"I'm sorry. . ."
My words echo in the wind swirling around, and repeating themselves, knowing that they were spoken, but not heard.
Enough time has passed that I no longer know how long I've been standing here, staring, unfocused off in the direction Hunter rode.
But the sun has started to sink low into the horizon, and the once warm afternoon, now started holding a winter chill.
Lifting my chin, I turn and walk to my apartment.
I knew something was off the moment my hand connected with the doorknob and found it unlocked, pushing it open I braced myself for the worst, but nothing I did could have prepared me for what I heard next.
'My dear, I was starting to think you were never going to come in."
I didn't have to see him to feel his presence, my heart stopped as thousands of memories assaulted my being, it was the one voice I had hoped never to hear again, my throat constricted and my only thought was getting out of the apartment.
I blindly began retracing my steps out of the door, but just my luck I ended up stumbling after my ankle got hooked over the leg of my small side door table.
"What? You can't even say 'hello' to your old man?"
My blood was running cold through my veins, chilling me to the core.
As he rounded the corner, I tried to stay as composed as I could, "I would if I saw him." I bit out, "I thought that you were rotting away in a cell in the middle of nowhere, what changed?"
"That's no way to talk to your father, you disrespectful little bitch!" He roared, "I raised you!" he swung his arm around, the back of his hand connecting my temple, and leaving a burning trail down my cheek.
His knuckle court on my lower lip causing it to catch on my k-9, sending a wave of rusty metallic tasting liquid into my mouth, the last thing I saw before my eyes went black was my father standing over me holding a bottle of lighter fluid.
***
Safe.
I was surrounded in warmth, cuddling me close.
My eyes shot open as my tender body is jolted. "Where am I?" I mumble, into soft cotton trying to look around, while only seeing dirty white.
"It's okay. You're going to be okay."
That voice, though sounding slightly distance, was comforting and familiar, helping to keep up the safe feeling that I had awoken to.
From the steady rocking motion I'm feeling, I think it's safe to say that I am being carried, I can smell a sharp, tangy disorientating scent.
I try to say something more, ask where I am going but my throat is so I dry I barely even cough, but I have a feeling that whoever was holding me had no intention of hurting me.
On that comforting thought, I closed my eyes and let sleep overtake me.