“Why did you do this?” I asked.
The man did not reply all he did was look at me, look at his gun, then looked at my parents dead on the floor. He pointed the gun in my direction his hand shaking then he put his gun by his side. He backed off into the bedroom window and left. It took a few more seconds for me to get out of my shock and realize I should call the police. By the time the police arrived my parents were past saving and the man who had killed them was long gone.
I was questioned on what had happened and on what my parents were like. They asked me if the man was someone who I had seen before, but I’d never met him before that night. I was able to give a very detailed description of who the man was. They found out who he was, but he’d already gone into hiding and they couldn’t find him. His name was Justin he had never had any known interactions with my parents before that night.
I was put in the foster system jumping from home to home for 10 years. When I turned 18 I inherited my parent’s wealth. I tried to move back into their mansion, but all that did was remind me of what had happened. I didn’t know what to do with my life, so I decided that I would get revenge on the man who had ruined my whole life.
I sold my mansion and I moved into a small secluded house. I hired a private investigator to help me find Justin. I also took many classes in forensics so that I could both have an easier time tracking him and so that I would have an easier time covering my tracks when I finally found him.
“So this is the man who killed your parents,” Shirley, my private investigator, said.
“Why are you asking me things you already know?” I replied.
“I was not asking a question I was stating a fact, but I do have a question for you.” Shirley said.
“And what would that question be?” I asked.
“What do you intend to do once you find him?” She asked.
“I’ll get the police to arrest him” I said.
“I just wanted to make sure that when we found him you wouldn’t do anything rash,” Shirley said.

For a long time Shirley couldn’t find any leads about where Justin had gone. This caused me to have much frustration. All I could ever seem to feel now was anger. Shirley had threatened to drop the case multiple times, but in the end she didn’t.
Shirley eventually figured out that Justin had changed his entire identity. He had burned his finger prints off, gotten plastic surgery, and had changed his name to William Phoenix. With all of these changes I had no idea how Shirley managed to find him and frankly I didn’t care. I had everything planned. I would go and take my revenge and after I was finished with that I would clean up the crime scene so well that they would never be able to link me to the crime. There was one factor that I didn’t account for...Shirley.
“I have all the evidence that this is him, which means it’s time to report him to the police,” Shirley said.
“I would like to confront him about what he did to me before we do that,” I said.
“You can confront him in the court,” Shirley said. Shirley was getting suspicious of my motive and I knew that she was going to call the police whether I liked it or not. So I changed my plans. Before Shirley could get the police I injected her with a serum that would knock her out.
Before falling unconscious Shirley said, “There’s something you need to know, something that I haven’t told you...” I now know what she would’ve told me and I wish more than ever that she could’ve told me that before the serum took effect, but she wasn’t able to. After that I worked quickly I knew that there was no covering up evidence now since Shirley was a witness so I decided that with the money I had I could do the same thing Justin did. I had 12 hours to take my revenge.
I pulled into the driveway of a nice looking house. The thought of him living a comfortable life for all these years while I jumped from home to home infuriated me. I walked up and used my lockpicks on the door. I lightly walked to several rooms checking them so see if he was in one of them. Since the night was very quiet I had to be quiet to. Finally I found the room where he slept.
He was fast asleep. I didn’t want him to go peacefully in his sleep I wanted him to see me and to know what he had done. So I backed out of his room and went into the kitchen. I poured a glass of water and brought it back into the room. I threw the water over Justin’s head.
“Justin wake up!” I said. Justin at first seemed confused like he didn’t know exactly what was going on. Than he saw me and realized that I had just used his real name.
“Who are you?” He asked.
“I’m the person who’s life you ruined,” I pointed my gun at him.
“Are you the girl?” He asked.
“Yes, I’m the girl who’s parents you murdered,” I replied.
“I understand that you’re angry and you have every right to be, but killing me won’t help you,” He said.
“It will bring my a great amount of satisfaction,” I said.
“I’ll do whatever you want me to do, just please don’t kill me!” He said.
“Tell me why you did it,” I said.
“Okay,” Justin said, “I’ll tell you. You deserve to know why I did that to you. Twelve years ago my mother got cancer. They told her that she maybe had a year left to live if she was lucky. There was a treatment she could’ve had, but even with that treatment she only had a five percent chance of survival. She met your parents at the clinic, they were handing out herbal remedies that they said would help people heal. What they were handing out at that time was free, so my mother decided to give it a try. Your parents gave her a business card in case she wanted to buy any of their products. She didn’t get any better, but she told me that the remedies made her feel better. She was convinced that the herbal remedies were her best hope of surviving. So she kept buying them. Eventually I found out about an experimental treatment with promising results. I told my mother about it, but she no longer had the money to pay for a treatment like that. Your parents took advantage of sick people to make money.”
I didn’t know what to say. I had never known how my parents got all of that money. For a moment I wondered if I should really go through with this. Then I thought of all the pain I had gone through losing my parents and my doubt went away.
“What was the survival rate of this experimental treatment?” I asked.
“It was an experimental treatment I didn’t know what her exact chances were,” Justin replied.
“So your mother could’ve died even with the treatment,” I said.
“Probably, but she had a much higher chance of surviving with that than with herbal remedies,” He said.
“My parents did not kill your mother cancer did,” I said.
“Your parents actions caused people to die,” Justin said. “Think about it to get all that money they must of scammed hundreds of people. Many of those people wouldn’t of had much money left to pay for treatment and at least some of them would’ve survived on that treatment,” He finished.
“I never did anything to you,” I said, “but you made me an orphan. What did I do to deserve that?”
“You did nothing to deserve it,” Justin said, “I’m sorry for what I did to you.”
“I don’t care about how sorry you are,” I said, “I’m still going to kill you.”
“You can’t do that!” Justin yelled.
“And why can’t I?” I asked.
“Because than you’ll be just like me,” Justin said. That’s when I shot him.
“Shut up!” I yelled, “I’m not like you!”
I heard noise from outside the room. I looked at the door and I saw a pair of eyes peeking out. Than the door opened and I realized just how right Justin’s last words had been. Standing in the door was a boy who looked like he was about eight years old. This must of been what Shirley had wanted to tell me about. He looked at me than at Justin. He ran over to Justin and started shaking him.
“Daddy wake up, daddy wake up!” He said. I couldn’t move I was so shocked. I had spent all this time hunting Justin down to get revenge for what he had done to me and in the end I had done the exact same thing to his child. His child had nothing to do with this and I had just made him an orphan. I looked at the child and mouthed, I’m sorry.
The child looked up at me and asked, “Why did you do this?”