Secrets In The Shadows

Chapter 12: Mourning Murder

Three hours later I sit in a metal folding chair in the school auditorium dressed in black along with the rest of the school and their families, starting at blown up photos of Tyler in his football gear smiling and Ashley grinning at a school dance in a purple dress.

The principal is on the stage at the podium saying that after the school funeral everyone will be heading up to the cemetery to properly lay Ashley and Tyler to rest. Next, she asks if anyone has any memories about Ashley and Tyler that they would like to share.

Ashley's younger step brother is the first to go. He talks about how Ashley helped him with his homework and that she would always let him stay up past his bedtime and watched corny horror movies with him. That she wasn't like other step-sisters and treated him like a real brother. 

Next is Ashley's mother, who looks almost exactly as what Ashley would've looked like a couple of years from now. With tears openly streaming down her face, she talks about Ashley as a young girl. How she talked about wanting to become a veterinarian so she could help animals feel better. How in middle school, she was a girl scout and sold the most box of cookies because she had a warm smile.

How at her first school dance she was so nervous she accidentally spilled punch on her date. How when her father had died, she had helped her mother put herself back together instead of worrying about how this was going to affect her. Ashley's mother steps down from the podium and soon enough students and teachers are up there talking about Ashley and Tyler.

One of Tyler's  teammates goes up and talks about how the team will never be the same without him and that he would've gone to do great things and that the bastard who did this to Ashley and Tyler was a bastard and would rot in hell.

One of Ashley's childhood friends says that Ashley would always bail her out when she was in trouble with her parents and that she was so much fun to hang out with. Tyler's older brother goes up and says that its not fair that he got killed at the prime of his life. That he would've gone to college to play for state if it wasn't for his murder. 

After everyone who wants to go up has gone, the principal tells everyone to meet at the cemetery. My dad, brother and I get up and head to our car. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch my uncle and Detective Gray talking to the victims families. Ashley and Tyler's moms are crying so hard they have to use each other as their support.

Feeling like I'm intruding on a private moment, I turn my gaze away quick before anyone can make eye contact with me. But not before I get a tingle down my spine, and it has nothing to do with my shadow powers. 

It has to do with the fact that I feel like I'm being watched.