More Than My Own Existence

Chapter

Let It All Out

Sara was sitting on an unbelievably comfortable couch, in an incredibly stuffy office. Her arm still in a shoulder sling and her emotions still raw as hell. Her mother's remains had been returned to her and were currently sitting in her bag at the other end of the couch. After this meeting Sara planned to go to Palos Verdes to release the ashes.

Sara didn't want to talk to anyone about the shooting, or the aftermath. She vaguely remembered seeing a man in her room, a man she believed was her dad, but she had just woken up after surgery and it was all foggy. In fact, if it wasn't for the necklace sitting at her throat, she would have believed the doctors and nurses that she had imagined the man in her room.

A petit blonde in a beige skirt and crisp button-down shirt, sat across from her. Her legs crossed at the ankles and tucked under the chair, her hands resting comfortable in her lap. Dr Linda Martin had politely asked Mrs. Stock, the woman who ran the halfway house Sara was currently staying at, to step into the waiting room while she spoke with Sara. Sara hadn't and wasn't planning on speaking with Dr. Martin. She was only there because Mrs. Stock and her sister had become worried about Sara when she had refused to talk to anyone about, what Sara was now calling, The Event.

"Mrs. Stock says you are having a hard time with your mother's death? That you are becoming withdrawn."

Sara currently sat leaning against the right side of the couch, her legs curled up under her, a slightly frayed pillow in her lap. She simply gave a shrug, pulling her legs tighter to her, her right hand continued to pick at the threads in the pillow and her left fiddled with the necklace. She kept her eyes off the doctor.

"She says you are refusing to talk about the shooting."

"There's nothing to talk about." She kept her gaze down and her face stoic. "My mom was murdered, the cops have no leads, end of story." Thinking about The Event, thinking about life before The Event, even thinking about her mom, hurt. Not just a pain in her chest, the ach would spread through her entire body until her eyes started to sting and if she didn't stamp those feelings back down, she would lose it. There had been multiple times she'd felt like she was close to breaking but had pulled herself back.

"If you don't talk about it," Dr. Martin's voice was incredibly soft and understanding, nothing like the social workers, or doctors, or even the officers, "it'll be harder for you to face it further down the road."

Sitting up higher Sara leaned towards her, "What makes you think I want to talk about The Event?"

"Talking about the shooting, about what you witnessed, will help. I promise." Sara felt some of the wall crumble at that word. 'Damn this woman was good at her job.' If it wasn't for that stupid pain in her chest.

That achy feeling was back, "You think I don't know that!" Her voice hitched and there was a slight hysteric edge to it. "Because I do. I also know that right now, in this moment, if I talk about The Event, I will lose it." She took a deep breath and reigned herself in, returning her voice to normal, "And I know I will not be able to pull myself back from that ledge."

Dr. Martin uncrossed her legs and leaned towards her, "Sara, you have to trust me. Trust me that I will not let go off that ledge. Trust that I will pull you back when you need me too." Sara noticed that she had one hand extended towards her, like a cop holing out a hand to pull a jumper back at the last possible moment.

Sara shook her head, not to deny the offer, because she wanted more than anything to be able to trust her, the truth was there were things she could never tell this Doctor about. Things that would land her in the loony bin if she ever did. Like the fact the bullet had ripped a perfect hold in her scapula, and she didn't think she would ever be able to fly again. There was no one to talk to about things like that. If her father had stuck around, she could have asked him, but she couldn't even talk about the fact he was an angel, without sounding like a religious nut job. But the one thing she could not talk about was how much she missed her mom, and where Sara knew she was.

The ach had spread though her whole body, the sting behind her eyes was in full force. "It hurts too much," came out soft, as a whisper of tears started to fill the corner of her eyes. Her lower lip started to tremble and if Sara didn't stop now, she would fall.

