Emma laid in the bed of her hospital. Pain pulsed from the stitches on her belly. She ignored it as she looked out the window. Her mind blank. She wanted to be blank.
She then looked around to see everything from her fans and family. Cards, flowers, stuffed animals, dark chocolate bars from all over. She was a bit surprised that people cared so much for her after all this time.
"There's more coming apparently." Emma looked over and smiled softly seeing her mom and dad.
Her mother, Holly, was a model and child actress. She was well known today in the acting industry. The mother daughter due made a hit together. Even with Holly being only in her fifties, she was still a beautiful woman.
Her father Keith was a action star. He did small parts in other genres but he was mostly doing action. The two met when they was in a drama together. They was in separable since then. They dated and then married a year later.
Emma always looked up to them. She wanted love like theirs. But now.. after everything she went threw in the hands of a crazy man who loved her... she didn't know if she wanted to be in a relationship anymore.
She had been here at the hospital for four days. She was going to be released in the morning. Her parents drove here not wanting to wait for a flight. It took them a day to arrive, but in their words it was worth it.
They never stopped looking for their daughter. Even her twin Jack was looking for her. Even after a year when people told them that she had to be dead and they should stop looking. they told people, that if Emma was really dead, then they wanted to bring her body home to burry.
Emma was prescribed for PTSD, Anxiety, and depression. Her family was happy to hear that Emma was still a virgin, that she wouldn't have to go threw life being labeled a rape victim.
Emma knew that even if she was raped, her family would do anything in their power to help her threw the memories. And they will do the same with the horror filled memories she has with what happened to her.
But she didn't know if she could talk to them about it. They wouldn't understand it. The horror she went threw was something that she wouldn't wish upon anyone.
Emma wondered how the family of her dead friends were doing. Did her friends have a good funeral? Were the family at peace? Did her friends suffer? So many thoughts now raced threw her mid.
Holly went to her little girl and hugged her, holding back tears. She knew her daughter didn't want to see her cry. So she wont in front of her. Keith walked around the room, looking at everything that was given to her.
He stopped when he saw something he didn't like.
'Murderer!' He grabbed the paper and stuffed it into his pockets. They kept Emma from releasing a statement. They wanted her to settle into things first. To go home and feel safe once more.
Emma wanted to see her dead friends families. To apologies. Though it wasn't her fault they was killed. She wanted to apologizes that they was killed instead of her. She wished with all her might that it was her that was dead, and not them.
She hugged her mom back. She breathed in the familiar scent of her mother. The one she remembered in the pit. It always calmed her. Even when she was a infant. She remembered the stories her parents told her of being a toddler.
When she had Jack and Emma, Holly would take the two to photoshoots. Emma would cry if Holly wasn't in her sights. So Holly took the shirt she came into the photoshoot in and give it to the babe. It would calm her right down.
Emma was walking to the car when she heard foot steps rushing up to them. Her father's bodyguards was trying to keep the reporters away from them.
They just got off the plane that took the family back to Miami.
Emma looked back just in time to get a slap to the face. She reached up, holding her cheek, she looked to see it was a obviously distraught Asian woman with a teared stained face.
Lydia's mother.
"IT SHOULDVE BEEN YOU! SHE DIDNT WANT TO GO! SHE ONLY WENT CAUSE YOU WAS GOING! YOU KILLED MY BABE!" She shouted at Emma.
One of the guards dragged the woman. Holly grabbed her daughters face to look at the red handprint on the girl's cheek. Emma removed her mother's hands. "I'm fine... I deserved it." Emma said looking at the sobbing woman sadly.
"No you don't. You didn't do it to them. It was that freaks fault." Holly told her daughter firmly. But Emma wasn't listening.
Emma looked out the window of her bed room. She looked around the outside as she opened the window. Not wanting to feel trapped. She just arrived and people was bringing the gifts inside to his rooms.
All the flowers already making the room have a an almost over bearing floral scent.
She touched her still stinging cheek. She wanted to do something for Lydia's family. For all of their families.
"Hey you." She heard a familiar deep voice greet from behind her, breaking Emma out of her thoughts. She turned to see Jack. Jack was her twin. But she looked more like her mother, and he took their fathers masculinity.
Before Emma bleached her hair blonde, she had brown hair just like Jack's is now.
They both had brown hair, green and hazel eyes, full lips, and pale skin.
She smiled and walked over to him, and when she got to him, the two siblings hugged. She took in his scent as well. He still wore the same axe spray. Same old Jack. It made her smile softly.
