I don’t remember much from that night. The blood sat on the windshield, and I remember telling myself, that couldn’t exist right now, not in that car. It was a cold night. My nose was a bright red, and the color faded all the way across my cheeks. I want to say the cold was making me lose feeling in my limbs, but in all honesty, I was feeling everything. The way the light reflected off the car into my eyes, the way the tires were slanted all the way to the side, and the way the wheel held the head that gave the windshield the same color as my cheek. It all was there, painfully unavoidable.***

I anticipated the phone to ring for the last thirty minutes now. The last time it did, was exactly this time yesterday. I had just gotten home from t-ball practice with my nephew, and was getting ready for my annual phone call. My ability to be patient has always lacked, but for some reason, it was worse than usual. I sat there for about a minute longer before I decided I think you should just call him. My father’s phone number was closer to my heart than he was. I spent the better half of my nights waiting to call, for he was never home during the night and didn’t have the time to talk during the day. 

My siblings and I were close to my dad. We grew through so many painful memories. We almost lost my father while he was working, and since then, we have made sure to take our time with him very seriously. Our hardships made it almost easy to get through newly given situations. 

I usually was in a rush to dial his number, but my fingers moved slowly, and my heart rate started picking up.

It’s just a phone call, I thought.

“I can’t call tonight, hunny. I love you.” my father said curtly from the other end. Those words ran down my esophagus and felt like it was burning through my throat. I knew something was wrong. I grabbed my jacket, slipped on my shoes, and ran out to my car. The winter air usually made me cold, but I was already shivering. The cliche of the name “hunny” wouldn’t make people usually blink an eye, but my father never was one to express his love through words. Saying “I love you” and “hunny,” as strange as it sounds, wasn’t a good sign.

My father didn’t know, but I had a location tracker on his phone. Having a cop as a father was already scary for me, and I couldn’t sleep not knowing if he was safe or not. As foolish as it was, I just wanted to watch, even from a distance, to make sure he is okay. I looked for my keys in a desperate search. My jacket that lay on my bed was a purple tone with a white interior. It was my mother’s jacket. Though I didn’t get along much with her, the jacket was about 20 years old, and therefore became part of the “old to new aesthetic” trend. I put the sleeves over my arm and ran out the door. It wasn’t necessarily cold, but the fear had made my temperature drop. 

The drive was about 25 minutes. I usually listen to music, but the comfort of the silence is something I was used to with my father and, therefore, made me feel closer to him.  The clock said it was about 7 in the evening, and even though it was March, it was extremely dark out already. The mood created by the night gave me a predisposed ache in my stomach, but I reassured myself nothing was truly wrong, and I would find myself laughing over my own anxiety later that night.

I pulled into this building that was about three stories. There was one light on in the top left corner from the street view, and the rest of the windows were blocked off. I looked down the alley next to the building and found my father’s car. I saw him exit it. I’ve never seen him scared, but if I had, it would look like he looks right now. He walked around the corner, for what I assumed would be him trying to see into the window, but he saw me instead. He ran over to my car. I had never seen him run anywhere before.

“What are you doing here?” he said in a whisper, but it made my heart sink the same way it would’ve if he was yelling. 

“I could tell something was wrong when we talked on the phone and I-”

My speech was cut off by him running back to his car. He went in it and seemed to be looking for something. He looked back at me with fear and disappointment, right as a man sat in his passenger seat.  He grabbed my father’s head and shoved it in between the steering wheel. I don’t know how to recall the way the blood ended up on the windshield, and quite frankly, I don’t think I should. 

I was frozen. No thought was running through my head. I couldn’t even cry. The pain of this horrifically traumatizing experience left dents in my car, or wait… maybe that just happened. 

I realized a different man, who I presumed to be about my age, had run to my car and started hitting it. The glass on my passenger window was broken. I ran out my driver’s side door and saw the man start to drive off in my father’s car, probably trying to get rid of the evidence. The baseball bat from practice this afternoon fell out from my door, and without giving it a second thought, I threw it at my father’s car. The car slammed to a stop very abruptly, but it continued to drive off. The other man had taken my car and started to drive off with it before he hit my fathers car with mine. The man in my car ran over to my dad’s and pulled out the corpse of what I later learned to be his boss. 

He dropped the body on the street, put his hands on his head, and slowly turned until he was looking at me. “Look at me” he uttered. 

That phrase cut like a knife. My mother used to scorn me with her lifeless eyes and repeat those same three words. 

My mother and I were never close, physically or mentally. She had blonde hair that reached her shoulders, and a very thin body. She was more bone than anything. I had the appearance of my father, even though he says I’m too pretty for that to be true. My mother left mistakes in the way I processed my problems. I could always laugh away the pain of my issues, but if it involved her, I couldn’t control my hurt.

