I am a fourth marking period senior, so the amount I care about grades now is non-existent.  The bell rings at 2:40 and I rush out of school, excited to be done, away from work for a full week.
  It's Friday, which means tonight is my night out, one last hoorah with my amigos until bye bye for a week?  My best friends and I have been planning one last show down until we all part our separate ways.  As I am running out of school, I spy Jasmine down the hallway as she screams my name.  I run up to her just so excited that school just ended.  Jasmine says to me, “be ready at 8, Fiona and I will be picking you up for the airport, headed to Cabo San Lucas!!!”
I get into my car and immediately turn on the radio and put the windows down.  I know it isn’t technically warm but the thought that is it spring break makes the weather feel warmer than it is.  I am belting singing the lyrics to my favorite country song as I picture myself on the beach in Mexico.  I rush home to quickly finish packing because I know it takes me forever and a day to get ready to go out and now I am on a time limit.  I pull into my driveway and there are so many cars; police cars, news van, and people everywhere.  “What in the world is going on?” I think to myself.  I get out of my car and people sprint over to me, crowding me with microphones and cameras, people writing notes on little notepads in their hands.  So many people talking at once, I can’t understand what a single person is saying.  I hear phrases like “Did you know?” “How do you feel about leaving?” Do I know what? Leaving where? Leaving for Mexico? I am so confused; I look up at my parents standing on my front porch looking completely mortified.  Cops are questioning them as if they’ve done something wrong.  I scream “MOM! DAD! What’s going on?” The next thing I know, I woman comes and grabs my arm, she looks me in the eyes and says, “Sweetie, I am going to protect you.  My name is Diane and I am taking you to a safe place”.  I shake my head knowing there are no other options right now than to go with her, away from all of the chaos.  She puts me in the back of her SUV van, and I helplessly ask her “Am I in trouble?”  She answers with a sad look, “no, I will explain more when I get you to a safe place at headquarters”.  I just look out the window as we drive by all the places I’ve grown up going to, the Super Market every Sunday morning with my dad, my High School where I have some of my fondest memories with all of my best friends, the Ice cream shop, McCool’s, downtown where Jasmine and I used to hangout every Friday after school in 8th grade.  All of these places with all my amazing memories begin to fade away, as if I had never experienced those things.  I continue to reminisce on memories as I drive by all the places I’ve been until the moment I stop recognizing where I am.  I lost track of time for how long I’ve been driving in the car, so at this point I have no idea where I even am.  I remember I still had my phone so I reach into my pocket to grab it.  I need to call Jasmine.  I need someone to explain to me what is going on.  Why were all the news reporters at my house filming me as I got home from school?  I dial Sarah’s number, because I have it memorized from all the times we had to call each other off the home phones.  I put the phone to my ear expecting to hear Jasmine’s voice on the other end but all I hear is “I’m sorry by this number has been disconnected and is unable to make phone calls, please try again at another time or talk to your service provider”. Extremely confused, I hung up the phone.  My eyes start to burn and then tears come rolling down my face with the thought of never feeling more alone in my life.
         After what feels like a never-ending car ride, the car stops and Diane opens the back door to let me out. We are at this big complex with one huge main building.  There are people who look like FBI agents everywhere, and when I say everywhere it is not an exaggeration.  At every angle, there is an official looking person.  “Diane” I say as she turns her head, “Where are we?”  She answers, “We are at the FBI headquarters”.  “Why” I ask.  Diane replies with “please, follow me inside”.  I followed her inside.  As I was walking, I felt hundreds of eyes as they stared at me.  Who do they think I am?
I followed Diane into a big room with three people sitting at a table.  She pulls out a chair and told me to sit down.  I sit down and the backs of my legs are sticking to the seat because of how much I am sweating.  I feel like I am about to be interrogated.  The man at the head of the table says, “Emily, do you know why you’re here”?  Emily? I think to myself, how does he even know my name? “No sir, I don’t” I answer frantically.  “You are a victim of a kidnapping case from 1999 from Las Vegas, Nevada.  Your ‘parents’, or at least the people you have been living with are not your actual parents”.  “Wait, wait, so I am not Emily Pruzick? Daughter of Andy and Kathy Pruzick? Sister of Kyle Pruzick? Sir I think you have me mistaken for someone else”.  “No Emily, I am positive it’s you.  You were born in Nevada to parents Kristin and Steve Curry.  When you were born you were given the name Brenna Curry”.  I just sit there in silence, trying to wrap my head around what this man is telling me.  I don’t even know this man and now he’s telling me I am not the person I have grown up thinking I was?  As I sat there in silence, the man began to talk again going over the details of how the people I believed were my parents, kidnaped me in the airport in Nevada when I was a baby.  The police could never solve the case until now.  He keeps blabbing on but I have no interest in what he has to say.  All I want to do is go home to my home of the past 16 years, pack for Mexico, go out with my friends and go on vacation with my family tomorrow and pretend like none of this ever even occurred.  I begin to get out of my chair, my legs weak from the information I’ve been given.  “I need to go home”, I announced to everyone sitting at the table.  “You have the wrong person so I am just going to go home now, thanks” as I make my way out of the room.  Before I could leave, a guard stops me at the doorway, “Sorry Miss, you can’t leave”.  I turn around and the man at the head of the table stands up, “Your home is no longer Harding, New Jersey.  You now have to return to Las Vegas, Nevada to live with your family there.  “No.” is all I could answer him.  He walks over to me and grabs my arm; I’ll drive you there now.  I break down; fall to my feet, crying a puddle of tears.  This is not right, this is not fair.  I don’t even understand why this had to happen to me, what did I do to deserve this.  My life was so good, I was so blessed with great family, great friends, I was going to college next year, and they can’t take this away from me.
