Forever

Truth Hurts

     She was drowning, the darkness swallowing her the harder she struggled. There were voices speaking in hushed tones, unfamiliar and angry. Something was tugging her heart, like a string tying her to an invisible target. That same tugging she felt in the safety of her room.

      Suddenly the past events came crashing back into her mind harshly, the impossible dream that had unwound before her eyes. Maybe it had been a dream. Maybe she had finally lost what little sanity she had left and this was the outcome. Perhaps she was in the white walled confines of a hospital where they could do tests. Poke her with cold needles and give her brightly colored pills. A paradise compared to her normal life. A safe haven compared to the nightmares that plagued her. To fall into the arms of numbness and never fear again.

     But the pain crushing her heart was too real, too prominent to be anything else. The voices growing louder as her veil of darkness lifted. And try as she might to force the images in her mind back, they only shone through with even more clarity. The demon voice claiming her, the blood coating her walls and floor. The blood that coated Jayden Moore as she collapsed in his arms.

     Her eyes shot open, the room around her dim. The voices fell silent as her swollen eyes adjusted, an anxious fear hanging in the air. Her body was lain across an unfamiliar bed, soft with a thin sheet covering her. A single window fit the wall across from her, dark curtains blocking out most of the light. A small bookshelf to the left of it. To the right of her was a small, wooden desk. A pair of jeans hanging off the back of the chair. Confusion swept over her as she realized she was in a bedroom, one that was not her own.

     "W-where am I?" She pushed herself onto her elbows, dizziness sweeping over her.

    "Not too fast," a woman's voice cautioned her softly, "you've been out for awhile."

     Hazel's heart began to pound harder as she stared at the unfamiliar face leaning over her now. Long, silky black hair draped across her pale shoulders. But the feature that struck her the most were the piercing blue eyes that regarded her, almost calculating her coldly. Those same blue eyes she'd been seeing a lot more frequently. But instead of the thought frightening her, strangely it soothed her.

     "What happened?" She asked in a small voice, letting herself fall back into the bed.

     "Sweetheart, you should take things slowly-"

     "No," a new voice spoke, familiarness hitting her in the heart, "I swore I'd explain everything to her."

     The woman sighed loudly, eyes once again narrowing in on Hazel before she straightened herself. Smoothing the dark fabric of her dress and clearing her throat, she spoke in a voice too quiet for her to hear. Others she had not known were in the room quickly shuffled out, before she turned her cold eyes back to Hazel. She offered two last words, glancing at the boy by the window. "Good luck."

     Jayden clicked his tongue impatiently, lips hardening into a thin line. The woman glared back, blue eyes locked into a staring match until she snorted quietly. She shook her head, stalking out of the room without so much as a second glance at the girl in the bed. Leaving an odd feeling in Hazel's chest at being alone with a murderer. Her father's murderer. No matter what he'd done to her, he was still family. Still raised her in whatever twisted sense of the word you could use.

     Yet she felt no fear for the first time in years as he approached her slowly, like she was some wild animal he was scared to disturb. He sat carefully on the edge of the small bed she occupied, hands folded in his lap. For awhile neither spoke, only studied each other. She watched the calm rise and fall of his chest with each breath he took. The way his long eye lashes brushed his cheek every time he blinked those blue eyes. There was a hint of fear in them, for what she did not know.