We drove up to my house in the police cruiser. I saw many police cars and a coroner’s van sitting out front of my house. “What happened while I was at school?” “Why Did the police pick me up instead of my mom?” “Where is my mom?” A million thoughts raced through my head in a single moment.
I got out of the cruiser slowly as I looked around, scared and shaking. I started walking to my front door. Once I made my way to my house an officer was waiting at the front door to let me inside.
“You can only grab enough to last about a week. We need to keep as much as we can as it is so the crime scene is not disturbed too much. You can only grab stuff from your room cause it was the only room left untouched by the aggressor.” The officer explained as he opened the door for me.
I walked up to my room and as I stood in my room I could hear the cops bustling around downstairs. I never thought this would be what I came home to when I left for school this morning.
Earlier that day, it was 2 days before summer break. I was in 8th grade. I was rushing around my room getting ready for school when I heard mom walking up the stairs. The light click-clack of her heels always gave her away “Honey you’re going to be late for the bus, Hurry up you still need to eat breakfast.” She hollered from the top of the stairs.
“Almost done. OW!” I yelped. I had burned myself with the curling iron when I turned to yell toward the door. “Be down in a minute.” I hollered once my hand stopped burning enough to breathe. I rushed around the room making sure to not forget my art project in the corner. I had been working on it for weeks and just finished it last night while I was doing my history homework.
“God I hate history. I have never been the best at it.” I thought to myself. History is my least favorite subject in school. The teacher doesn't make it any better.
Little did I know how much my history would play into my future and a very important role at that. I stuffed my history homework in my backpack along with my history book and ran down the stairs where I was met with the smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. I ran to my place at the table and ate my breakfast as fast as I could.
My bus stop was a block away and I had 5 minutes to get there once I had finished eating.
“I love you momma, see you when I get home.” I ran out the front door pulling it hard behind me. I heard it SLAM as I raced down the street as fast as my legs would carry me to catch the bus.
I made it in the nick of time, and as I got there I saw the bus door closing. I hit the side of the bus as I ran up to let them know I was there.
“ You barely made it AGAIN, Miss Allen, go take a seat.” The bus driver looked at me annoyed as usual. I walked back to take my seat and everyone was blocking their seats with their books and backpacks cause they didn't want me sitting with them.
My friend and I are nerds so it makes sense we have the two highest GPAs in school only one other student has a similar GPA but that's not important right now. We have a GPA of 4.3 the normal is 4.0 but we do A LOT of extra credit.
After walking past half the bus though I finally found my best friend Lilly. “Did you finish the history homework?” It stumped me. I looked at Lilly hoping I wasn't the only one stuck on the history homework last night.
“No, but if we work together I am sure we can finish it before we get to school!” Lilly exclaimed.
Lilly and I began to work on our homework laughing and giggling the entire time. Soon, we arrived at school. Luckily, We had finished our work already and we were stuffing our homework into our backpacks when we arrived. We finished putting our things away. I grabbed my art project, we got off the bus, and headed to the cafe’.
While we waited for class to start I began to daydream. All around us we could hear the little cliques which there were a lot of them. There was the popular group who were always talking about us. We knew that because they would stand in the corner of the cafe’ and point at us and laugh.
Then right near them are always the jocks; they sit near the popular crowd but never with them. They were sitting on top of a table near the popular crowd today right in front of them a couple of tables from me and Lilly. Todd was part of the jocks, he is a football player. He has gleaming blue eyes with a hint of gold in the center.
He is the only other student in school with a GPA above 4.0 but he doesn’t want anyone but me to know. He asked me to fake tutoring him so his friends wouldn’t know his GPA was so high or that he was so smart. I will personally never understand that but it is his choice not mine and I made him a promise to keep it a secret so I never said anything to anyone.
Sometimes I wish he saw me as more than a friend sometimes. I have had a crush on him since the third grade. “His short brown hair fell perfectly framing his face and when he brushed it back it looked like Elvis Presley’s hair.”
“ SHONA, SHONA!!” Lilly tugged on my arm to pull me to class, tearing me away from my daydream. The day went by very slowly, particularly history because the history teacher has such a monotone voice it is always so hard to stay awake in his class.
