In Silence I Shine
Chapter 1
My life was as perfect as it could have been. I had an apartment of my own, a job that paid for itself and a goal. Most people have goals, I knew, but mine felt especially important. My goal was to capture the man that ruined my life, get him on death row and personally escort him to his grave. A little morbid, really, but it got me out of bed every morning. Though if I ended up shooting him during a chase or anything like that I wouldn't be disappointed. Still, I liked to think that I was better off than most.
Past tense.
The world is cruel. This fact is universal, pertaining to everything on the planet both living and not. From the moment you are conceived you start to die. The first time you take a breath of air should be considered your greatest achievement and every time you wake up in the morning you should be thankful. You never know if someone tried to kill you in your sleep.
Thoughts like these constantly ran through Jay's head every time she woke up on the rare occasions she could fall asleep to begin with. Ever since the night she lost everything images of worst case scenarios plagued her mind even during the most menial of tasks, a chorus of "what if's" always playing in her head like a dark and obscure score. The only thing that kept her going every day was the drive to catch the man who had destroyed her life.
She could remember that night clearly. The sirens, the crime scene tape, the looks of pity that she had come to loathe all stuck in her head like a never ending film. She had been out with some friends from school to see a movie, though she could not remember which. When she unlocked the door she found something that would haunt her for the rest of her life. Her mother lay on the floor with her blood pooling around her body and her clothing ripped as an obvious sign of rape. Her father was tied to a chair with a gag in his mouth, his shirt stained crimson and his eyes staring lifelessly at her mother's body. Her eyes immediately started to scan the room, looking for her little brother. Her gaze landed upon the blood smeared television as it replayed the menu screen for Dinotopia and a lump formed in her throat. She didn't need to look around the couch to know who the blood belonged to. She remembered hearing the sound of footsteps in the kitchen and seeing a man in the doorway covered in blood and eating the last bites of a sandwich. He immediately charged for her and gagged her before she could even scream. After that, all she could remember was darkness and pain before she awoke in a hospital with the right side of her face bandaged.
The rest of the month went by in a blur. She could hear the doctors telling police that she hadn't been raped but the man had cut up the right side of her face, leaving her permanently blind in that eye. Everything else – the interrogation, the funerals, the alienation at school – all melded together into one big lump in her mind until she discovered the one thing that would bring her out of her depression.
Music. The most simple and complex thing on this earth. Something that she could use without words to express her feelings, for after hours with a government provided therapist who only cared about his paycheck she finally shut down, refusing to talk to any and every one. But she didn't need words. Her music spoke to those who stopped to listen to the point where they always walked away in tears even when the sounds she created were jovial. Her musical and academic gifts got her scholarships that she used to go to a school for criminal justice and before long she was the youngest member ever to be a part of the Special Victims Unit in New York.
When she was offered the chance to be a part of a medical procedure that would restore her sight she jumped at it, hating that everyone gave her the easy jobs because of her blindness. The surgeons gave her a new eye that was donated by a man who died in a car crash. The only downside was that his eyes weren't the same shade of dark brown as hers but instead hardened silver, a color that must have made the man seem angry even when he was at his happiest. The contrast between her eyes acted as both a repellant and attraction and only added to the annoyances she found accompanied her everywhere she went.
She thinks that this abnormality in a world where everything must fit in with everything else is what led to the events that both helped her and emotionally drained her.
It had been her day off and her partner, Anthony, had promised to take her to the circus after he discovered that she had never been to one before. While Jay had been reluctant to go at first, Anthony's insistence along with the fact that she felt she needed a distraction from "The Case" led her to agree and they set off that very evening.
Jay and Anthony made it to the circus just as the lights were turning on. He ushered her from one tent to the next, stopping at every game and booth in between. It reminded her of some macabre version of the nightmares her little brother used to have. He'd wake up in the middle of the night screaming about clowns and hideous beasts and wouldn't calm down until their mother rocked him back to sleep while he held his big sister's hand.
Jay turned from the game that Anthony was playing while fighting back the urge to run from the park. Her attention was caught by another woman beckoning from a tent that stood a little back from the rest. Immediately the detective's alarm bells went off and she slowly approached, nonchalantly patting her waist to make sure that her gun was still tucked into her belt. The closer she got to the tent the farther the gypsy backed into it. "Come into my web" said the spider to the fly Jay thought, finding the old saying appropriate.
She entered the tent and sat in the seat that the gypsy motioned to hesitantly while the woman took the seat across from her. She motioned to Jay's hands and she placed them on the table, stiffening slightly when the woman took them in her own.
"Do not worry, little Songbird." The Gypsy said. "I mean you no harm nor do I wish to take your money." The woman gently rubbed Jay's right palm. "You have seen much tragedy for one so young and I fear you will only see more." She gazed into Jay's visible eye with pity and regret. "You poor thing. I wish I knew how to help you." Jay just shook her head and placed her other hand on top of the woman's before glancing at the flap of the tent. "I think I know how to help now." The woman suddenly said before getting up and going over to a trunk that had been sitting in a corner. She rifled through it for a minute before returning to Jay with what looked like a piece of jewelry. There were crystal beads threaded through a piece of twine and then braided together to form a simple bracelet. The gypsy tied the bracelet onto Jay's wrist with the instruction to never take it off and then sent the confused detective out of the tent. "Be warned, Songbird. The journey you are about to go on will not end well if you stray from your path."
Before Jay could even wonder what the woman meant her arm was grabbed by Anthony and she was once again being dragged to another tent. She turned her head to see if she could catch a glimpse of the gypsy but both the woman and the tent were gone.
Jay tried to make sense of that encounter for the rest of the night and most of the following week. She would have brushed it off as just a dream if it weren't for the bracelet on her right wrist and the pounding headache she had upon her return to her apartment from all the incense fumes.
Finally it was the weekend and she had been forced by her chief to go home. It was on her way home that she saw the gypsy again. The woman was standing in an alley and started to walk away when she and Jay made eye contact.
I was stupid then. You'd think that being a fed would teach me how to listen to my gut, how to be suspicious. But no. Those years of hiding in the corners to get away from the stares and bullies, learning to read the signs so you could tell when something was off or someone meant to cause you harm flew out the window the moment our eyes met. This was something that I had to do, as much as I disliked the thought.
She led me to Suicide Bridge, a foot bridge that spanned this sorry excuse for a river somewhere in the Boondocks. This bridge had no rails and was crumbling in some places, the perfect place for someone with nowhere to go. She stopped and waited for me dead center of the bridge and didn't move as I approached. But before anything could happen the ground beneath me gave way and the entire bridge collapsed.
I held my breath, closed my eyes and waited…