It's Complicated

Chapter 5: Kacey Eton

The first thing I hear is a gunshot, my eyes flying open at the sound. I slowly slip out of my bed and walk to the bedroom door. When I open the door and peek out, I see that the hallway is empty. I hear another gunshot, followed a woman stifling a scream. Mom. There is yelling, a man’s voice, but it doesn’t sound like my father’s voice. Then again, why would it be my dad’s voice? He’s been gone a while now.

Before I leave the safety of my room, a thought flickers in the back of my mind. My footsteps are muffled as I quietly go across my room to the drawer where I keep all of my dad's old things. Reaching to the bottom of the pile, I find what used to be his knife. It's a old, dull knife that dad always had with him for some odd reason. Keeping the knife in the sheath, I quietly make my way out of my room and a bit down the hallway. For some reason, I feel like I will need it.

My mom is talking quickly, and I can tell she is scared. I can hear a few words she says as I inch closer to their room. I think I hear “don’t hurt Kacey”. Is she bargaining for my life? As I inch even closer, I make out the man’s words.

“Just tell me where he is, and I will leave,” he says, his voice demanding but clear.

“I told you! He’s dead!” my mother almost yells. I can hear her sobbing as she says these words. “He’s dead.” I know she is talking about dad. I know he was killed a few years ago. I rub my finger across the sheath.

“Well,” the man says menacingly. “Then you are of no use to me.” I hear a click as the man loads his gun, and my mother begins to sob, saying “Please. Please don’t”. I imagine her face, her long blond hair, her green eyes filled with tears. I can’t lose her too.

I quickly throw the sheath off of the knife and burst into the room. My mind takes in the scene in a fraction of a second. My mom is pressing herself against the far wall of her room, and a tall man is standing over her with a gun pointing right at her.

As the man turns around to see who I am, I throw the knife as hard as I can at him. He moves to the side a bit, but not before the blade catches his cheek and makes a cut straight up from his cheek to the corner of his right eyebrow. He turns and faces me, his hand clutching his bleeding cheek. His brown hair is shaved almost to his scalp and his dark, almost black, eyes stare at me in shock. Then, to my surprise, he smiles a bit and turns the gun towards me.

Before I have a second to react, I hear the gun fire and I feel a sharp pain in the right side of my head. I fall to the ground, my vision quickly fading, not able to move at all. I barely hear my mother’s scream get cut off by another gunshot.

I can’t think. I can’t do anything but lie there. Nothing is in my mind. No thoughts. Nothing. I stare into space, and then everything goes black.

~ ~ ~

My eyes flash open and I sit straight up in my bed. Sweat beads down my forehead, and my head throbs almost as wildly as my heart is beating. My breathing comes in short breaths.

I remember more. I can actually remember that day now. It was the day I became an orphan at eight years old.

I run my fingers through my hair. My head isn’t throbbing near as much now. My fingers skim the spot right below my hairline where the scar is. I finally remember that day. I cover my face with my hands, shaking my head slowly. I know how my mom died. And, more importantly, I know who killed her.

After I was shot, I had woken up in a hospital room. I didn’t remember anything, and I was terrified. I didn’t know where I was, who I was with, or even who I was. The second I woke up, I had jumped up and run through the hospital, so fast that no one could catch me. I was looking for something, or someone. But, still to this day, I’m not sure what, or who, I was looking for. It took an hour for the doctors to catch me, and when they did catch me, they ran tests on my brain, finding that it was completely healed. Well, almost completely. I still didn’t remember anything past waking up in the hospital room. No newspaper reports came out about me or anything of that sort. I was a secret that should have been dead.

After they kept watch on me for several weeks, they sent me to live with foster parents because I had no family left. The foster parents were like family, though. They had a huge house on the ocean and a big boat that we went out on a lot. They were both very nice to me, and in the nights that I would wake up screaming, they were always there, consoling me. I could actually see myself living my life with those people.

One night, as I slept dreamlessly, someone got into the house. They killed my foster parents and tried to kill me. I’d barely escaped. That night, I took a bus to a place that was so far away that no one would find me. I found a little house that was abandoned and moved myself in.

Weeks later, a man was caught, suspected of killing two people and kidnapping a nine-year-old girl who was fostered by the two people. He admitted to killing the foster parents. But, he also had said that he didn’t kidnap the girl. He said he killed her and dumped her body in the ocean with the bodies of the foster parents that had washed up to shore. The little girl’s body was never found. How could they find one? I certainly wasn’t dead. But, according to records, I was, and still am.

After living in the house for a few weeks, I found an elementary school that was throwing out some old textbooks. I took a few of them and taught myself my fourth grade year. I figured out a way to make money for food by doing yard work for neighbors.

All the while, I was trying to get my memories back. Some came back every once in a while. A glimpse of a face, a room in a house, but never a complete picture.

After a year of living there, one of my neighbors came into the house and tried to kill me. I barely escaped, and I ran away. Again. Leaving my whole life, my home, everything. And it all happened on my tenth birthday. Later, I came to the conclusion that he worked for the people who tried to kill me at my home, and tried to kill me with the foster parents.

I crossed the country on bus after bus until I found the city I now call home. It wasn’t too difficult to cover my trail. I didn’t have a credit card or a phone, so it was easy to just disappear. I found my apartment, my “job”, and, after going to school, I made friends. And I met Travis.

I spin my ring around my finger. I still don’t know where I got it. Another one of my lost memories. I like to think it was my mom’s ring, and that I’m still connected to her and dad. I look at it, smiling. The five petals of the flower are blue diamond, and the center is a small, clear diamond. The shank of the ring comes out from behind the flower on one side, and, on the other side, it curls up above the flower. Carved onto the inside of the ring in curved writing are the words “True Love Waits”. To this day, I’m still not a hundred percent sure what the words mean, but I like them.

For a while, it was too big to fit on my finger, so I wore it on a silver necklace around my neck. When I got here, I stopped wearing the necklace for a while, afraid I would lose it trying to stop a bank robbery or something. Yesterday, I was going though some of my stuff as I sat at home all day and I found it. And the ring fit my finger perfectly.

I hear my phone beep, signaling a text message. I groan, knowing that it is probably the unknown number. I grab the phone from the little table by my bed and unplug it from the charger. The message reads:

I do believe you received my little gift box. I didn’t think you would have time to go to the store and get replacements due to the infection (yes, I know). Our deal is still on, so I will text you again when I receive another location and time.

I sigh, relieved it isn’t another location. I would text the number back my thanks, but the person informed me to never text back, so I don’t.

I set my phone back on the night stand and glance at the framed picture on the stand. It’s a picture of Travis and I at the Eighth Grade Dance two years ago. He is in a spotless black tuxedo and I am in a short, light blue dress that matches my eyes. In the picture, he stands behind me, his arms looped around my neck, his head positioned over my left shoulder. I have my hands on his arms, and we are both smiling. Behind us, everyone else is dancing on the gym floor. Someone from the yearbook committee had come and asked to take our picture for the yearbook. And, even though the picture didn’t make it into the yearbook, I asked the girl who took the picture for a copy of it. She gave me the picture, free of charge. And I fell in love with it instantly. I’ve kept it on my night stand ever since.

I lie back down on the bed, knowing I am going to school tomorrow. The infection is almost gone, and the medication isn’t making me as drowsy as it did at first. I close my eyes, and within seconds, I am fast asleep.