Kidnapped (Book 1)

The Funeral

One Week Later

            Today was the day, the day I dreaded for a long time. I knew the day would come, but I didn't want it too. Today was the day of my parent's funerals. The Colorado police force that my dad worked with offered to give him a military type funeral and offered to pay for some of the expenses. I tried my best to be grateful but in the back of my mind, all I could wish for is that my dad wasn't a police officer. Why couldn't he have been just a normal parent, then maybe he would have been alive today?

          I decided to let my hair hang down, just in case I wanted to use my hair to cover my face that would be drenched in tears. I hated having people see me cry but I knew today I couldn't hold anything back. I wore the same silk black dress that I had worn to Kyle's trial and the same shoes that matched. If I had known I would be going to special events like this I would have bought more clothes, but I only had this one dress. The ceremony was going to take place at a park that was located across from the cemetery where my parents were going to be buried. Part of me thought it was strange that someone decided to build a park across the from a cemetery. Morbid but at the same time convenient.

          I didn't even bother to wear makeup because I knew it would just come off anyway. I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom to admire myself. My skin was pale white and there were bags under my eyes from the lack of sleep I got the night before. How was I supposed to sleeping knowing the next day I would be lowering my parents in the ground? You could see my bandaged up stitches from where I was shot on my leg because my dress wasn't long enough to cover it. Hopefully, next week I could get my stitches out and that would be one less reminder of what I went through. Until then though, I had to walk with a limp so that they wouldn't tear open.

          The car ride to the funeral was torture for me. I really didn't want to go to the funeral as bad as that sounds. Part of me thought that if I didn't go then they weren't really dead. I know that's a stupid thought but I desperately wanted to believe that this was all just a sick nightmare. On the way to the funeral, I began thinking about my dad.

           I remember when he first taught me that running could be a sport. It all began when my dad offered me ten bucks to run with him for a week, just to see how I liked it. Ten dollars to a six year old was a lot of money, trust me. Before the week was even over, I knew running was what I wanted to do and even if he hadn't paid me I would have been happy. I was good at running and I knew that's what I wanted to do. We would always go running outside together from that point on and before I knew it, running became my life; my escape from the real world.

            We pulled up to the park where I saw the whole ceremony set up. There was about fifty white fold up chairs lined up in rows. The whole police department was coming, so that filled about thirty of the chairs. The other twenty were for family and friends. My mother's casket was already set out but the men at the police station wanted to wait and properly carry my dad's casket in when everyone arrived.

          I got out of the car with my aunt and uncle and quietly walked over to my mom's open casket. I don't even remember the last time I saw her, is that sad? She always worked a lot and since her and dad were fighting, she would stay at hotels or her friend's houses. Part of me wanted to hate her for dragging on a ruined marriage but I knew she did it for me, even if I was hurt in the process.

           We wanted an open casket so everyone could see them one last time in person before they were buried. Sure, it was harder this way but I couldn't let my last time seeing my dad was when a bullet went in his head. Even if I was seeing him laying peacefully in his casket was better than the brutal murder imagine I have in my head of him.