To my Father and Grandfather, who always manage to make me laugh.
At this moment, one thing was clear, no one was invincible.
A twenty-three year old Nancy Drew got out of the shower and was counting her new scar into her already full memory bank.
Her first scar, she noticed, was starting to fade, but was still visible in certain lighting. It was a circular shape now.
Her memory from when she got this was foggy, but she could still decipher what had happened.
"Daddy!" Nancy called.
He came out from the house wearing his usual suit and tie and found his young daughter sitting on her tricycle, waiting for him to come and help her with her second attempt at riding one.
"Coming, sweetheart."
When he got there, she was impatiently thumping her foot.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Go," he nodded.
She took off with speed this time, pumping her two little legs faster and faster, then she started to wobble. He ran to catch up with her, but it was too late. She fell with a thud against the concrete of their driveway and was clutching her knee with her small hands, whimpering softly when he got to her.
He removed her small hand and examined the scrap on her knee.
"Daddy, the boo-boo hurts," she whimpered.
"Do you want a band-aid?" he asked her softly. He hated seeing her in pain, after all, she was his baby girl.
"A purple one?" she asked, her mood noticeably brightening at the though of showing the purple band-aid to Bess and George.
He smiled, "Sure."
She smiled at the memory as well and moved on to the next scar, which was positioned on her right hip.
This memory was less foggy than the last and the scar was still noticeably fading as well.
She was gliding down the mountain, arms held tightly to her legs, with Bess and George beside her, their nine year old bodies numb from the cold and snow absorbed from skiing since the mountains opened at eight.
She looked over to find George grinning as the cool air blew into her hair and Bess' eyebrows furrowed, an obvious sign that she was trying not to topple over into the snow yet again.
They reached the end of the mountain without any mishaps and slowed to a stop. Nancy didn't notice the snowboard coming from behind, obviously not trying to slow down as she moved into the path of it.
Bess and George turned to their best friend in time to see the snowboard hit her in the abdomen and fall down into the freezing snow on the ground.
Nancy shivered involuntarily at the thought of how cold the snow had been and moved on.
She looked over her shoulder and found the next scar, her first case-related scar. It was just a simple scar, but the story behind it wasn't so simple.
Nancy got into her car that was parked in front of Bob's Deli and unwrapped the sandwich she had bought for lunch. After contemplating her options, she decided to drive to the park and have a nice picnic so she could be in a peaceful setting while thinking about Mary and Edna's dilemma.
She started the car and drove out of the parking lot towards River Height City Park.
She just managed to get off the road Bob's Deli was on before noticing a blue sedan with tinted windows. The car was on the opposite side of the road, so she slowed down, trying to let it pass her, but it kept its pace and she decided it was probably nothing.
She turned the next right and found herself in the winding parking lot leading to the park. She looked into the rear view mirror, her paranoia starting to get to her. The sedan was still there, keeping its pace.
She returned her gaze to the road, but heard a rev of an engine and looking into the rear view mirror once again, before going a tad bit faster herself. She looked again, the sedan was still coming at an alarming rate. Her heart spiked as she increased her speed. Then she felt the thud coming from the rear bumper and increased her speed even more. Now, going at close to fifty miles per hour, she could feel the blue sedan repeatedly bumping her rear.
After one more bump, they seemed to stop, and Nancy reached the parking spot of her choice before looking into the rear view mirror. The sedan was now about fifty feet away, going close to sixty miles per hour itself. Nancy did the math; sixty miles per hour against zero= bad. She managed to close her eyes before they slammed into her old pickup truck and a spring from the drivers seat undid itself and sprang forward into her back.
Her fingers touched the five crescent moon shapes against her bicep and she thought back to her first kidnapping.
This is bad, Nancy thought, noticing the pitch blackness inside the white van she was forced into. Not that she could see anything anyways, as she has a bad smelling bag covering her head.
She could feel the van starting to move and her body jerked backwards at the sudden movement.
About half an hour later, after getting completely confused about the directions to the place she was being forced to go, the van stopped. Once again, her body jerked at the sudden movement, but this time she went forwards and onto the van floor instead of backwards into the side of the van.
Someone grabbed her bicep around their hand, the nails of the person digging profusely into her skin, and yanked her up and out of the van. She just hoped someone would find her.
She fingered the last one, and even though it wasn't quite a scar yet, she was sure it would be. It was a new one that had been the reason she hadn't been home for a week. Still encased in gauze, she could only imagine it was a circle.
"Well, well, Agent Drew," Dr. Doom said, scaring the wits out of her as she slowly entered the room, gun drawn and raised.
She spun and pointed her Sig Sauner at the direction of the noise.
"You're surrounded!" she said, "Come out with your hands up!"
The dark haired man came out from behind a box, arms raised. In a movement he flicked his wrist and a light haired, green eyed, thug came out from behind him, his AK raised and pointed at her chest. The only sound she heard was the sickening sound of a gunshot, and then everything went black.
Nancy sighed and closed her eyes, then began to get dressed, carefully avoiding any movement that would make her stomach move and thought about how ever scar had its own story.
This story is loosely based on my Father and Grandfather's 'war scars', which they are always happy of showing off, even if the story behind the scar is one with someone slamming into a glass door and breaking it into a gazillion pieces.