Six Months Later:

Max and I were finishing our last test, to get our GEDs. Jennifer, my little angel, had been born only four months earlier. When we finished this test we were going to go over to my dad's house to wait for the results to come back. The lady giving the test said that she had some teachers that would grade them as soon as we were done. So far we had taken the five other required tests, and were on the math portion. We both sucked at it. I knew that one test wasn't going to ruin our chances at getting a GED, but two tests would.

Max and I had married when Jenny was a month old. It wasn't easy living with my dad, and Ethan, and being married to a football star that had a full ride scholarship to the University of Northern California. I was halfway through solving the second to last problem when my leg vibrated. I had gotten special permission from the lady to answer any calls, since they might be concerning my daughter. I gave the lady the 'signal' and she took my test, so I wouldn't cheat. I opened my phone and whispered, "yeah?"

"Kat, Jenny had an accident, and-"

I jumped from my seat and yelled, "WHAT!" and ran up to the lady that was sitting at the teacher's desk.

"Kat, sit back down. She just needs three stitches. It's no big deal."

"God damn you Ethan. Why'd you scare me like that? What happened?"

"She was crawling around and her leg caught on one of the doors and it made a little hole in her leg. She didn't fall or anything. Dad's with her in the hospital now. She's got the family's pain tolerance, that's for sure."

I let out a breath of relief. My family had a really high tolerance for pain. If we got cut on something, like Jenny did, we would cry or anything when we had to get stitches. That stuff didn't freak us out. "She's out now. Look, finish your test and I'll tell you two later."

"Sorry ma'am. My daughter had to get stitches." She just nodded and handed me my test. I sat back down and finished the last two problems. They took me twenty minutes. I decided to wait for Max to finish, instead of just running home, like I had planned. He finished thirty minutes after I had.

"So what happened?" he asked, grabbing my waist and kissing me.

"Jenny got cut by one of the doors. She had to get three stitches." I pouted at the fact that my little four month old had to get stitches because she learned how to crawl really early.

"Poor girl. I hate stitches. Did...did she cry?" He had a pained look on his face, like he was trying not to look sad, but also trying to restrain himself from breaking something.

"No, she has my large tolerance for pain. Luckily. Ethan said that she didn't cry or anything. C'mon, enough of this sad talk, let's go home and relax while we wait for the grades to come in." He nodded and we got in the Mustang. It was a great present from my mom's husband. Apparently he was a big record company's producer now.

We drove the ten minutes from the school to my dad's house in silence, but when we walked through the door, it was dark. We looked around, wondering, then I turned on the light switch and tons of people jumped out from random hiding places. "HOLY SHIT!" I yelled.

"Kat, language please. There are children present." Ehtan said, pointing to little five and six year olds.

"Momma, what does 'holy shit' mean?" asked one of them to my best friend's mom.

"Jakey do not repeat that ever again. It's a grown-up word that only adults are allowed to use. Understand?"

The boy nodded then said, "but why did Kat say it?"

She rolled her eyes and explained that I was just surprised and happy to see everyone here. Then my father walked up and laughed as he said, "Congrats Kat, Max."

"On what?" we said in uinison. We looked at each other, confused at everything that was going on. It was so weird that they had a surprise party for me and Max when we didn't know what was going on.

"You guys have your GEDs." Ethan handed us each a little piece of paper that had our names on it.

"But we just finished the last test no longer than fifteen minutes ago!" Max said, confused. I just started laughing.

"Hun, the last test was...haha, a fake one...they..haha..made us take it so they could set this thing up..haha..."

"You knew about this?"

"Yeah, sorry hun, but I had to help surprise you. But if it helps, I only just found out about it today, before we had to do this last 'test.'"

"Then let's have some cake!" We had the 'little kid' party until nine at night, then the alcohol came out. Max and I put Jenny to bed, then went down to the party.

"Usually I'm against teen drinking, but I'll make an acception tonight." my dad said, hugging us. Ethan handed Max a Coors Light and me a Jack Daniels Fruit Punch. We literally drank until one of us dropped. That just happened to be Ethan. He had had one too many beers, vodkas, smirnoffs, whiskys and more. Not good mixed together, but great separate. With all of us drunk, we didn't hear anything coming from upstairs. We all fell asleep in the livingroom, knowing nothing about what had happened to Jenny.

The next day:

"Ugh..." was all I said, as I got up from the couch, where I had fallen asleep. "Max...go check on Jenny." He slowly stood up from the floor and walked slowly up the stairs. Two minutes later I heard him yelling. Everybody was awake then and we all ran up to Jenny's room. "Where is she!?" I yelled, looking everywhere.

"Oh my god...Ethan call the police. Tell them what happened, all except the drinking. Go, now!" Ethan ran out of the room, to call the cops. My darling baby girl was gone.

"What happened?" I asked, sobbing into my dad's chest. "Why my baby girl? What did I do wrong?"

