The final
Nadia shook as she tried to unscrew the cap to her anxiety medication. No matter what she did she couldn't escape the screams, the fear. Faces chased her dreams; just like they said. A voice whispered in her head. I will never forget. It had been fifteen years since her senior year of high school…fifteen years since her last good night sleep. She wondered sometimes how the others were, but not often. No her thoughts were always filled with peaceful look on Emily's face when she was shot, the hug she and Jack shred before they died. Nadia had asked herself when she woke that night, 'why me?' At the end of the night she never asked it again.
"Mom, Mom" a teenage voice shouted jarring her from her thoughts and causing her to jump. She turned to her fourteen year old daughter and was again struck with a lance of pain through her heart. Her little girl was the reason she had never been able to forget that night, the child that had been in her when they were captured had grown into a beautiful young woman. She bore an exact likeness to Nadia's cousin Emily. Only Nadia' mother had know about the connection; that her half sister's child had taken her daughter hostage. That is until Eve started to grow and Nadia had a nervous breakdown when she turned 11.
"Yes Eve" Nadia responded forcing herself to be calm. She just had to get through this weekend and Eve would be back with her mother, back where she's safe, for another two months.
"You have mail" The vivacious teen grinned. Once she had learned of the dour nature of the girl that hurt her mother she did her best to smile as much as possible in hopes of looking less like her. Little did she know that each smile reminded her mother of those final few moments when their last two captors chose to die.
"Thank you" the woman responded softly taking the letter from her daughter. She opened it with shaking hands and found an invitation to her fifteen year high school reunion. She sat abruptly.
"What is it?" Eve asked immediately, concerned.
"My high school reunion" was the absent response.
"Oh" Eve thought a minute, "Are you going to go?"
Startled Nadia's eyes flew up to Emily. For a moment her tone changed to one that haunted Nadia's nightmares. There was a challenge in her daughter's eyes as she let the happy mask drop. In that moment Nadia felt like she was looking Emily again. The eyes bore into her reminding Nadia that Emily would never get a high school reunion; that she never graduated at all. The girl was still vilified in their town just the same as their compatriots. No one, not even Nadia, ever admitted to why they had been taken captive that night. The true secret that burned her nerves and made her anxious; the real reason she was haunted.
"No" Nadia breathed for a moment taking in the darkening of those eyes. The hidden anger "We are."
At once it felt like some great weight had been lifted off her, the ghosts of five people watched and waited. Nadia let herself fall into the waiting madness; she would clear her conscious once and for all. Through it all a slow true, peaceful smile spread across Eve's face