Finding Lily

8- Lily

I was in a park, the same park I was in as a child across the street from my house. I had a football in my hand and threw it to a man standing in the distance. It was my dad, and he looked just as I remembered: Short brown hair, tall medium build, and a military tattoo on his left arm. He smiled as I threw a perfect spiral to him, and he threw it back with the precision of a professional quarterback.

Then, the park morphed into something else. A basement. My basement, in that other house that we lived in. Her father was there again, a little older, a little grayer, but still the same old guy. He held up a square cushion in front of his face, and I punched it with a gloved hand. He frowned in disappointment and told me to do it again, and again, until I finally got it right. I connected with the mat with so much force that he fell back a step, and he smiled in pride at me. I went to hit the mat again, just for good measure, but then he wasn't there anymore.

The cushion fell in front of me and I was alone. I searched the room to look for him, but all I could find was a door. After opening it, I found myself looking at the kitchen of Gina's house. I walked inside, looking for him, calling out his name. Then I stopped when I felt something wet at my feet. A pool of blood. And surrounded by that blood was Jane's body, blonde hair tinted pink and green eyes looking at me, lifeless. My screams filled the empty house, echoing through the various halls with no one to hear them.

"Lily, wake up."

My eyes jolted open and I tried to sit up, but an immediate pain in my torso made me lay back down. Tears streamed down my face at the realization that my nightmare was a reality. I closed my eyes to stop seeing Jane's death over and over again, but it didn't help. The sobs took over my entire body, and I couldn't stop. I wouldn't stop.

"Lily, please calm down." My father's voice was soothing but I was too angry, too sad, too everything.

"Where is she? Where's Jane?"

Daniel hesitated, giving me a pitiful smile that made everything worse.

"Tell me where she is. Tell me she's ok."

"They shot her, Lily."

"I know that but where is she?" I looked around the pathetic excuse for a bedroom and saw no sign of Jane's presence, either now or in the past.

"They took her but I don't think she made it."

"What are you saying?"

"Lily, Jane's dead."

I shook my head. "No. If they took her that means we can save her. We can get her back." I reached to throw the covers off but stopped when a sharp pain cut across my stomach. Looking down, I saw my entire midsection was wrapped in white medical fabric. Did I get stabbed?

"You've been out for a week, hun. Jane's dead, and you're lucky to be."

"Fuck you. Get the hell out." I yelled. Tears still covered my face and I wasn't sure if they were from anger or sadness. She couldn't be dead. He needed to stop telling me that. Jane wasn't dead. I was going to save her.

I closed my eyes and turned my head away from him in hopes that he'd just go away. A couple minutes later, he did just that.