She took a deep breath, leaning away from the offer hand. "I'm sorry Doc," Sara told her. She got to her feet, grabbed her bag, another wave of pain hitting her as the weight of the bag reminded her where she was going next. "We're done." She didn't wait for Dr. Martin to say anything, walked out of the office, ignoring the look of confusion on Mrs. Stock's face.

Mrs. Stock and Sara had driven in total silence after the total failure at Dr. Martin's office. When Mrs. Stock had pulled into the parking lot, she had told Sara she would pick her up in about thirty to forty minutes. This meant Sara had about an hour.

After releasing her mom's ashes Sara sat on the one bench at the cliffs with her eyes closed, her mind wondering yet again to how much her life had changed. Those first three days after the shooting were still a blur. Other than seeing her father, but even that was fuzzy. His eyes however were clear a day. Sara had seen those eyes looking back at her every time she looked in the mirror. The same shape and the same dark chocolate brown.

The only other thing Sara could remember clearly was the pain. The pain in her back, chest and heart. Only two weeks out and her emotions were still raw. Her whole life was turned upside down. The CCPS had spent mere days trying to find a living relative to become her guardian, but her mom's parents where dead, and Liz had been an only child. Her contact with her father at the hospital had been the first time she had even laid eyes on him since she was a week old, it wasn't as if he had left contact information. Which is how she ended up with Mrs. Stock and four other kids. Sara being the oldest. Mrs. Stock had to drive one of the younger kids to a dentist's appointment. The plan was for Sara to wait there till she could drive back and pick her up. She didn't mind, it gave her a chance to be alone, but like everything in else in her life, it didn't last.

A shadow fell on her face and a male voice spoke over her, "Sara Fenn, your social worker said we might find you here."

Sara didn't open her eyes. It had been two weeks since she'd heard from the cops, so it shouldn't have surprised her they would track her down. "Goody on you Officers, you know how to do your job." She readjusted the sling; her shoulder and shoulder blade were staring to ach. "And no, I don't have anything to say to you."

She opened her eyes, held up her hand to block out the sun, and was a little surprised these were not the same cops who interviewed her at the hospital. The one who had spoken had dark blonde hair with a pristine style cut, eyes that were a bright blue, and his voice didn't make Sara want to throat punch the man. His companion was smaller, her blonde hair was pulled back out of her face in a lose ponytail, and her outfit, stance and the fact she was carrying a badge and gun screamed cop.

"This is Detective Chloe Decker, I'm Detective Daniel Espinoza. We were hoping you could tell us…"

"No." Sara didn't give him chance to finish. "I am not going over what happened for the hundredth time. You have my statement."

Sara walked past them towards the edge of the cliff, refusing to look at the two of them. Unlike most people, Sara loved high places. She gazed out over the water. The last time she had been this high, she had jumped off the cliff and nosed dived towards the rocks, pulling up at the last minute and skimming over the waves. Something she may never be able to do now. The pain in her chest was back and she rubbed the heal of her hand against her it, "I… I can't."

Detective Espinoza started to reach for her shoulder to stop her, but Sara spun around to knock his hand way. "Don't," she hissed at him.

"Sorry," he took a step back with his hands in the air. "We read the report and we are hoping to ask some follow up questions."

Sara shook her, "If you need to know something, ask the officer who took it. I told him everything I can remember." She headed back down towards the parking lot, a half mile hike. "I'm sorry, but I can't do this." Keeping her eyes forward, Sara kept going, her shoulder was on fire now, and the air seemed to have rose a couple degrees.

Both detectives followed her, easily keeping pace with her. "Look I can't imagine what you are going through."

"You're right," she tossed over her shoulder. The parking lot was a few feet now and Sara could see Mrs. Stock waiting in the car. Sara stopped and turned on them, "You can't imagine what it's like to lose your parent. To see a man, shoot her for a few hundred dollars, to watch her bleed out in front of you, to not get the chase to say goodbye." That annoying sting was back behind her eyes and Sara shut that shit down by slamming her fist into her thigh. "So, do not stand there…"

"I do," Detective Decker finally spoke up, but so softly, Sara wasn't sure she had spoken at all. It was enough to stop Sara's rant and bring her up short.

