My New Home

45. The Reeds

"Hey," Hank lightly shakes me awake. Still in my frantic state, I jump back so far into my bed. He moves back off my bed and put his hands up.

"Hey it's just me." He tries to calm me down, I take a deep breath and nod. "I'm on edge right now, sorry." I'm still in the corner of my bed, in my covers.

"Don't apologize," he sits back next to me and takes my hand, the one that was scarred from last nights mistake. I pull away sharply. If were my other hand, I wouldn't have done that. "I'm sorry." He says, I curse myself for making him like this.

All he wanted to do was comfort me and I was making him even more sad. I loved this man so much. He was my dad for all intensive purposes after all.

"You shouldn't apologize either," I insisted. "I've been having bad dreams." I admitted. He slowly moved his hands to me, he cupped my face and gave me such a warm look.

"No one will ever hurt you again." That was a big promise, one I wanted- I so wanted- to be true. But it wasn't; my dads still out there. He has this random man following me around, who knows my fucking address- fuck they know my fucking address!

"Hank!" I lounge into his arms, he stiffens but- after realizing what was happening- grips me so tightly it feels like he's going to crush a lung or something.

"I can't- I can't-" I don't even know what I'm trying to say, Hank doesn't either. "What is it, honey?" I take a deep breath.

"I know you wanna k-know what happened but I can't talk about it right now, I- can't." He sighs. "I understand and I won't push you for answers right now, but you have to talk to the police." I knew he was right.

We couldn't ride this off as something dumb. A boy was shot. Elliott was shot. That's not going under the rug anytime soon.

But- before either of us talk to the police- we need a game plan of what to say. I hate to have to follow that twisted man's rules but, in order to keep my family safe, we have too.

"I know, I know." He ruffles my hair and kisses my forehead. "I have to go to work now, I just wanted to see you and tell you Eric's here. He will stay with you while I'm gone."

"Okay." He looks at the door and frowns. "It's not too late, I can still call off work-" I violently shake my head. "Go to work, I'll be fine." Hank gets off my bed and walks out the door, only after saying goodbye about a hundred times.

The house was quiet and I finally got a look at the time.

8:45AM

All the boys were at school now. I wondered if they knew anything about what happened or if Hank made up some excuse about me being ill or something.

About twenty minutes after Hank left my room, there was a knock at my door.

"Carrie, you up?" Eric's voice filled my room.

"Mhmm." I mumbled back.

"Wanna come out, I made some breakfast. Your favorite; pancakes." She was trying to make me feel better, I could at least humor him.

Not amount of food- no matter how good- will fix the shit show that my life has become in just the past day.

I open the door to see Eric in Hank's '#1 dad' apron. His eyes look just as exhausted as he did last night.

"Hey you." He said.

"Morning." I said, I walked downstairs. Sighing in my amazing smell of breakfast food. I round the corner and nearly double over at the sight. Piles of pancakes, bacon and eggs were lined all over the table.