Page 35 of Collateral Damage

Lillie Moore. Mother of one. Hayley Moore and wife to Richard Moore who died in 1997. I've never heard any of their names before. I want to rip my hair out, how can this be so complicated! Why is she so fixated on my family!

I search upMooreinto the search bar of her files and it's just a sea of writing with dotted pictures of her in amongst the chaos.Is she Hayley?

Hayley Moore

Involuntary manslaughter

6 years

The words penetrate the screen in big bold letters, plastered on newspapers and web links.

Six years. She said she served for six years. But this still doesn't tell me why my father is involved? Who the hell did she kill if it wasn't my father? She lost her mother but he wouldn't kill anyone? Certainly not his work colleague.He's not a killer.He left the scene because it was too much for him as it is.Where does he come into this? Where does my family come into her shambles of a life?

Father comes up quite a few times. Is that it? Did my father kill her father? I sit on a dark picture, hard to see, heavy on contrast as I sit my forehead in the palm of my hands trying to rub out this impending headache settling on the surface, trying to put these broken pieces together. Hays has never mentioned her father, and he is nowhere to be found around the house. All I have is his name, and that he died in 1997. That was two years before my father walked away and now I'm understanding why, this is exhausting.

I level my head and oxygen is ripped from my lungs as her face peers back at me through the computer screen. But not through an image, her insidious mask. How long has she been standing there?! I jump out my body as I turn to face her, gripping tightly to a blade most likely meant for me but I'm too frustrated and infuriated to care right now.

“Are you ready to talk?!” I challenge her blade, buzzing with fury.

“Are you ready to listen?” The tip of her blade licks under my chin forcing me to look at her and I'm riddled with chills.

“I have been ready since the day I got here! I've demanded you tell me Hays and you've refused!” She closes her eyes andshakes her head gently; I narrow my glare trying to read her rubix cube of a brain.

“Because you're not going to like it.” What could possibly be that terrible! I'm not a child, I can handle her past!

“TELL ME, HAYLEY!” I immediately regret speaking that name when her eyes hollow, suddenly seeing innate death in physical form, flaring her nostrils as her split tongue runs her teeth, gripping my throat so tightly my vision goes fuzzy.

“Call me that again. And you'll wish I killed you that night.Do you understand me?” She's practically spitting in my face before forcefully throwing me back into the brittle chair, walking backwards, slowly towards the door.

“Where are you going?” We aren't done here. Where the hell does she think she's going?“Hays…” She doesn’t respond, slipping out the door shutting it behind her and the lock turns, ringing like a gun shot through my heart.“No! Please! Don’t lock me in here! Hays please!”I can't do this again.“OPEN THE DOOR!” I tug on the handle, shaking it vigorously trying to escape this nightmare trying to ignore the demons towering over me. This room is drowning me with voices, I can't breathe in here.

“You wanted answers? Look harder.”Is she kidding!She doesn't even have the decency to tell me even when I'm sitting amongst the answers! What is her problem!? “When you've calmed down. We will talk.” I'm far from calm. In fact, I've never been more enraged. I'm a dog locked in a cage, surrounded by my worst nightmare. My fury takes over, paper scatters the air as I throw files off her desk, painting the floor white, scraping at the board tearing down her work. Uncontrollable tears roll down my cheeks, clawing for my sanity between the walls. Why me? Why am I being punished? What did I do to deserve this!? I heave through my chest, trying to focus on the wreckage in front of me. Scattered parts of me bleeding between the pages. I've messedeverything up in a fit of rage, how the hell am I going to figure anything out now?

??

Play - ‘Hurricane - Fleurie’

It's been hours and I've lost it. I’ve exhausted myself beyond comprehension as I sit with my back to the door crawled in on myself creating a puddle against my forearms. I've sifted through everything and still nothing makes sense. I'm at a dead end and I just want to give up. This was punishment in itself for trying to seek answers she was not ready to tell but I was getting impatient. It's been what, two months now? Two months of playing pretend, two months pondering on questions I need answers to. It's killing me. My entire life has become one big joke and I deserve to know what the hell caused this. What caused her to kill mercilessly on my own family.

I've not heard her since she locked the door and I don’t know what's more worrying, the fact that I have or the fact that I haven't but for some reason I despise this silence where only the voices in my head are keeping me company. I've gotten so used to having her around I forgot what it was like.

I sit for a few more minutes trying to pull myself together when her voice sinks into me from the other side of the door.

“Are you finished?” She's not even angry. She just sounds fed up with me. I feel her weight shift the door as she sits parallel to me on the other side. We are back-to-back through plywood and that's comforting right now. I know whatever I am about to hear is going to shy me away from embarrassing myself further.

“Yes…” I cross my legs, placing my head against the wood and close my eyes ready to reap what I sow.

“Are you ready to listen?”No. I don't think I am. But I don't have a choice.

“Hays please.” I squeeze my eyes shut, frustration lingering on my face.

“I need you to know, before I tell you everything, that you were never meant to get caught up in this. And I know I've said it before but I mean it. Whatever you think you know, it's all about to change. Are you prepared for that?” Again.No. But how are you meant to prepare to have your life turned on its axis? Luckily, I've already had my fair share of flipped tables but I wish I could say it gets easier.

“Yes…” I hear her shuffle some more, like she's getting comfortable to tell me a bedtime story and I know we may be here some time.

“I served six years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. I killed someone who was meant to protect me. I killed him because he was a threat to me and my mom.” I shake out my nerves, listening to her words carefully through the wall.

“Your father?...” I mumble, rolling my throat trying to accept that the woman behind this door killed her own blood.

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