"What?"

Decker stepped around Espinoza, held up her hand and approached Sara like a wounded animal. Which was not far from the truth. "I do know what it's like to lose a parent. To have them gunned down for what was in a register and know they bled out. And I know what it's like not to be able to say goodbye." She gestured to herself, "My father was killed in a robbery while he was on duty. Took two bullets to the chest. Wrong place, wrong time." Decker was less than six inches from Sara and still she didn't move. She recognized that haunted look in Decker's eyes. She saw it every morning when she looked in the mirror.

"For months I still expected to see him come home at the end of long day. To hear him call me Monkey and make me my favorite egg sandwich. I know how badly that hurts and I know that hurt doesn't go way." There was moisture in Sara's cheek, and she noticed the same was true for the detective.

Sara's voice hitched when she asked, "When does it stop hurting?" She'd wrapped her left arm over her right.

Chloe shrugged, she now had a gentle hand on Sara's left shoulder, rubbing it soothingly, "I find that it still does."

By then Mrs. Stock was out of the car and calling up the path, "Sara! Are you ready?"

She shook her head but called back, "Yea! I'll be right there." She turned back to Chloe and Daniel, "If you want to follow us back to Mrs. Stocks house, I'll talk to you there." Pulling her arms gently out of Decker's hold, she turned and walked to Mrs. Stock's car and got in. If they really wanted her to go over what she had seen, they would follow her back to the halfway house.

The Halfway House was not what Sara expected when she was first told she would be staying there. First, it was on a ranch called Woody's Ranch, run by Mrs. Stock and her sister Joyce, and named after their Grandfather Woody. Second, it had more than enough rooms and bathrooms for ten people, not counting Mrs. Stock and her sister. It was technically three levels and all the rooms were on the top floor, again with the exception of Mrs. Stock and her sister who had their own rooms on the main level. The basement was set up as one big entertainment room, with one large screen Tv, a foosball table, and in the back right corner a treadmill and free weights. Not that there was a lot of time for those. Mrs. Stock and Joyce expected the kids there help out on the ranch.

When Sara had first come there it was just her, so she had been able to pick her room. She had chosen the one furthest from everything and four days later twin nine-year-old boys had joined them. They had stated from the start they would not be separated, and Joyce had bought a bunk for them. Three days after that an eight-year-old girl had come along and five days after that a twelve-year-old boy. Yet Woody's Ranch didn't feel crowded. There was plenty of space for everyone, which allowed Sara to isolate herself.

The living room's décor would be considered country chic, and even Sara had to admit it was pretty. She currently sat on the loveseat, with Chloe seated beside her on the left and Daniel seated in the wingback chair to her right.

Mrs. Stock set a try of snickerdoodles and fruit punch on the ottoman, "I have asked the kids to stay outside. There is plenty for them to do and you three should have some privacy once I close the doors." She nodded to the detectives and gave Sara an encouraging smile. She left the living room, closing the double doors.

Sara bit her upper lip and waited for the bombardment of questions.

"I understand this is going to be hard," Daniel started off, "and if at any time we need to stop and take a break, just let us know."

Sara nodded.

"Let's start when the shooter walked in." Chloe had taken her hand and drawn her attention, "What is the first thing you heard?"

This was not the line of questioning Sara was expecting, but she went with it. "It was the door slamming open, but my first thought was that the wind must have caught it. It wasn't till I heard the first gunshot that I knew something was wrong."

Chloe smiled at her, "And where were you when the door slammed open?"

"I was standing at the counter, my mom and I…" her breath hitched, and Chloe squeezed her hand reassuringly.

"It's okay. Take your time."

