Deck of Cards

Day 40- Ava

Five of clubs- isolation for 7 hrs

Ava's POV

The shaking never ceased, the trembling of my fingers seemed eternal. Jen was laying beside me, softly snoring as the sunlight came through the window. My eyes itched from tiredness and I had rubbed them red raw before getting out of bed to look around our new accommodation.

It was bland, almost as depressing as the whole situation. I shivered when I thought of my father out on the roads, walking alongside potential victims. They had been foolish, believed that he would just take his punishment like anyone else. Somehow they couldn't see that he wasn't some normal criminal but a psychopath. A cold blooded killer.

Jen woke up, her eyes red and raw from crying; everything had gone wrong for her. For some reason I knew that it wouldn't be the last thing to cause destruction to her mental state. She murmured slightly and went into the bathroom where she ran the hot water. There were no windows to look out of, no way to communicate to the outside world. We were confined to a space till the devil was behind bars in a maximum security prison.

Sally arrived the night before followed by Hannah who hugged me tightly and clung to me for a while. They both had small suitcases full of clothes and other personal items, it was hard to not feel jealous that they had regained their identities. I was stuck in a limbo like state, the game had been a huge part in my life and without it I was lost. Suddenly I had to be Ava, I didn't have my father's shadow to cover me away from prying eyes.

Scarlett arrived around mid morning and stayed in a room with Scarlett, Hannah was all alone. She said she didn't mind but inside I could see she was slowly panicking, being left alone again was nothing any of us wanted to face again. I didn't have the heart to leave Jen in her vulnerable state and care for Hannah, the stress of the situation almost made me forget my fears. Almost made the churning in my stomach halt for a second.

We all greeted in the living room of the house that we were being kept in, all of us with bags under our eyes and red raw cheeks from crying. The severity of it hadn't really sunk in, the fact that we could be taken again was still a slightly surreal idea.

"How long will this take?" Sally whispered, her voice cracking from it's dryness. There were fresh tear streaks on her cheeks from a previous crying session.

"However long it takes to catch him," Hannah piped up glumly, staring down at her fingers that were tapping against her leg.

Sally let out a sob and Scarlett held her as she overcame the impending breakdown, I didn't need to know the details of what was happening to understand that it was more than my father's escape. Standing up I went over to hold Sally, who I had never really spoken to that much, and let her cry on my shoulder as Scarlett wiped her tears away that came as a result of Sally's emotional state. Watching someone cry was never easy, even for those with stone cold hearts.

After around two hours of waiting and trying to hold our tears in, a police officer came in wearing a serious face.

"It is like he's escaped off the face of the earth," he said with a grimace as he stared at our faces that turned from hopeful to emotional and then to denial.

"He can't have!"

"Find him!"

Shaking my head I stood up as the girls carried on shouting at the man who was nervously lacing his fingers together.

"Enough," I shouted at them, all my anger was being channeled through that moment," They are doing their best, my father is a man of intellect. He won't just run straight back to the house, where they'll find him straight away. He's clever, he'll go where they least expect...."

Gasping I grabbed the side of the sofa as I saw the memory in colour.

I was thirteen, still oblivious to his evil ways although I had twigged that it was illegal. He told me that it was the good type of illegal.

"Where will you go?" I muttered as we lay in the dying sun, his head resting on mine.

"When?" He asked with confusion. He chuckled when he saw my eyelids dropping and lips part as sleep almost took me over.

"When they take you away for breaking the law?" I mumbled in my drowsy state.

"My dear you do not need to worry," he glanced down at my peaceful face, the face of a sleeping girl, "if you must know my dear, even though you cannot hear me. I will escape from wherever they take me captive and flee to another country never to walk on these lands again. Italy is nice, my mother was born there. Spain, we have a house there. I will be somewhere my dear, hopefully you will be with me."

"Ava"

"AVA"

Blinking a few times I looked around to see troubled faces close to mine including the police officers who was debating to call in back up.

"He's left the country," I spluttered out, my breaths becoming more rapid. I couldn't face it if they could never find him, if he blended in with foreign faces never to be recognised or face his time.

"Where abouts?" The police officer asked getting out a notepad and pen.

"Italy or Spain, maybe France," I said quickly as I was guided to a sofa where I could sink into. My brain was racing trying to remember more useful facts that could help he be found but my mind was like cotton wool. The room was spinning as his face was in my vision, smiling at me with a malicious smirk. Then the room turned black and everything stilled.