She paused and peered into the weakly lit space. “Where is all this glass from?” She looked up. “It doesn’t look like broken windows.” Then looked back down. “It doesn’t look like broken bottles either.”
Keeping one hand on Aleks, she bent slightly for a closer look. No way was she getting too close to the ground. She pulled her phone out and aimed the flashlight at the ground.
All around them, the ground sparkled like little gems. “What the?—”
She snapped a couple pictures then straightened. Aleks hadn’t said a word. She looked up at him curiously, unable to read his expression. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“That didn’t sound like nothing.” Why was she picking a fight in this nasty, glass-filled alley? Something told her this was important.
“Portia... ” He sighed her name.
“Aleks,” she echoed.
“You really don’t know?”
That sounded ominous. “Really don’t know what?” His words and the seriousness of his tone had her taking a second look around them. And a third.
Broken glass everywhere. An alley. Aleks sounded like he thought it should be obvious, but it really wasn’t.
Hating what she was about to do, Portia took a deep breath and squatted low to the ground. It didn’t look all that different from this angle, but it smelled worse, if that was even possible.
Aleks put his hand under her shoulder. “Stand up. You could cut yourself.”
“Just a minute.” She didn’t brush his hand away, but used him as a steadying force as she panned her flashlight over the ground again.
Tiny bits of broken glass sparkled back at her, just like before. Except... what was that?
She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out the napkin that had held her breakfast. She shook the last few crumbs loose and prayed they didn’t draw any critters. Then she used Aleks’s grip as a counterbalance and leaned forward.
“Portia! Don’t—you might cut yourself.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said absently as she focused on the little curve of glass that had caught her attention. She folded the napkin in half and carefully, so carefully, reached for the fragment. Mindful of the sharp edges, she cautiously picked it up with the napkin.
“Can you help me up?” She really didn’t want to wobble and fall onto all this glass.
With a curse it was probably best she didn’t understand, Aleks grabbed her under both arms and hauled her to her feet.
She kept her focus on the napkin and her open palm the whole time.
“Steady?” Aleks asked, his breath a warm tickle by her ear. Even as his hands dropped away, she leaned into his warmth.
“It looks almost like a piece of a little bottle, don’t you think?” The fragment was small, maybe half an inch, and curved on the sides. She could easily see it as a teeny-tiny little bottle or a?—
“Probably a vial,” Aleks said at the same time that word popped into her head.
She looked at the glass then tilted her head to look back at him. “A vial for what?”
He stepped away from her back and circled so she could see him. “For drugs, Portia. Probably Vyne.”
“Vyne?” she gasped. The delicate glass fragment in her hand suddenly transformed into a terrifying monster. She almost dropped it back onto the ground, but Aleks plucked the napkin from her hand and put the whole bundle into the bakery bag.
She shook her hand violently, appalled at how close she’d gotten to the dangerous drug. If she’d cut her hand, would there have been enough of the compound on the glass to addict her?
“You don’t seem surprised,” she said after her initial shock wore off.
His sigh practically echoed in the alley. “I’m not,” he said finally. “Vyne use is growing in Seattle.”