Sara nodded and shoved those pesky feelings back down, took a deep breath and continued, "I had been there for about ten minutes. Mom had gone to the back to work on some shipping orders, Cora was at the register and Matt was cleaning the floor in the lobby."

Chloer nodded, "You were facing the register and you heard the door open but didn't turn around till you heard the gunshot." Sara nodded. "Before you heard the gunshot, did you hear Matt Foster say or shout anything?"

"You mean like, 'Run Sara, he's got a gun,'" she asked rolling her eyes. "No nothing. The door slammed open and seconds later there was a gun shot. It was loud enough to make my ears ring. I spun around with my hands over my ears and that's when I saw Matt lying on the floor."

It was Daniel who asked, "And after you noticed Mr. Foster, what happened?"

The Event was coming up quick and Sara wasn't sure she could talk about it. "I noticed a 44 pointed at my chest and he was yelling at me."

"Okay," Chloe stopped her. "I want you to focus on the shooters face. What can you tell me about him?"

Again, the questions took a turn Sara wasn't expecting. But happily, this was something she could do easily. It was the second most thought about moment in her head, what the man who destroyed her family looked like. Sara's eyes became unfocused as she put herself back in the moment she turned. While it was true, she had first noticed Matt and the gun, it was the man's face she had focused on.

"Short dirty blonde hair, with dark roots, parted to the right. No scars, one ear pierced," she grabbed the top of her left ear, "a single silver stud here. His eyes looked hazel, but they were… they were off. The color I mean." She closed her eyes to focus on those few seconds before he shot her. He was shaking the gun at her and his eyes were looking down, but they suddenly looked up and she realized why the color had seemed off. Her eyes shot open, "He was wearing green contacts. I saw them move in his eyes right before he…" she stumbled over saying it but took a breath and finished. "Right before he shot me."

"This is good Sara," Daniel told her writing on his note pad. "Do you think you are up to sitting down with a sketch…

"Yes," Sara blurted out before he could finish. "Sorry, it's just remembering the man who… well, who took my family from me, is the easiest part of all this. It is something I think about all the time. I need to help find him. He needs to be punished for what he did." There was venom in her voice and neither detective missed it. Chloe also noticed this was the first time Sara was so animated.

"He will be," she told Sara . "We will find him, and he will pay for what he did."

"I don't want him to pay." Sara said shaking her head. "I want him to suffer." She lowered her voice and it came out more of a growl, "I want him to feel what it's like to have a bullet rip through his body, to have the most important person in his life taken from him. To lose his family."

There was a sad look in Chloe's eyes. "Sara, that's revenge."

Without a second thought, "Right now, I can live with that. I can live with him being hurt like that."

Both detectives nodded. They had seen many survivors of gun violence react this way. "Let's return to the shooting." Daniel redirected. "In all this commotion, where was the cashier, Cora Bledsoe? We found her in the bathroom, and she states she ran in there when the shooter first came in."

Rewinding her brain, Sara thought back to the last time she had seen Cora. It was at the register and she was sure Cora had been there when the gun shot had gone off. "I was facing her when he walked in, so I know she was still at the register when the first gunshot went off. After I turned my back on her, I lost track of her. But I do know she wasn't there when…" When The Event happened. Sara finished that thought in her head.

There was a look of concern that passed between Chloe and Daniel, which Sara didn't miss, "What? What am I missing?"

Chloe released her hand and rubbed them together, "If Cora was at the register, she would have seen Matt get shot. She says she left the register before any shots were fired."

Sara thought for a second, going over the events in her head, even pantomiming putting the coffee lids on the counter. Nope, she could see Cora clear as day at the register. She was literally looking right at the door, fidgeting with the key to the register. "No, she's mistaken. She was at the register when Matt was murdered. She was facing the door when he was shot, she would have seen the whole thing."

Chloe nodded, "Okay, go to after you were shot. You are lying on the ground. Again, what do you hear?"