Suddenly over the loudspeaker, I hear “Lashona Allen, Lashona Allen, Please report to the principal’s office. Lashona Allen, Please report to the principal's office, Thank You!” A loud buzzing noise then it cut off. My teacher waved me out the door.
“Oooooohhhhhh Someone’s in trouble.” I hear bursts from several students as I make my way to the door. I heard my teacher shush them as I shut the door behind me.
I slowly made my way down the hall to the principal’s office. I was never in trouble. I thought I did something wrong when I was greeted by two police officers who were waiting for me outside the principal's office and escorted me inside.
I was terrified of them telling my mom I did something wrong. “I’m a good kid. What did I do?” I have never even been disciplined that I can remember so I didn’t even know how my mom would punish me for whatever I had done.
“We need to take you home to grab some of your clothes. We will explain why along the way.” The two officers stood up and gestured toward the door. One held the door open for me, the other walked very close to me almost as if protecting me from something.
They escorted me out to the police cruiser that was parked in front of the school. I got into the car and we started heading home, the two officers were talking to each other very quietly.
“ What’s going on? Why did you pick me up and not my mom?” The two officers looked in the mirror with a sad look in their eyes and I could tell something was not right.
After a long pause, the officer who had held the door for me at the school looked in the rearview mirror and spoke with sadness in his voice. “ Your mom has been murdered and we do not know who by or have much to go on. We had to pick you up from school because we don't know if they are after you too.”
I never expected how gruesome the attack was, you could tell just by walking in the front door how hard my mom fought for her life but, before I ever walked inside I saw a lot of cop cars parked in front of my house along with, an ambulance, and a coroner van which at this point I knew my mom was in there.
Once inside tears started rolling down my face knowing that what I saw on those crime documentaries my mom loved so much could actually happen. I couldn’t believe it happened to me and my mom though. You wouldn’t believe how gruesome people could be at my age unless you have been through something like this.
\* \* \* \* \* \*
I was twelve years old when the last of my world was stolen from me by someone I didn’t even know. My mom was my entire world and she was torn from my world, from this world entirely too early. I looked around before heading up to my room to get my stuff.
The glass in the front door was broken and all over the floor in the entryway. The glass that was left in the door frame was slowly falling out of the space it once stood in. I glanced into the living room and dining room and saw the tables and chairs flipped and thrown broken all over the room.
I imagined at that moment how hard my mom struggled in these two rooms, throwing every chair and table she could lift to get away, struggling for her life. As I made my way past the kitchen toward the stairs I saw a smeared bloody handprint streaked across the wall. I looked down and saw drips of blood leading behind the island in the kitchen. I followed it with my eyes and right behind the island which I could barely see from where I was I saw a bloody knife and a puddle of blood where my mom lost her fight.
I refused to let myself imagine that part because I didn’t want to think about my mom’s final moments. After seeing this, tears rolled down my face soaking my clothes as I made my way up the stairs to my room. Once in my room I sat down on my bed, took a deep breath, and then just broke down crying and hyperventilating.
Everything around me went black like tunnel vision. I could only think about what had happened to my mom and how alone I was now. Suddenly, my phone rang pulling me back to reality I looked at the caller ID and it said:
“LILLY BFF”
I didn’t answer, I just hung up. I stood up and made my way to my closet to grab some of my clothes. I just grabbed enough to last me a week because they needed almost everything to stay for the investigation. So, I couldn’t get much of my stuff until after the investigation was done.
I turned around to leave and noticed the blue teddy bear mom bought for me for my 9th birthday sitting on my dresser next to the last picture my mom and I took together. The teddy bear has a little pink dress on with a little cotton candy embossed on the front of it and “LOVE MOM” embroidered on the left foot. It also had “ Shona’s 9TH Birthday” embroidered on the right foot.
Looking at it tears rolled down my face again as I held it. I decided to bring it with me and put it in my bag then grabbed the framed picture of me and my mom. The last picture we took together was from when we went to the Grand Canyon a couple of months ago. I had always wanted to go and my mom planned a surprise trip.
We got there and immediately took a picture at the top with the Grand Canyon in the background. We were laughing in the picture. I wish I would have taken a picture this morning or last night but it's too late.
I grabbed the picture, held it to my chest, grabbed my bag and turned to walk out. I stopped to look at my room one last time knowing this may be the last time I see it for a while. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and walked out. Once I reached the front door the two officers walked me to the cruiser. Before I got into the cruiser one of the officers looked at me.
