Nightmares

Chapter fifty-one: Carter

We reached her street and she held onto me.

"What will I say to them?" She asked me.

"We'll tell them the truth. Well, an embellished part of it."

"We'll?"

"Of course, hun. I'm not going to let you go through this alone." I squeezed her hand reassuringly.

We walked up the drive.

"Aw shit, I've lost my keys." She said, annoyed.

I chuckled. It was nice to see her get frustrated at little things again.

She rang the doorbell.

Her dad opened it and she stepped into his arms.

"Where have you been? And who the hell is this?"

"Dad, this is Carter. Remember that boy I told you about?" She said with a smile.

"Oh, uh, yeah?" He said. "Hello there."

"Hello."

"Now where have you been?" He asked his daughter. "Mum's been worried."

"I know. Can we explain?" She asked, taking my hand again.

"Oh god, girl you better not be pregnant." He said.

She laughed.

"Of course not. Can we come in?"

"If you ask properly."

"Okay, may we come in?"

He gave me a shrewd look.

"Fine."

We entered and I kept a wary eye on her dad.

Men are very protective of their daughters. And from the looks of it, one step out of line with this one and all that effort I went to staying alive earlier will have gone to waste.

Hell, I'm too young to die.

We entered the living room and he gestured for us to sit down.

"So where have you been?" He asked.

She looked at me.

"We went on a walk and hadn't realised how late it had gotten, I took her straight home so she was safe." I said, the half-lie rolling off my tongue.

"Okay. That's fine." He said. "Now onto the real talk here."

He leaned forward.

"What the hell do you want with my daughter?"

"Uh, um, I–"

"Dad don't tease him." Harper said with a sigh. "We've talked about this already."

He smiled. "You said I could interrogate him."

"No I didn't. Not now." She said.

"Fine." He sighed. "Thanks for bringing her home."

"My pleasure." I said. "I'd better be off. It was lovely meeting you."

"You too Carter. See you soon." He replied.

I pecked Harper's cheek and stood to leave.

"Bye hun."

"Bye."

I shut the door behind me. Well that went well.

Should I have told them the truth about what happened? Probably.

Was I going to? Maybe. I'll see what Harper wants to say.

If I ever wanted to see her again, we should probably keep it quiet. Shouldn't we? The truth would do more harm than good. Particularly since one of her friends was now a murderer on the run.

Yeah, that's not something you want to tell your parents.

Oh shit, that reminds me.

Mum's going to kill me when I get home.