The old trauma that was now included in this trauma was too much for one person to take. I fell to my knees, but never broke eye contact. He walked over to me and said, “You have two options. You can either come with me, or you can wait for the rest of the mafia to come get you.”

After the last few moments of my life, in all honesty, the mafia coming to end this horrendous nightmare was the least of my worries. I could tell this guy noticed I was skeptical.

Mafia? Why in the hell was my father around men from the mafia? He pulled me to my feet, grabbed my hand, and started pulling me in the direction of what I noticed to be a beautifully well connected line of stars above us. Whether or not he was doing that on purpose, it brought me beauty to try to enjoy throughout this time. 

It felt like a few days had passed from walking until he decided to stop at someone’s car. It was sitting on the side of a small-apartment sized home. He grabbed a bag that was over his shoulder. I never realized that was there. “Do you know how to pick a lock?” he asked.

“Why would I know how to do that?”

He ended up showing me bits and pieces of how to, but mostly just got frustrated at how the cold was making it harder to stay steady, but maybe he was just nervous. He mumbled a few curse words laid his back against the car, and it became visibly obvious he had given up. 

The air started going thin and a wave of tiredness grew over me. “Why was my father around you guys?”

“That was your dad?”

I grew silent as I remembered he truly was dead, and then proceeded to cry as I remembered how. He tried to come up to hug me, but resisted his own urge. He looked down at his feet and tried to play it off smoothly. “He was an undercover cop, better than most the ones we see. It was harder to sniff him out than they usually are, but in time his cover was blown.” The man could tell I was struggling to respond, and it seemed he even felt a little bad. “My name is Ben,” he said, “or at least it is to you. I think we should try to rest soon, it is getting late”. 

I nodded with my eyes closed and tried to hide my tears. “I’m scared,” I finally admitted. He didn’t respond, but I knew he was thinking. He twirled his hair between his fingers and then rubbed his hands over his face. He had green eyes with specks of brown within them. His teeth were well aligned, but there was a slight chip on the bottom of his top left tooth. I think he knew he had a nice face, but it didn’t really think it mattered to him. He was about six foot and lanky enough to make you think he tried to stay in shape. He started to notice how much I was analyzing him.

“Somewhere to rest may be a little up the road,” He said to try to take my mind off of him. He smiled as he said it, but I don't think he meant to. Maybe he had taken me with him because he liked me. We walked farther, without speaking another word, until we reached a nice clearing to rest under. It was slightly hidden away, but you can tell something had been there at one point or another.  He found some dry leaves, some pieces of wood, dry crass, and apparently he had a lighter with him. We sat there for about ten minutes until he finally got everything gathered to start a fire. He smiled and looked up at me, but he quickly brought his face back to being serious and continued to admire his work. I laid my blankets down and tried to get some form of rest. 

I found myself in a purple car of some sort. I was driving at about 60 mph and the radio was playing. I looked to my right, and the side profile of my father was there. He turned towards his passenger window, signifying he couldn’t look at me.

“The radio,” he said softly.

The radio? “What about the radio?” I said.

“Crash the car” he replied.

“But we will die!” I weeped.

“I’m already dead,” he insisted. The radio grew a little louder as my father finished. “You won’t be here, but you need to wake up.”

The rest of this image was cut off by my waking to soon find Ben had a hammer held in his hand and was staring at me.

“Are you-” I gasped.

I ran to the fire and grabbed a piece of wood from it. I was anticipating the part I held my hand with to be hot, but the fire held well at the top, and it was cool enough to continue handling, which didn’t always happen, so I assumed there was a higher power to thank.

 “Alright, I won’t touch you.” he sighs.

I didn’t need him to tell me why he was going to do it. I already knew. He stood without confidence and always second guessed his decisions; he was scared, too. Taking me with him was a last resort. He was too scared to leave someone with the whole story and too confident at first that he could maintain a hostage. 

“You weren’t going to lay a finger on me anyways.” I finally replied.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he crossed his arms. 

“I think I do,” I copied his mannerisms, “you are just scared.”

“I’m terrified.” he finally let out.

It looked to be about five in the morning by now, but the spring sky made it seem like it could’ve been later. We both sighed at the same time and just sat down. Blisters started forming on my hand from the piece of wood I was holding. I thought it wasn’t hot enough to do that? My adrenaline had been rushing so much, I probably just didn’t feel it. The burning sensation on my left hand made it hard to focus on anything other than the pain. 

“Come with me,” Ben said.

“Gladly.” I replied in a snarky voice. 

I thought maybe I had groomed him enough to not treat me as much like a hostage, but he waited until I was in front of him and shoved something sharp into my back as we walked forward. He managed to push me forward until we found a car. It had more of a metallic look, and it was painted… It was painted purple!

