Chapter Text
I slowly turned my head to the side, eyes wide as they made contact with the figure of the woman who had plagued my life for years. The reason I left home in the first place. My step-mother.
“Oh my dear, I missed you so much”, She spoke in a sickly sweet yet pissed off tone of voice.
“Why…? How? How are you here?” What I felt was but a mix of confusion and fear, my body stiff.
“Well, I asked around and just so happened to be pointed in the right direction! The people here are so sweet.” She said, “I didn’t know your father let you have your own house…”
“I-I’m allowed to have my own house. I’m old enough. Seventeen.” I said, my voice attempting to be firm but not without a waver of nerves.
“You may be seventeen, but you’ll always be Mama's baby.” She cooed, lighting something in me. How dare she act like she’s my mom?
“You’re not my mom!” I shouted back. “My mom didn’t ever do what you did!”
Her eye twitched and I could see the cogs in her head snapping. “That’s it, I'm taking you home. Your father can deal with you.” Her hand shot out and she gripped my wrist, roughly pulling me to the door. I tried to yank my arm out, but it felt like she was going to pull it out of its socket.
I shouted in protest, continuing to struggle against her grip. “Let me go! I’m not leaving with you!”
She only gripped harder. “You belong with me!” We were nearly at the door when a seemingly invisible force knocked me out of her grasp, causing me to fall to the ground.
I looked up to see that DD had separated us with a shove, arm out to help me up. I smiled appreciatively and took his hand to stand. My step-mother began to get up, so I got ready to run off. DD followed me as we began to speed towards the back door.
I began to grow fatigued, but we soon reached the woods behind my house, hiding behind some trees. I was able to breathe, calming myself down as we hid. I thought I was safe, but I then saw my step-mother running to the line of trees. She just doesn’t ever give up, does she?
DD looked around for another place we could hide, but wasn’t able to find any on the ground. So, he held me around my waist and flew me up to the top of the tree, setting me down to sit on a sturdy branch. I held onto DD’s shoulders, struggling to keep my balance, but he made sure to hold my hips and keep me stationary.
My step-mom walked through the trees, looking around the area while coincidentally not looking above her. If she had done that, she would’ve been able to see me easily. I held my breath and shook in fear as I hid.
After just a few minutes of searching, she left to search deeper in the trees, giving me some peace. I allowed myself to breathe again as DD lowered us back to the ground.
“That was terrifying”, I huffed once my feet made contact with the earth. I stabilized myself for a moment, before sitting on a fallen log.
“Yep.” DD agreed. “Thought you were dead for sure.”
“So did I.” We sat in silence again until DD raised a good point.
“Unless you want to do all this again, I’m not so sure you can go home yet.” He said. I sighed with a nod, looking at my feet.
“I know. But I need to get Shooter! What if that witch does something to her?”
“Don’t call her a witch, witches don’t deserve that comparison.”
“... Witches don’t exist though?” He shook his head at my comment.
There was a long silence before he decided to tell me a very crucial detail of all this.
“I saved your cat.” He pulled a fat orange cat out of thin air.
“Shooter!” I exclaimed happily, holding my arms out as the cat jumped into them. “Thank you, DD!”
DD nodded silently, watching me pet my cat with a small, miniscule smile that I could only recognize by the small curve of the white line that contrasted with his pitch black being.
“I know where we can go for now.” He told me gently.
“Where?”
“Follow me.” DD began to float through the trees, and I stood up to follow, letting Shooter jump out of my arms and walk beside me. I looked down every once in a while to make sure he was still there, but not once did he stop following.