The next thing I realize, I am in the back of a big car with a damp washcloth over my forehead.  Diane is by my side.  “What happened?” I asked her.  “You passed out, now you are on your way to Nevada”.  I can’t do this.  I don’t want to live in Nevada; I don’t want to leave behind everything in my life.  I look around the car to see what I can do.  Then I thought of the only thing I can do, run.  I will wait for the car to come to a stop sign, and I will open the door and make a break for it.  I don’t know where I am but I am sure I can find help somewhere.  I’ll find a way to contact my real family, the Pruzicks, and tell them to meet me in some unknown place where the FBI will never find me.  I see a stop sign ahead and prepare for my escape.  As the car approaches the stop sign, I grab hold of the car door handle, grasping it tightly to pull any second.  The driver comes to a complete stop to check for cars coming and there was my chance.  I opened the door, jumped out and made a run for it as if my life depended on it.  Well, my life actually did depend on it.  For a second as I was running, I looked back seeing the cops chasing after me frantic.  I just kept running, I am so grateful for track, never thought it would come to save my life one day.  I hear cars honking and beeping but I just keep running.  A man in his car gets out and yells at me, “Get in! I will help you!”  I dive into his car head first and slammed the door.  “GO! GO! GO!” I screamed.  Get away from them.  He reverses the car, and is driving as fast as possible away from the cops chasing me.  I can feel my heart beating so hard I think it may beat out of my chest.  “Do… you have… water”? I force out hard to breathe.  He turns and hands me a bottle of water and grins.  “Thanks” I gasp and chug the water.  I was beginning to talk, telling him I needed to make it back to Harding, New Jersey and that I was being taken against my will to Las Vegas, Nevada.  As I was telling him my story, I began to feel incredibly weak in the limbs and my eyes began to close until I just doze off.
When I finally woke up, I was hit with a strong gust of cold air, causing a shiver to travel throughout my body.  I could feel all the little hairs everywhere stick up.  I open my eyes, they were feeling quite heavy so it took a few seconds to regain focus and be able to see my surroundings.  Everything was dark.  I felt around, and it felt as if I was on a concrete floor that was ice cold.  Where the hell am I? I try to stand up but I feel an uncomfortable pull on my ankles.  I am chained to the ground.  I can’t move.  I sit on the floor, my head lying in my knees and I cry.  Tears are rolling down my face, stinging my eyes but I can’t stop.  My nose begins to run and I licked my lips tasting the salt from my tears.  I have no idea where I am or what happened and all I want to do is go home.  Why me? What did I ever do to deserve this? All of my friends are going to think I deserted them.  Will Jasmine and Fiona realize something is wrong when they go to my house to pic me up and realize something is wrong?  Will they realize I need help and they need to find me? Or did that already happen? Wait, what day even is it? I have so many unanswered questions and no one here to even answer them.  I begin to drift again, exhausted from the consistent crying.
I wake up, for what feels like days, later to an extremely loud bang, something that sounds like a gunshot noise.  Someone comes running down into the boxed in room I’ve been trapped in.  Wait, not someone, there is multiple people upstairs.  I hear them screaming “Emily… EMILAYYYYY!”  Oh my god.  It's Jasmine and Fiona.  They see my weak sprawled on the ground; I try to get up but collapse, unable to move my legs.  “How’d? Where’d? What?”  I say.  There were too many questions to ask and overwhelming emotions that I couldn’t speak.  Fiona answers, “Don’t worry Em, we have you, you’re safe now”.  They each grab and arm and help me up the stairs into Fiona’s car parked outside the storage unit I had been locked in.  “Em, you were kidnapped by people claiming to be the FBI, they mistaken you for someone else.  Emily, you were never actually kidnapped as a child. It was all a plan.  You’re safe now”.  “But how did you guys know to look for me?” I forced out of my mouth.  Fiona answers, “We know you would never miss the flight for Mexico without telling us first with a good reason”  Jasmine adds, “When we were waiting forever until we knew something was wrong”.
I closed my eyes, trying to calm down and try and come to the realization that I was, indeed, finally safe and out of harm for the minute.  I reached my arms over my head and stretched my legs to as long as they could be, feeling the pull in all of my tightened muscles.  I slowly begin to open my eyes; just to see dark.  I felt my surrounding areas and blinked a few times to regain my focus.  When my eyes cleared up, and my mind focused, I saw my bedroom.  “What?” I thought to myself.  I realize I was asleep the whole time.  I open my eyes to get a clear view and realized I was still chained to a wall.  Just waiting to be saved.