She pulled away and looked at him. He looked at her back, but even with his familiar easy grin, his eyes held sadness and relief. He looked at her cheek. "She got you good huh?" He didn't ask, it was a statement.
She moved her face away from his gentle hold. He took a step back and looked around the room.
Her once organized room was covered in flowers. Flowers of all kinds everywhere. He even saw a bonsai tree on her desk.
"You could open your own flower shop Em's." Jack joked hoping to hear her laugh. His twin sat on the window seat, looking at him. To Jack she looked like a empty shell of who she once was. But a shell with her old self trying to get back inside it.
"I can also open a chocolate shop with all the chocolate I got." She joked back with him, a ghost of a smile on her face.
He went over and sat beside her.
The two just sat there for a moment, looking straight ahead, before he wrapped a arm around her and pulled her head gently into his chest. When he did that, Emma broke.
She started sobbing. She hadn't cried since she was rescued. Now she was letting it all out.
Jack knew his sister wanted to be the strong person. That's who she was. She didn't want to cry in front of anyone. But Jack. He was the one who always held her when she finally broke down into tears.
Siblings to the end.
"I want to see them.. The graves.." She said threw the sobs. He kept rubbing her back. He nodded. "I'll take you in the morning. Just relax... You're safe now." He told his sobbing sibling.
Emma and Jack took one bodyguard each, as they went to the local cemetery. "We went to the funerals." Jack told her. He looked at the tiny blonde.
She was wearing all black. Her hair held back by a black silk ribbon. Her black shirt was lose yet fitting at the waist. Her black skirt flew with the light breeze.
The pale skin and hair was stark against the blackness. It was her normal look for stage performances. But right now it represented her own inner sadness.
In her tiny arms she held white roses. Thirteen of them. One for each lost friend of Emma's The white for the innocent lives lost. Lost cause of her. And her cause of that monster.
Jack would lead her to the grave stones, have himself and the guard's step away for her to have a moment alone to say her peace, before repeating the cycle.
Emma would stand there thinking about the great times she had with the person who's gravestone she was in front of. She would apologies to them, even though she knew that saying sorry wasn't going to make it right or bring them back, but she had to say it, then she would set a rose on their stones.
Lisa, Simon, Reggie, Madison, Lacie, Liam, Gracie, Archie, James, Nicole, Stephan, Kyle... She soon looked over to see Lydia's grave stone.
She saw someone standing at that one. This person was bowing to the stone mumbling lowly in Asian words that Emma didn't understand. But she did recognize the voice. It was Lydia's mother.
Emma took a deep breath and walked over to the woman.
The woman just stayed their mumbling lowly.
"I know that I am the last person you'd want to see near here... But I wanted to give my respect." Emma said, alerting the older woman to her presences.
The woman looked up, she was crying. Emma understood why. Lydia was her only child. The woman wasn't able to have anymore cause her husband died, and she never remarried. Now this poor old woman had no one left.
"Before you say anything. I want to say something to you... I'm sorry... You was right.. It should've been me that night... Maybe if I had waited to leave... or not have gone... none of them would be dead if it wasn't for me..." Emma felt more tears fall from her own eyes.
"I wish it was me. And I wished it was me the entire time. If giving up my life right now would bring Lydia or any of them back, I would end my life right here and right now, but it wont. And.." Her voice broke down as she softly grasped the woman's wrist.
"And I'm so sorry I can't bring them back. I am so so sorry I can't. I wish I could but I cant. I'm sorry I couldn't kill the bastard who did it to them. if I had known how to use that stupid gun.. I would've..." Emma ignored the dirty ground, and got to her hands and knees.
Bowing to Lydia's mother.
"I know it's selfish of me to ask.. But I ask for your forgivness… Or at least accept my apology." She begged with her head to the ground.
When she didn't hear anything, Emma looked up to the still grieving mother. She was shaking with silent sobs.
Emma was soon engulfed into a hug. The woman openly sobbed as she hugged Emma. Emma hugged her back and cried as well.
Emma laid in her bed as her thoughts ran threw her head.
Could she get back to normal. Her manager Annie said that when she was ready, the band will be as well. Jack toured with the band while she was gone. But he mostly did it to spread awareness and to get the help to find her.
She wanted to make an album in honor of the lives lost cause of her. But she needed the words. And right now she didn't have words. Just thoughts...
She closed her eyes. Mentally preparing herself for another night of nightmares.
Could life get back to normal?