 “Open this one.” he said into my ear.

The seats of the car were off-white, and the build of it made me imagine it was no younger than 15 years old. 

What a strange color scheme. I let out a single chuckle to myself.

I could tell Ben was confused on how I managed to be laughing right now.

“Give me that wrench.” I said as I busted the window open and opened the car door. Ben had been awake this entire time, and his eyes were evidence of that. He hotwired the car. We drove in silence for about 10 minutes. 

The blisters on my right hand still hurt, especially while they sat on the steering wheel. I sweat from nerves, and it would end up causing flashes of unmatchable pain. 

“Turn on the radio,” he said.

I could tell he was about to fall asleep, and he had made me roll down the windows and play the radio to try to keep him awake.

“Breaking News tonight,” the radio said. I looked over at Ben to see he was knocked out. “One of two of the last Lace family mafia members was caught last night.”

Ben Lace?

“The last man is about 21 and could be considered armed and dangerous. There may be a hostage with him, and ransom may be offered.” 

Hearing the phrase “ransom” especially when it’s considered an option for me, made it finally sink in how bad of a situation I was in. All the moments leading up to this were so harsh and abrupt, my brain never wanted to take the time to consider how bad this was. It started to slowly creep on me that I needed to try to escape. 

Crash the car, I heard

I hesitated for a second. I looked at the speedometer. I was going 60.

I'm so scared. 

My brain had a million thoughts running through it. I tried to analyze every single line, thought, and emotion I was feeling. The road started to blur and everything became nothing. The yellow lines that split the road became one, single smooth line. It seemed to have calmed my nerves. With the thoughts of everything, I ran my passenger side into the wall that had split the road from the grass. Without airbags, Ben ended up landing in the windshield and flew through it.

I don’t remember how, but I managed to make my way to the road. I held out my hand and leaned against the purple car.  The eternity between standing and holding my arm out truly lasted only a few seconds. 

I grew tired, and my legs went limp. I was in so much pain, I needed to sleep. 

“Don’t quit…” My father’s voice came out from the silence of the noise.

Lights finally got closer as someone pulled over. The world went dark for what felt like a few moments. I couldn’t see far enough to move, but I knew I had space to wander. 

I was in my car. The clock said about 7 in the afternoon, and the March sky made it seem later. But this time, my father was in my passenger seat, still avoiding eye contact.

“It’s not your time yet,” he said.

“I’m in so much pain. Everything hurts.” I mumbled.

“You have to keep going.”

I awoke to bright lights in the back of an ambulance. 

“Can you see my hand?” the man next to me had said.

“Yeah.”

“How many fingers do you see?” he said back

“Three.” I think.

I heard him and the woman next to him laugh a little, “She is going to be okay,” she said. My hand had third degree burns, which was surprising. I knew they had hurt, but maybe the rush of everything that had happened kept me from worrying too much about it. 

My father was the last victim of the Lace mafia. He was trying to catch the last two men, Ben and his father, and bring them in. The two of them had eventually caught on that he was undercover, and that’s why my dad couldn’t talk when I called. Ben had accidentally murdered his father while trying to escape the situation, panicked, and had taken me with him. 

I think the death of both of our fathers is why he had so much empathy for me. I thought maybe he was scared, but maybe he just knew how I was feeling. Ben was proclaimed dead at the scene. Maybe if he hadn’t caused me as much heartache as he did, I would feel worse about it than I truly do. 

I learned I had slowly developed Stockholm Syndrome, which was an idea I laughed at. It had taken me about 2 months to get over my irrational feelings towards Lace. I have been going to therapy about twice a week since. 

My siblings stayed with me in the hospital until I was released, while alternating days to be with me. We spent most of the nights laughing about what had happened to me. We were never a family to take our problems seriously. I always admired that about us. 

Even though my dad had never managed to get the last two men into custody, there was some form of pride that grew over me knowing I had helped him achieve his last goal. Both men were gone.

Though life remained different without my father, I slowly gained normality. The little pieces of my pain have faded slowly, and in time, maybe they will leave me entirely.

It was about 3 months after the night I met the Laces. I fell asleep with patience because I was struggling to fall asleep. June was one of my favorite months. I remember being little and swinging on the porch swing with my siblings. Little memories of innocence danced around me, until I finally dozed off.  

I dreamed of the June sky drooping into the ground. I remembered how innocence filled my body with the same colors as the sun. My 5 year old self ran to the swing sets in excitement. While swinging, I had fallen, scraping my knee. I stood up and giggled, though I didn’t want to laugh. 

Maybe I should start facing my problems now. Maybe it should mean more to me than a joke. I decided to go and get a bandaid to cover my scrape.