For one terrifying moment, all I can do is stare.
Fuck.
My fingers tremble as I reach for her pulse. I press them to her neck and hold my breath.
As I wait, I can feel something inside me begin to shut down.
This can’t be real.
It isn’t real.
It can’t be.
The seconds stretch into an eternity before I finally feel her pulse.
It’s so weak I almost miss it. But it’s there.
Thank fuck.
I need to get her to a hospital.
Now.
A shadow falls over us, and with effort, I lift my head. I drag my eyes away from her and stare into the face of a man I can no longer bring myself to call my father.
As I hold his eyes, a memory buried so deep in my fucked up head that I didn’t even know I still carried it resurfaces and hits me with such force that it drags me back to a place I haven’t seen in years.
Chapter 42
Hunter
Age five.
Mum left.
But she promised she’d come back for me.
And from the window in my bedroom, I saw that she kept her promise.
She came.
Father says she hates us.
Says she left because she never wanted me and that she’s got a new family now.
A new husband, a little boy.
That she replaced me.
He uses lots of other words too.
Cheat, whore, bitch.
But if mum hates father, that doesn’t mean she hates me too.
Right?
Because she came.
