

I waited anxiously as Chance made a call. A moment later, my phone buzzed as the photos arrived.

“Thank you,” I smiled at him.

“No problem,” he replied. “Just let me know if there’s anything else you need.”

“I will.” I nodded hastily as I marched back to where Naomi was keeping watch over Penny.

“I thought you were never coming back,” Penny smirked sarcastically.

“This is what you did to Robbie.” I ignored her snarky comment and held my phone up so she could see it. The smile slipped off her face as soon as she realized what she was looking at.

“What is this?” she demanded shakily.

“This,” I replied, “is the state you left your boyfriend in.” I scrolled slowly through the photos, each one depicting a different bruise, scratch, cut, or bite mark.

“I did not do that.” She shook her head. “I just hit him one time!”

“No!” I barked. “You beat him half to death and put him in a hospital bed. Whatever you took had you so out of your mind that you viciously attacked him and then blocked out your entire memory of it.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Penny whimpered as her eyes welled up with tears.

I tucked my phone back into my pocket and dug through the purse Chance had given me. The inside was filled with cosmetics, old receipts, and other typical things I would have expected to find in a teenage girl’s purse. However, one zippered pocket on the side of the bag contained several small plastic baggies filled with various kinds of pills and one filled with marijuana.

“Which one of these was it?” I asked as I showed her the drugs in my open palm.

“The ones on the right,” she responded quietly. “The white tablets with the pink smiley faces on them.”

I opened the bag she was looking at and pulled out one of the tiny tablets. It was small enough to fit on the tip of my finger, and there was a bright pink smiley face printed on it, just like she said.

“So you haven’t taken any cough medicine?” Naomi asked.

“What?” Penny asked incredulously. “You mean that stuff that was on the news? Of course not. I’m not trying to die. I just wanted to have a little fun.”

“Penny,” I looked at her seriously. “What is this stuff?”

“It’s called Rush,” she responded. “Like ‘sugar rush.’ The pills are really sweet like candy, and it gives you a burst of energy, making you feel really happy. Or at least it used to. The first time I took it, I felt like I was invincible. I even tripped and stubbed my toe so hard that I broke my toenail off, and I barely felt a thing. It was awesome.”

“So it numbs pain?” Naomi asked. Penny nodded in response.

I felt my blood run cold. There was no doubt in my mind that whatever this stuff was, it was essentially the same drug we’d found in the cough syrup. The fact that it numbed pain would explain how so many of the assailants could keep going even after being shot by the cops.

“Anyway,” Penny continued, “it stopped working after the first couple of times. I ended up having to take a double dose just to get the same results, and a little while after that, I had to up it to three pills.”

“Which meant that the side effects got worse, too,” I concluded.

“Yeah,” Penny frowned. “Robbie told me that I got really irritable when I took it. I started having hallucinations, too, but they were kinda fun, so I didn’t think it was a big deal. I never thought I would go