Set Me Free

'This is my last thought before I black out.'

"When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound.

3 years later.

I made my way down the street, latte in one hand, files in the other. I had been up way too late last night reading into everything, but that was usually my problem. Once I was invested in a case, I found it hard to stop.

In my hands was the report of Sandy Thomas, a young girl who had been murdered three nights before. It way my job to catch whoever had done this.

In three years, I had managed to retrain within the police to become an investigator. They found my prior knowledge of crime and my personal experience with criminals to be something they believed they could use; however, I still didn't like to think about it too much.

It had been three years since my kidnapping, three years since the men that had done it, including my father, had been sentenced to life in prison. However, my father on the other hand had been offered a reduced sentence due to his help with rescuing me. With good behaviour, I may be seeing my father on the outside world in the next fifteen years.

Somehow, six months after I was freed, I had found the courage to visit my father. At this point he had been sentenced and moved to his new permanent home in prison. Even though I had to speak to him while surrounded by guards, even though I couldn't touch him, it felt like nothing had changed between us. He was still the same man that could make me laugh, the same man who helped raised. Even though it took a while for us to be us again, I was glad I had my father in my life again.

I spent a whole year attempting to find Daniel, but never did. After that I assumed that he moved on with his life, moved to a new city and started a new life. It was harder for me to move on. The only thing that helped was the prospect of this new job, a distraction that would help me forget about Daniel Oscar.

So far, it had helped. I would think about work, the people that needed to be brought to justice right up until I went to sleep. Then, all I thought about was him.

I thought three years was enough time to forget what he smelt like, to forget what his laugh sounded like, to forget how he made me feel. It wasn't. Whenever I thought I had moved on, memories of him would resurface ready to make me miss him all over again.

I couldn't help but wonder whether he missed me too.

"Nicholl, get your head in the game," my chief barked at me across the conference room table. I never usually thought of Daniel while at work, I was usually too distracted by other things to even let him cross my mind. For some reason, today he was all I could think about.

"Sorry sir," I apologise, turning my attention back to the briefing on Sandy Thomas.

"As we all, she was kidnapped walking home last Saturday," and the thoughts took over again. Whenever a case involved someone being abducted, I couldn't help but think of the day I was kidnapped. The feel of the cold metal of the gun pressed into my back, the fear I felt as I realised I had no way out, the terror I felt as we sped down the street to my eventual prison. I knew how Sandy Thomas felt in the last moments of her life, and for her I wanted to put those evil assholes behind bars forever.

"Nicholl, please step outside, you're dismissed." My chief tells me as he once again notices that I have zoned out. I can't argue with him; he is right to throw me out of this briefing. However, I can't hide my embarrassment as I leave the room.

Once the briefing is over, Chief McKenzie pulls me to one side.

"I know that this is a difficult case for you Elizabeth, but you have to get with it okay. I need you on your best game if we are going to catch these guys," he tells me.