When We Were Kids {Currently Revising}

Chapter 9: Trapped In Your Own Skull

The word that Laylah Brianne Sanders, Clementine Rose Becker and Monique Alison Ferris were missing spread like wildfire. Parents were frazzled and crazy. Boyfriends were searching, trying to be heroes. Siblings were left with questions, confusing thoughts and hurt hearts. People wondered whether they'd run away. Police automatically checked that off their list. "All three of them wouldn't run away," They'd said.

This statement was the one parents were wishing not to hear. The mothers and fathers of the town were almost hoping the girls had run away because at least then, they wouldn't be as worried as they already were. The possibility that they had been kidnapped and/or raped was terrible. Laylah's mother wouldn't even accept that option. It was too awful to think about and she knew from experience.

Laylah's mom didn't know why this happened to her daughter. She just wanted her to have a normal life but that never could happen. In her seventh grade year, the same thing that was happening now had happened one night. She still remembered it vividly. She got home from work, went to Laylah's room and she was gone. Gone at 11:00 pm at night on a school night. She remembered being angry that she'd snuck out but once she realized she was nowhere near the property and Daisy was home, she got nervous.

In the morning, they found Laylah, unconscious at the bottoom of deer leap with her entire right leg burned. That's when they had to have it amputated and a mechanical leg put in it's place. The police told Laylah's mother that this probably wasn't the first time Laylah had sneaked out of the home.

Laylah adjusted fine, just like she always did but her mother always wondered. How hard it must be to not be able to remember what caused you to fall, what caused you to forget everything before the accident, who was driving that car that was sitting in flames, right next to you.

She always wondered why Laylah had been climbing out her window. She knew not to talk to strangers. There had had to be a threat involved. Laylah's mom didn't dare ask though. She knew what answer she'd get. "I Don't Know." Then, she'd just put Laylah in a bad mood.The therapy helped a lot, her mother thought, but therapy never cures anything and something like this just didn't go away.

So, here she was wondering. Soon, she started to wonder if the people that took her this time were the same people that took her last time. Probably.

Laylah's mother had also started to develop an awful feeling after these two panic attacks. She wanted to kill whoever took Laylah from her. How dare they! They took the one thing that a mother couldn't live without. Her child. Her little girl.

She stayed up late wondering if Laylah was already dead. When she asked the police about it though, they told her it wasn't likely for it had only been about a couple days since the girls went missing.

The one girl, Monique went missing the night before so obviously Laylah and Clementine weren't the only victims. In some ways this comforted Laylah's mom but then she was reminded of the mechanical leg. Although Laylah would never admit it, she was the weak link and the weak links were always the first ones to be killed.

***

Colton walked in again a few minutes later to try to torture us with his good looking food. 

"So, I bet you girls are wondering what I'm going to do to you. Well, recently, my boss was sent to jail for first degree murder and abuse. I'm sure some of you know Mr. Henderson as your fathers friend. Others may know him a little more intimately...as Dmitri." He glared at me. I shuddered. What does he mean, intimately? What did him and Dmitri do to me in seventh grade?

"I don't want to go through all the nasty details of a particular accident four years ago but I'm sure Laylah could fill you in." I looked at him in hatred. "Oh, right. She's forgotten. Some peoples brains are just not the sharpest anymore." He smirked. 

"You take that back! You and Mr.Henderson caused her memory loss and you know it!" Clementine tried to stand up for me and was about to continue when Colton walked over to her and stomped on her toe. He leaned in and whispered something, just inches away from her chapped lips. 

She winced in pain as he squashed her toes with his big boot. He released his foot off of hers and walked back to his food, picked it up and threw it in the trash can to his right. 

"The point is, Laylah here had caused Mr. Henderson to go to jail," He lied. "And so now, all of you fine young ladies will have to pay the price." He paused, examining his annoyingly perfect nails.

 "You know what the hilarious part is though, Laylah?" The way he said my name made it sound so vile, like I was the criminal in this awful situation. I didn't respond. 

"Each and every one of these ten girls in this room have been through the same events only they can remember them. Now granite, not everyone was as unfortunate as you were but they all could tell you exactly what you went through two months before the accident. You weren't the only victim, Laylah. You may have been the only one with an accident gone wrong but you weren't the only victim." I shivered in fright. 

"Clementine?" She looked down at herself in disgust. How did I not know this? 

"Oh yes. Clementine. Do tell her the story of how you and Mr. whats his name, oh yes, Mr. Calleen met that dreadful night." I glanced up at her, only this time she wasn't the only one looking at herself in disgust.