Vendetta

CHAPTER ONE

VENDETTA

I'm not sure how one could sleep so effortlessly while there was a murderer on the loose, but I did manage to.

I was, however, woken up by a swift rustling outside my window, and peered out to see flashlights. I crawled out of my bed, so as not to wake my sisters and brother, and went out to the dining room to find my father working.

"Dad?" I whispered.

He turned to face me in his seat. "Yes, Vee?"

I hesitated; I didn't want to scare him. "I can't sleep, there's noise outside my window."

He looked through the window as a silhouette glided across it. I could see in his eyes that he became protective, and fearful.

"Go get your siblings, quick."

I did as he said, and saw that all of my siblings were already awake and confused. I led them to the dining room, where my anxious father held a kitchen knife.

"All of you go wait in the bathtub and listen to the radio. Sing along. Your dad just has to run some errands."

We all followed his directions, disregarding the tension in the room. I grabbed the radio from his bedroom and the four of us curled up in the bathtub and sang along to whatever came on. Eventually, the others fell asleep, and I was left alone. The radio played on as I drifted into a deep sleep.

When I woke up, I was in a completely new bed: a completely new house. I looked around frantically, searching for my siblings, searching for my dad. A younger woman came up to me and caressed my head. There seemed to be this angelic glow coming from behind her; it was blinding.

In a panic, I asked her, "Where am I? Where are my siblings?"

Her loving face tilted. "What siblings, sweetie? You're home."

I backed into the wall and hit my head. It stung.

And then I woke up.

I gasped for air. I had just dreamt of losing my family for the third time this week. Just then, my father entered the room. The exact father who has been missing for twelve years.

"Vee? Are you okay?" he asked kindly.

"Dad? How are you... here? Where are you?"

He wrapped my face in his hands. "I'm right here, Vendetta. I always have been."

And I woke up. Again.

This time due to my very real foster mom, Tracie, yelling at me from the kitchen.

I had been to nearly all fifty states in a span of twelve years. At this point, I think I'm a bad luck charm because whichever house I enter, misfortune appears. Bankruptcy, fire, robbery, felony, house after house after house. The agency was running out of places to put me, and I was running out of energy to care. I became numb at some point, and it wasn't very appealing, so my new parents became my former parents within months. A representative actually had to meet with me to discuss the issue of my behavior, and I had to act as though my life was going swimmingly. That was until summer, when I met Tracie and Lovel who helped me become myself again.

"Vendetta, time to go, you're gonna be late!"

Dang it. "Coming!" I yelled back.

I slipped on some sweatpants and a hoodie and rushed out of my room, almost forgetting my bag. Ignorant as he is, Lovel walked straight into me and blocked my efforts of hurrying out the door.

"Dang it, Vee, watch it," he whines.

Lovel and I were in foster care, and were the oldest out of the seven Tracie has. Lovel arrived a little bit before I did, around spring of 2023. Since the next oldest is 11 years old, Lovel and I decided it'd be easier to befriend each other to survive the immaturity of the underlings. Lovel is 16, a Junior, and a lot more attractive than I am, so I was also forced to befriend however many girlfriends he's had. Lovel has calmed down with the ladies, and it made what little time we had together a lot easier and relaxed without having to worry about some jealous girlfriend of his.

We walked to the kitchen and grabbed our lunches, which were packed in a perfect little paper bag. I waved Tracie goodbye, and Lovel followed me out to the car and we drove off.

Of course the first thing the radio plays is recollection of the events in early 2012, as if I hadn't known the story by heart. Today marked eleven years since the case had gone cold, and almost thirteen since she'd been dead. People in the town gathered around the town hall with flowers, cards, and tears to commemorate Sandra. She was our town's Princess Diana, even more so with all these funerals.

Harshly, Lovel says, "God, it's gotta suck for her family. Personally, I wouldn't want that much attention for such an unfortunate event. Didn't the head detective go missing, too?"

In a rather monotonous tone, I reply, "Yeah, whoever killed her got him too, and the cops lacked the intelligence to do anything about it."

He sits quietly for a second, but can't help himself. "Are you mad at me or something? Why are you acting so offended?"

I take a while to respond, trying not to crash into the incredibly slow vehicle before us, but eventually I tell him, "Nothing, Lovel, just sing along to your stupid radio."

He did as I told him, but I was getting increasingly frustrated with the speed, or lack thereof, produced by the car directly in front of us. I honked the horn and yelled in a fit of road rage, which I regretted when they sped up and hit a motorcycle trying to merge.

"Maybe next time, Vee, you should let the drivers drive," Lovel says stingily.

I make a face at him, trying not to get too distracted by his antics. I mean, I didn't have much to focus on since I was barely above 25 miles per hour, but I didn't want to accidentally crash into someone who probably got their license this morning. After all, I don't even think Lovel is bulky enough to survive the airbag if we did crash.