"Shhh, Kat..It'll be alright. The cops'll settle this. Don't worry." Max was sitting on the floor next to the crib. He was holding the stuffed rabbit that he had gotten her for her two month-birthday. Tears were falling from his eyes silently. Ethan ran in the room then, saying that the cops were coming. We all left the room and sat in various places in the living room. They knocked on the door moments later.

They asked us tons of questions like, 'what were you doing last night?' and 'did you hear anything?' We answered as truthfully as possible, but we mostly lied. In the middle of the questioning my phone rang. The cop told me to put it on speaker when I said that I didn't recognize the number. He also told everyone else to shut up.

"H-hello?" I asked the person on the phone.

"Do you know who I am?" asked the person.

"No..."

"C'mon Kat, you must remember me."

"I'm sorry I don't."

"Fine, but you remember your daughter..Jenny, right?"

"Where is she?"

"She's safe...for now. I want you to take the phone off of speaker and I will tell you what to do."

"How-"

"Either turn it off or lose your only chance to save her." I turned off speaker and waited. "Good, now, go to her room and look under the crib. Nobody can follow. Tell them to stay in the livingroom."

"He..he says to stay in the livingroom, and not to follow me."

"Kat, ask him if one of us can go with you, for safety's sake."

"Um...c-can my dad or brother c-come too, for safety?"

"Nobody comes." I shook my head 'no' and ran up the stairs. When in Jenny's room I looked under the crib. There was a white box under it. "I see you have the box, now open it." I complied and what I saw disgusted me.

"How..could you?"

"You don't even know me...Kat, you're not going to get her back if you can't follow these instructions. Take the box and show it to Max when you go back downstairs. Start walking down as I tell you what to do next. Okay, now show him." I complied and Max cringed away from the sight of it. "good, now take it and throw it in the oven, at three hundred and fifty degress for ten minutes." I complied once again and waited the ten minutes for him to talk again.

"Take it out and feed it to the dog that's at your back door. Good, now go to the treehouse that you and Max built last month and open the yellow box in there." the contents in the yellow box were far worse than the white box.

"Please..I want my little girl back." I said as I filled his seventh request...with yet again another box.

"One more box, this time blue-green. It's in your car, behind the passenger seat. Do not open this one, but give it to your father to open." I complied and saw that this box was much larger than the others, and heavier too. When my dad opened it he threw it down revealing Jenny's body. It was bloody, mangled, and cold to the touch.

"YOU BASTARD!" I yelled into the phone. "SHE WAS JUST A BABY!!" I was on the floor, next to the box, trying to get Jenny to breathe again. "C'mon baby girl, breathe..please! PLEASE! JENNY BREATHE! No...no...NO!!" I was in hysterics.

"Kat...it's too late.." Ethan said, pulling me away. "There's nothing..." his voice caught, and tears started falling from his eyes. Max was on the floor, hitting it, throwing things down on it. My dad was just standing, looking dazed and wondering what kind of monster could do this to a baby, that hadn't really lived yet.

The police officers had gone oustide to see if anyone was out there. They came back in carrying another dead body. It was my one great fear: Ed. Apparently he had escaped from prison and nobody told us about it. They told us that when they found him, he knew what was in store, so he shot himself in the head. Two ambulances were called. One for me and my dead daughter to ride in, and one to carry the son of a bitch that killed her.

When we were in the ambulance, I refused to let Jenny go. I held her to my chest so she wouldn't be taken away from me. We arrived at the hospital all too soon. They wrestled with me, but finally got Jenny out of my hands. They escorted me inside and my dad, who had driven behind the ambulances with Ethan and Max, had me put in under a 'depression' watch. They took Jenny to the morgue. They did the autopsy, which Max tried to watch, but couldn't, and found excessive amounts of cyanide in her system. They told me that when she was cut, beaten, hurt, she was already dead.

She had died an hour after we found her gone...she had been in my car alive for the whole hour that it took me to find the bloody meat, and the disgusting photos in the other boxes. I would never see her smile, laugh, cry...anything again. I would never get to talk with her about the regular things that mothers and daughters talk about. The one person that I wasn't supposed to worry about killed my only daughter, and by doing that he tore my heart out. I couldn't feel anything. I couldn't do anything but stare blankly at the small casket that Jenny was placed in. I turned to different substances after that. Nothing worked. Max and I grew further apart, and I couldn't take it. There was nothing in this world for me now.

I walked to Jenny's old room, and sat down in the rocking chair. Nobody was home. Only me. "Why, god, would you let a monster take my only child, my flesh and blood, away when she was only four months old?" That was the only thing I asked anymore. I took the gun that I had in my hand, put it to my head, took a final drink of the alcohol that I had used as a crutch, and pulled the trigger. Right before my world became nothing, I heard Max, Ethan, and my dad returning from their hunting trip. I had taken the final solution to the problem that would never be fixed.

a/n: so what did you guys think of this final chapter?? Thanks to all who read and reviewed this story, you guys helped me update sooner. What a gruesome end to a tragic tale. Hope you liked the story, and now fully hate Ed. Have a nice night, morning, day, etc.

Amanda S.