Friendships and Crimes #2: Power Out

Authors Note: This is a sequel to my first story, Friendships and Crimes #1: Dirty Business! I hope you enjoy this one!

Nora watched the night fall over the sunset, evading the sky in a blanket of darkness and stars. Winter was miserably cold, an icy serenade, whipping all over London. Outside, the wind howled like a lone wolf and irritatingly whistled its long moaning tunes, bending trees and creating awful, biting storms.

Inside her warm and cosy house, Nora lay on her bed, the warmth of her bedroom's golden light poured out of her windows. Nora ears were plugged with her earphones, listening to soothing music, sipping hot tea to cure her headache and in front was a fat chapter book that she went on reading.

"Nora!", a voice bellowed from downstairs.

"What?", she yelled, unplugging the earphones in irritation, then paused the music playing on her phone's Spotify.

"Get the door!", the voice commanded.

"Can't you get it yourself Chris! Stop being a lazy pig!", Nora groaned loudly, clearly expressing her annoyed voice to her brother.

"Excuse me?! Mum and dad left me in charge so get the door!", Chris hollered.

Dragging herself off her bed, Nora bounded downstairs and headed over to the front door. Slowly, Nora opened the door to come face to face with Haley.

“Haley?”, she asked, perplexed, her eyes weren't believing it all at the moment. In the hallway the clock ticked 8:30 pm.

“Hey!”, Haley exclaimed, her smile was extremely large, almost reaching the corner of her face.

“When did you…” Nora stammered, looking at Haley, who was dressed in blue penguin pyjamas, a large ballet bag slung over her shoulder and a purple sleeping bag rolled up in her arms.

“Oh, you told me to come over right? So yeah, I came! Sorry I took so long though, had some work to do but... Here I am. Oh, and I might be staying over tonight! I hope you don’t mind!”, she grinned widely.

“No problem! Come in!”, Nora smiled, holding the door out as Haley dragged her bag in.

Chris was pigging on the couch, dressed in loose trousers and an oversized shirt, on his lap was a dell laptop and a bag of popcorn, half tipped on the sofa. His eyes were locked to the screen of the laptop and in front of him was the news playing loudly.

“Hey Chris! Make sure you’re cleaning your mess before mum and dad come back tomorrow!”, Nora yelled as she headed upstairs with Haley.

Chris rolled his eyes and went back to munching on his popcorn.

"Hey, that's your twin brother right? He looks exactly like you!" Haley smiled, looking at Chris as they headed upstairs.

"Yeah, he is. But I am way better looking and he's the slob of the house." Nora answer proudly, puffing out her chest, then they both began to giggle.

“So… you know how you texted me, it was like a rushed message. Is something wrong?”, Haley asked worriedly, as they sat down on the bed.

“Yeah, that’s why I texted you. Actually… it’s about Mal”, Nora whispered, looking at her in the eye seriously.

“What about the brat”, Haley asked, raising a brow.

“She isn’t just a brat but maybe a criminal”, Nora said, whipping out her phone, then popped in her pin and opened up her video.

“Ok…”, Haley looked, unsure about the accusation.

“Are you sure, like any evidence?”, she asked.

“Of course I have evidence. I never point something out without proof!”. Nora scrolled through the gallery to the video.

There it was the video, playing right in front of Haley. There she was, Mallory Bridges, the brat, exchanging money with an odd man to get something back.

“I told you! She must be doing dirty business! I mean, a girl as snobby and bratty like Mallory wouldn’t risk dirtying her new shoes in a stinky dirty place unless it’s really important and you get something worth it in return”, Nora exclaimed, raising her arms.

“Wait, rewind the video to the part where they exchange”, Haley asked.

“Sure”, Nora smiled, rewinding the tape.

Haley narrowed her eyes as she peered closely into the video.

“Perfect! You see that!”, Haley grinned, pointing to the black round things in Mallory’s hand.

“Yeah?”,

“That’s a drug”, she whispered, looking back at Nora.

“What! She’s probably going to drug someone!”, Nora gasped, shaking Haley.

“Yeah, I think she is… or she might be a drug addict?”,

“Probably not cause she is too young but... We have to do something about this!”,

Haley nodded, her eyes filled with concern, as she stared at the drugs in Mallory’s hand.

Suddenly, Haley’s attention turned towards her phone it was a photo on Instagram.

“Look, it’s Mallory!”, she hissed, pointing to her phone.

Mallory was wearing a black mini skirt and a black and yellow sequin crop-top, her hair in a high pony-tail, and her face heavily caked with makeup. Beside Mallory, there was a girl, the same age, wearing matching outfits as Mallory and the same bratty attitude.

The two had their lips pouted and their hand in a peace symbol.

“That’s probably Jenna, her BFF”, Nora pointed at the second snob in the picture.

“Hey, check out the caption at the bottom”, Haley groaned, looking at the plastic faces in utter disgust.

“Hey people! I’m over at the main power point of London! So excited! Going to meet my uncle with my BFF Jenna!”, Nora read the caption, rolling her eyes.

“She is so fake! Like look at her fake personality! She’s just a snobbish brat!”,

Nora exclaimed glaring at the picture.

Suddenly the heater stopped working, lowering the room to a chilly atmosphere. Then the lights went out and the TV in the lounge stopped playing.

“Oh no! The electricity’s out! Guess we have a candle lit sleepover”, Nora sighed. tossing a pillow over towards Haley.

‘No, wait… Remember how Mallory posted a picture of herself at the main power point? She must have turned the power out!”, Haley gasped, unlocking her phone hurriedly.

“Oh yeah!”, Nora exclaimed, her unhappy face immediately turned serious.

“So… what now?”, Haley asked, biting her bottom lip in worry.