What's Gained is Lost

Learning to control myself didn't happen overnight, more like two months of hard training. The only time I didn't train was to either sleep or eat dinner. A few times I even fell asleep in the dojo, luckily someone always found me and I'd wake up in bed the next day. One day I realized how much I had missed living on my own and going out. With Adam's approval I set up at a safe house and found a job. Even though I had become friends with the others at Sanctuary, I really wanted to go back to being more independent and normal as I could be.

My first week of work seemed alright; Adam got me a job at a diner that most new comers in town came to eat at. It was fascinating to hear all their crazy stories and reasons for coming into town. On Saturday nights I went and visited my old pal Raphael at the club he owned. I think I surprised him the first night I went back there. There was a lot of understanding between us since we were both feral, he being reptilus cobra Things were going better than I thought they could ever be, so I should have expected bad news to come way soon. I had been working now for a month and was just getting off my shift when two city police officers came inside.

"Are you Valerie Prescott?" one of them asked me.

"Yeah," I said not sure what these guys would want with me.

"We need your help; can you please come with us?"

I shook my head, "help with what? I have an early shift tomorrow and I need to go to bed."

The other officer sighed, "You are the next of kin. Your parents were murdered…but don't worry the man has been caught."

My jaw dropped open, "My…parents? Are dead?" I went with them to the hospital and down to the morgue in the basement.

After waiting a few minutes they allowed me into the cold room. There were two bodies covered with a blue sheet in the center of the room on tables. I paused not sure if I could do this. It had been so long since I had seen them and I could remember that last time I had talked to them, it was after my first mission with Lexa and Jeremy and I had called them to tell them things were going good and that I missed them. But it ended in an argument because they wanted me home now that I was okay, and I didn't want to go. So now here I was. I went to the first covered body and lifted the sheet back. I frowned, it was my father. He looked a lot older than I remembered more gray hair and a beard. I stared at him for a few moments half expecting him to wake up at any moment and ask if I wanted ice crème; but he didn't. My nose started to get become stuffy and my eyes had built up with tears in every corner. Then looked over and pulled back the other sheet to see my mother. Her eye was badly bruised and had a lot of cuts on her face as well with a gunshot wound to the chest. I covered my face with my hands; I was now without a family. Even if we had our differences these past few years fighting I still felt this large hole form, and I realized I'd never get a chance to apologize for being a such a stubborn brat to them.

I left the morgue and started making arrangements for their burial, there would be no ceremony…mostly because there wouldn't be anyone to invite. I didn't tell my boss or anyone else of what happened to me that week, just called in sick since it seemed I really was sick being that I didn't have the urge to get out of bed. I tried hard to get back into my carefree happy go lucky mood but it just didn't seem to pull through. Once I had the will power to get myself out of bed my head throbbed like a clan of trolls were digging picks into my head. I dragged myself to the shower and washed up and put on some clean clothes. When I got to the kitchen I realized the date on the clock said the 10th…had I really slept for two days straight? I went in to work and found out from another manager that I had been fired for not calling in and over using my sick days. That really did it, the icing on my double layer cake. I wanted to just crawl into a ball and forget what was going on all around.