The Broken Path

Prologue

I dig my nails into the leather seat as My Dad Drives away from our home with my brother and me. We couldn't stay there anymore. I knew that deep down but the thought of leaving the only home I knew was daunting. My stomach dips as we speed over the holes in the road. It wasn't making the stomach ache I already had better.
" Why are we leaving so fast?" my brother asked from beside me, obviously taking the drive worse then I was. I knew why we were leaving.
*Three days before*
I was laying in my bed, the light from my bedside alarm clock glaring back at me, telling me I needed to go to sleep. It was 3:45 am. I tried flipping and rolling but nothing was working. That's when I heard the footsteps. At first, I thought I was my dad who also couldn't sleep but when I heard the steps get closer to the bedroom doors I knew It wasn't from anyone I knew. These footprints were heavier. I froze, who was in my house?, that was the last clear thought I had until I heard the shot. I heard the footsteps again running out of the house this time. I stared back at the clock. 3:50 am. I slowly got out of my bed and opened my door. Across the hall my mom's bedroom door was open. This wasn't unusual as my mom kept her door open all the time as she said ' It helps keep the room cool'. The thing that was off was the mud shoe prints that went into the room. I ran into the room and saw my mom motionless on the bed. For a split second, I thought she was sleeping until I shook her and saw the blood coming from her left shoulder. She had been shot. That's when I screamed. My dad and brother ran into the room scared, obviously had slept through the shot. I was holding on to my mom for dear life hoping that anything could bring her back. My dad slowly pried me off of her and started to call his team. This was now a crime scene. He told my brother and me that we needed to leave the room before we contaminated the crime scene. Obviously, we did as we were told. As we walked out I noticed something weird. The muddy footprints were gone. It was like they were never there. I brushed this off thinking I was just out of it before.
*The next day*
Mom was taken to my dad's work to be autopsied by the ME there. We still stayed at the house though. I had school I needed to do and my dad needed to look into the crime scene. My brother and I were not allowed to go into my mother's room. But for me, being a juvenile, did every time he was away at work. I wanted to see the last place my mom was so I could be with her. I walked into the room there was yellow tape and signs everywhere marking different evidence points they had found. That's when It happened for the first time.
I hazed over and all the crime lab stuff was gone and I was back to that night, the night when my mom died. I heard the footsteps coming into the room. I looked up to see the tall figure walk into my mom's room, mud trailing from his steps as he had just been walking in the mud puddles. I tried to see his face but it was dark and blurry. The man slowly went over to my mom and took out the weapon. I didn't know it at the time but it was a small pistol with a silencer explaining why the rest of my family didn't hear the shot. That's when it happened, he pulled out the gun and shot my mom through the back right where her heart was. Clean and fast. That's when he did the weirdest thing he didn't take the gun with him. He taped it to the bottom of the nightstand drawer and then ran out.
I slowly regained consciousness and was splayed out on the floor of my mom's room. I quickly ran out of there Scared of what I had just seen. Later that night my dad came home and was obviously tired and stressed. I asked him why and he said that he couldn't talk about it and walked into his study. I looked over to his stack of papers on the table. I pulled up the first case file and opened it up. It was about my mom. As I read I saw that there was no weapon recovered as it was ( not seen at the crime scene) This confused me. I saw the weapon, how did they not. I ran into my Dad office with the case file.
" you're not supposed to look at that," he said harshly pulling it out of my hands
" I know but I think I can help." I said I looked at him and he gave me the look like, what is this small 11 years old going to tell me that I don't already know, " I know where the weapon is." I say with confidence.
" how??" He said " What did you do with it?" thinking that I had taken it or something.
" I didn't do anything with it but I saw where he put it," I said trying to pull my dad back to my mom's room.
" He?: he said even more confused " we haven't even found suspects let alone gender."
" just try to believe me!" I say as I duck under the crime tape with him. I pull out the bedside drawer, as my dad stammers a little because I'm messing with the crime scene. He started to stop me until I flipped over the drawer and underneath was the small pistol taped with duct tape.
" how..how." he stammered putting on gloves and pulling the weapon free from the drawer. " this is definitely our weapon, it's the exact middle our ME said it was," he said examining the gun. He then looked down at me " how did you know that was here?" he asked
" I don't know it was almost like I was there," I say not trying to sound crazy. But anything I said at that time wasn't going to my dad, he was so involved in the gun that he didn't even hear me and ran off. When he came back I knew it wasn't good, the gun that I had found was registered to our neighbor and we all knew that he would go after us again if he had the chance. That's why we needed to leave fast. My dad didn't want to scare any of us so he just told us to pack all of the things we thought were important and put our stuff in the car. He never told my brother what was going on. I was the only one who knew that if we stayed we wouldn't make it out alive. I quickly got the essentials and threw them in the car. I then felt like I was missing something, my necklace, I quickly ran back into the house and ripped open the bathroom drawer. There, lying on the top, was the necklace my mom gave me. It was the only thing that would get me through hard times and I knew I definitely needed it now. That when we all got into the car and left our home.