“Are you ready to go?” He asked
“ I will never be ready but, we can go now.” I looked at the officer hung my head and a single tear rolled down my face as the officer opened the door for me I climbed inside and he shut the door. I gently pressed my face to the window as it fogged up from my face being so hot because I was crying so much.
I pressed my hand against the glass and whispered “I promise you, Momma, I will find out what happened to you, I will never forget you, I’m sorry I couldn’t be here to save you.” Then I felt the car jolt forward. We headed to the police station to find somewhere safe for me to stay.
As we drove I began to feel survivor guilt as the thoughts raced through my head. “Why did I survive?” “Why did I have to be at school?” “If I was home maybe I could have saved her or gotten her out of the house to go somewhere.”
Suddenly I started to wonder why anyone would want to hurt my mom when all she ever did was try to help everyone around her. “Maybe it was a burglary gone wrong?” “Maybe they thought he wouldn’t be home?” Whatever the case may be I will find out what happened.
I must have drifted off to sleep because I was suddenly awoken to a loud BANG!!! I was being carried inside in an officer's arms. He was running from the cruiser. He left the door open and his partner ducked behind the door as we got into the building. The windows were bulletproof so since the gunman had failed to kill me he ran off.
I assume the cops didn't see where he went because they didn't follow him; they just came inside to protect me and make sure I was okay. Once inside they called over their radio that there was a gunman at the police station. “Gunman at Denver police department in District 3. The current description is unknown. They are after a young girl age 12 victim of a traumatic crime most likely involving the gunman. Gunman is Armed and Dangerous. Keep constant patrols and at the end of shift return to the patrol room for briefing on the subject.” I heard their radios screech and then cut off.
Once all the commotion settled I sat on a bench and heard a few officers talking about where they were going to put me for the time being. I stood up, walked over to the group of officers and found one that picked me up from school earlier today. “Hey, I understand I am in danger but, I have an aunt in the area, and with my whole life already being uprooted I would appreciate having one thing stay the same. I just wanna keep going to school with my best friend. It’s all I have left if that's ok?” I hid my face feeling like I was going to be turned away for this idea.
I was terrified I would be disappointed but, I would also understand cause they want to keep me safe. The officer touched my arm to comfort me “I’ll give her a call and see what I can do. Just give me some time, ok?” The officer looked at me, gave me a bright smile then reached to pick up the phone. “ Do you have her number?” he asked.
“Yes, It’s 555-545-5525” I said softly “Can I sit with you while I wait? I don’t want to be alone right now.” I looked at the officer sheepishly.
“Alright, sit right there.”He pointed to a chair at the end of his desk. I went over and sat down awaiting news on my aunt and not saying a word because I knew he had a lot of paperwork to do. I looked over and noticed he was on the phone. He had not talked yet. I watched waiting to hear him talk.
Suddenly “Hello Mam’ I am Officer Yang with the Denver police department. I have your niece here with me. There has been an incident and she needs a family member or close family friend to take guardianship over her. Would you be willing to come down here to do that today? Mmhmm. Mmhmm. Yes, Mam’. Thank you, Mam’.” He hung up the phone and pulled out a stack of paperwork and remained quiet as he filled it out. “Did she say yes?” I thought.
So all I could do was wait and hope if one thing could remain the same it would be going to the same school. About an hour later my aunt ran into the room asking every officer in sight what happened.
They explained to her that my mom was killed and that they were after me too. They told her they are currently searching for who killed her and who had the motive but that they didn’t have much to go on because the killer didn't leave any touch DNA.
They explained to my aunt that I can't go to my house until they complete the investigation which will probably take a while and to keep me entertained or distracted till then. They said the killer left no fingerprints, hairs, or even trace DNA behind. Once she finished talking to the officers my aunt walked up to me. She looked distressed.
“Do you wanna come to my house and get some rest sweetheart?” as I stood up I looked at her. I could tell something was wrong like she knew more than she was saying.
“What’s wrong?” I looked into her eyes hoping for an answer.