The Event. The spot in the timeline Sara has been avoiding thinking about, but at the same time it was the only thing she thought about. Here is where her resolve started to waiver. She wanted to help them find her mom and Matt's killer, but that annoying ach was back in her chest. She tried taking a deep breath, it didn't help. She took three more, and still the ach stayed where it was, but it wasn't growing. Sara bit her lip hard to try and get her brain to focus, it helped a little. "I was…" Sara started to say but her mouth was suddenly dry. She grabbed one of the untouched cups of fruit punch and downed half of it. It didn't help, her mouth still felt dry and she realized the ach in her chest started to feel like it was tightening. "I'm sorry," she finally said. "I can't." Sara was clutching at the necklace sitting at her throat, her thumb running over the smooth face if the jewel.

Chloe was reaching out to her when the double doors behind them burst open, causing Sara to scream out in fear and cover her ears and duck her head. She was vaguely aware of a voice with a British accent speaking behind her.

"Hello, Detective."

Whatever he had been ready to say, Sara's scream cut him short. All the emotions she had been holding in check overcame her and she shut down. She hung her head, letting her hand cover her face as a wave of sobs racked her body.

"Damn it, Lucifer!" Daniel was yelling at the intruder. She felt Chloe leave her side and Daniel took her place. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. "It's alright," he rubbed her arms soothingly. She could hear Chloe's voice behind her.

"I told you," her voice was low but harsh, "we don't need you for this one. You just scared the hell out of our only reliable witness."

"Oh, come now Detective," the British voice said with an exacerbated sigh, "as if you could solve a case without me."

There was another hiss from Chloe and the voices moved out of the house and onto the porch. Meanwhile Sara tried to take a deep breath between sobs, but all that happened were harder sobs and to make matters worse between her jerking her right hand up to cover her ear and the sobs that were shaking her shoulder, waves of pain were radiating though her entire right arm.

She was done.

Sara stood up and was a little surprised when Daniel let her, "I'm sorry Daniel, but I can't. It hurts to much for me to talk about The Event." Her left thumb was running over the face of the stone at her throat.

Daniel nodded his head as he stood up with her, "I understand. I'm sorry about our civilian consultant, he is kind of a dick." This brought a slight smile to her face. "Tell you what," he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a laminated card, "take this. When you think you are ready, give me a call. We can set a time for you to sit down with a sketch artist."

Sara took the card and glanced at it. "I will." She walked him to the front door and Sara could see Chloe still talking avidly with the man Daniel had called Lucifer, near a jet-black convertible. She could also see the other four kids hanging out by the barn eying said car. She jerked her head towards them, "I take it he's the dick."

There was a moment of disgust on Daniel's face, but he masked it quickly, "Yea, again I apologies for him, because god knows he won't."

The man stopped talking to Chloe and glanced towards the porch. "Detective Douche, please do not bring my father into this!" he shouted to them.

Sara was a little taken back. It wasn't as if they were that far from them, but Daniel hadn't made the statement very loudly. To top it off, had he really just called Daniel a douche. She looked over at Daniel, "You're wrong. He's not a dick." Sara could practically hear Daniel's eyes rolling in his head. "He's an asshole."

There was a little snort from Daniel and Sara grinned. "Most people think the man's charming."

"How charming can a man be named Lucifer be." Sara took a seat in one of the four rockers on the porch, "I mean come on. That's like naming your kid Damien. What were his parents thinking?"

Daniel was grinning by now. By then Chloe had returned but Lucifer stayed by the convertible. "Sorry about that Sara." She looked over at Daniel, "I'm going to ride with Lucifer. We're going to head over to Cora Bledsoe and see if she changes her statement."

Sara didn't miss the way Daniel's body tensed, "So he's going to be working with us on this one now?"

Chloe shook her head, "He's helpful Dan." She turned back to Sara. "If we have any more questions we'll be back."

Sara stood, "As long as he," she pointed towards Lucifer, "doesn't come, I'm fine with that."