Second time he saw her, was once again at the mall. This time, there was no mistaking that something had changed. Gone was his vibrant girlfriend who had first drew him, instead replaced by this appalling shadow of a hedgehog that flinched every time someone came too close to her. Where was the excitement, the joy? The ability to smile even when everything had gone to hell? Where was that girl? Where was Kristin?

A crashing sound returned him to the present as his eyes focused on the somewhat disastrous scene that had unfolded before him without his knowledge. It appeared to him that Kristin had flinched so hard that she knocked into a stand for sunglasses. The poor black glasses skittered across the floor, while some were picked up by shoppers who casually walked off as if nothing had happened. The scene was absolutely comical and nearly made Shadow laugh. Nearly. For everything would have been much more amusing if Kristin wasn't silently crying.

"Kristin." Shadow was hesitant. He wanted to help her back up and in normal circumstances; he would have tripped over his own feet to help her. However, that wouldn't work now. Hell, he wasn't even supposed to still be in love with her. Pushing all worries aside, he forced himself to concentrate on getting Kristin up and into a chair at the food court, leaving whatever hapless sap that had been in charge of the stand to pick up the mess. Setting Kristin down, he watched as she up the pieces of her shattered pride, and regained her composure before facing him.

"What do you want Shadow?"

"Hello to you too."

"Cut the crap Shadow. I'm not interested in your games today. Tell me what you want or I'm leaving." She shifted slightly while hugging her arms up to her chest, a bruise peeking out of the blood red sleeve, almost invisible. Almost.

"Where did you get these bruises?" He lifted up her sleeve the rest of the way as he talked, revealing more bruises in retching stages of yellow and purple. He asked because he wanted to be wrong. He didn't need to ask because he already knew, whether he liked it or not.

"Nowhere. I just fell." Kristin couldn't actually lie, for the simple reason that she looked guilty because of the fact that she was lying. And Shadow knew enough to read her like an open book, no matter how hard she tried to cover it up.

"It was him, wasn't it?"

"Shadow, I…"

"No Kristin! You promised to tell me the second your father ever came back home. And what have you done? Played into his trap, that's what! Do you want this to happen again?"

"Shut up Shadow! You know nothing!"

"I know that it took three years for you to trust me because of what he's done to you. What I know is that you started wearing red dresses so that others couldn't figure out that you were bleeding, that you were hurt. And what I know is going to happen is that you'll go crawling back to him too, after all he's done."

"Go to hell Shadow! I do what I want now, you're not the boss of me and you're no longer my boyfriend so butt out of my life!" That was why she left. That was why he was no longer in her life. Her father had come back, and there was only enough room for one man in her heart. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who she picked.

"I'm sorry Shadow, but he's my father. What am I supposed to do?" If Shadow had known what was going to happen, he would have told her exactly what she could do with her father. Alas, he only turned and walked away, leaving behind a young black and red female hedgehog to go back home to her father.