“Sit down, Look your mom didn’t want you to know about this for the risk of you being in danger but, you are already in danger and I want you to be able to cope with your mom’s death, Ok? So, your mom was part of a group working on a project to help the police. Well, someone she hired had done something horrible and didn’t want to be caught and once he saw what the program was for he quit and never said why. We think he may have told other criminals about the project they were working on. Once this guy quit though people who were working on the project slowly started being killed brutally. I just hoped they would never have found your mom. She was the last of the people working on the project. I’m sorry.”
My aunt hung her head in shame but I understood why she and my mom kept it to themselves.
“I am not mad at you. You were trying to keep me safe. That’s like being mad at you for pushing me out of the way of a moving car and being hit yourself. You were protecting me. I'm never going to be mad at you for that.” I hugged her and we stood up to walk out of the police station when an officer stopped us.
“Please let me walk you to your car after what has happened today. I feel it is in your best interest to have protection.” After what we had been through we decided to accept his offer.
We got to the car and started to head to my aunt’s, but we decided to turn on the radio to break the awkward silence and give us time to think about what happened today. It was about a 20-minute drive from the police station so we had a little time to sit and reflect peacefully.
It was about 9 pm when we arrived at my aunt's house and I was exhausted and ready to head to bed as soon as we pulled into the driveway. She showed me to my room, carried my bags up, and set them at the foot of the bed. I flopped onto the bed in the clothes I had on this morning and fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed.
I tossed and turned all night long nightmares back to back. I woke up at 3 am screaming thinking the killer found me. My aunt came running into the room. “What’s wrong? Are you OK?!?” She ran up hugging me to calm me down.
“THEY FOUND ME! THEY FOUND ME!” I shouted.
I began feeling my breathing getting heavier and faster. I was losing control of my body again. My body feels like it's not my own when this happens. I have no control over my breathing, my thoughts, my body, or my vision. My aunt told me it was a panic attack and that I just needed to tell myself it was not real. That this will pass.
“It’s not real, It will pass, It’s not real, it will pass, it’s not real, it will pass.” I began to calm down and once I was calm enough my aunt headed back to bed.
Afterwards, I lay staring at the ceiling for a little bit while thinking back on what had happened today. I just could not understand why someone would do something so bad to someone.
“Did he already kill someone and think what she made is what got him caught?”
He had to have done something horrible to want my mom killed over it. Slowly, I drifted back into a deep sleep with blurred images of the crime scene, and more images of what I thought happened flashing across my eyes as I slept.
I had nightmares all night long but I was too tired at this point to wake up even a little bit. I ended up sleeping for eighteen hours straight until my aunt came in to wake me up.
She decided to cook me breakfast in bed but, unfortunately it was the same thing my mom had made me the morning before she died and all I could do was cry when I saw it.
“I’m not hungry.” I cried.
“You need to eat.” She exclaimed.
“Can you bring me cereal then? That's the same breakfast mama made for me yesterday. I just can’t eat it right now please. Can I just have cereal?” I exclaimed.
“I didn’t know I’m sorry.” she hung her head as she was walking out. I think she was crying as she carried the tray of food out. Later, she came back with a bowl of cereal and some apple juice. She knew my favorite cereal was cinnamon toast crunch so that’s what she brought me.
“Hey, I’m sorry for yelling at you.” I said apologetically.
“It’s ok, I didn't know it was the last thing she made for you. I should have asked what you wanted. But, I am going to head back down stairs to clean up.” She turned and walked out.
Once I finished eating I texted her to come get the bowl because I could hear people downstairs. I didn't know who but it sounded like my whole school was downstairs and with my mental state I couldn’t deal with people right now.
I didn’t even want to get out of bed to look out the window terrified news reporters may be there. But, I decided to get up and go to the window, barely pushing back the curtain enough to see the yard and the street.
I saw two black vans facing my house on either side of the street. It was creepy but not creepy though, I did feel like I was being watched though. I went back and sat down on my bed clutching onto the teddy bear I brought from my house.
I knew the people downstairs would hound me with questions about my mom. I mean with how many I could hear it had to be all over the news by now probably came to support my aunt. Suddenly my bedroom door swung open and I swiftly looked toward where the breeze that hit my face came from. It was Lilly and swiftly behind her was my aunt.
“I’m sorry dear I tried to stop her.” my aunt said each word after every heavy breath left her lips from trying to catch lilly.
“ It’s ok, we need to talk anyway if you could close the door behind you?” I asked as nicely as possible
She swiftly nodded and shut the door leaving me and Lilly to talk. “So, how did you get past her to get up here?” I asked
“I ducked behind the crowd till I got past her. That's when someone pointed me out to ask what I was doing so she chased me.” Lilly smiled
“Now, ARE YOU OK?” She shouted as she flung her arms around me and pulled me tightly into a hug.
“I heard the police picked you up at school, so I went to your house and found a bunch of cops walking in and out of your house and it was wrapped in the ‘do not cross’ police tape” She looked so worried as she continued.
“I asked them what happened and they said your mom was killed and you were sent to a nearby relative's house. I’m so glad I knew that your aunt was the only close relative you knew because they wouldn’t tell me a thing. They said they couldn't because you had been shot at and they didn't know who the shooter was.” A tear ran down her face while she waited for my response.
“Please sit down, I'll tell you what I saw. Though, I still don’t know what happened to mom, I do know I won’t be at school for a while.” She sat down on the bed across from me and I proceeded to tell her everything I saw when I got home yesterday. When I finished she jumped up stunned.
“I can’t believe they let you walk in and see all that!” She bawled her fists now yelling loudly.
“YOU’LL BE SCARRED FOR LIFE BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T CLEAN UP THE CRIME SCENE BEFORE LETTING YOU IN THERE!!!” She yelled.
“Calm down. Once I got to the police station I learned a possible reason why she was killed and It gave me an idea to continue her legacy but we would have to do it in secret. It has to be in memory of my mom. She died for it and hopefully if done right we can prevent this from happening in the future.” I looked at her with tears in my eyes but was hopeful that she would approve.
She stood there silent at first, then my aunt walked in and broke the silence to check on me.
“Hey you OK? I heard yelling.” She was concerned but I understood why Lilly did get a bit loud.
“Yeah I’m fine. Lilly just found out what I saw at the crime scene when I went to pick up my stuff. She got really upset about it.” she nodded at me and closed the door.
Lilly finally came to and looked at me kind of puzzled. “So what did you mean earlier when you said this whole thing gave you an idea?” Lilly whispered confused.
“Ok, I found out my mom was working on some secret project to help the police but my mom never got started on it because she hired the wrong people and one of them started killing them off one by one. I want to continue it but silently. We won’t use the old research in case it was tampered with so here's the idea. I want to create a microchip to go directly onto the spine just below the brain.
It will track everything you see, hear, think, touch, feel, smell, eat and so on including who you talk to. It basically is you on a microchip. It can only be accessed if you are suspected of, committed, witnessed, are the victim of, or died due to a crime. If you die of natural causes you can say in your will to give it to your family till they get over your death.
You can choose the length of time after your death that your Microchip AI will remain active. Then it will be stored in a lockbox and buried or destroyed based on your wishes. It’s only used to solve crimes and help your family with your death. What do you think?” I looked at Lilly thinking she would think I was crazy but instead she looked….
Intrigued.
“Can I help?” Lilly looked at me with hope in her eyes. “This will help so many people.” She seemed excited.
“Me too!” A deep voice startled us. We didn’t hear the door open but we recognized the voice as we had both heard it before.
“Todd?” Lilly and I both looked where the voice came from. “How long have you been standing there?” I looked at him confused.
“I walked in when you started talking about what you wanted to do, the microchip thing and Ai. I heard all of it.” Todd explained.
“ Shona tutors you though? How would you help if you need a tutor?” Lilly questioned
“ I’m quite smart actually. The tutoring is to cover that up honestly. We just hang out. I just begged Shona not to tell anyone how smart I actually was because my girlfriend would have broken up with me because she doesn't like smart guys.” Todd explained. “ Well, Now she’s my ex-girlfriend. I found out she was cheating on me.”
“Why help now though?” Lilly asked.
“Because this, this is important. Way more important than how I look to a few jocks and a girl. So, with that being said, how can I help?” He smiled at Lilly and I.
“Well, Let’s get started then!” I blushed and then we began to research AI and what it takes to make it and we paid for a college course on criminal investigation to be allowed to pursue that side of things as well.
“We have a lot of work ahead of us but we do not include anyone else without a thorough background check.” I made it very clear to everyone as we began.
From Here Our Fates Collide…