"So he just...died?" A quiet voice, finally voicing the question that had hung in the air for hours, unspoken, while salt-slicked cheeks dried, while a tiny frame shook in arms that could easily crush me.

I felt like I was crushed - felt, looked, almost wanted to be. Part of me thought that the moment my father died, a bit of my own life slipped from shaking hands and liquid eyes, only to be fed back to me by whispers of reassurance.

He could only do so much, though, and regardless of what he did - no one was going to take the feeling of empty there, turn it into something less painful.

He tried, but -

I merely nodded at his question, eyes glassy, voice - nonexistent. I didn't want to speak, didn't know if I'd be able to be able to listen to my own voice without thinking about something else.

Without thinking of how my father had probably died, surrounded by tubes and wires. How he had never known what I was going to do, what I wanted to do to right the wrong...

Part of me thinks he would have been ashamed.

There is part of me, however, that simply doesn't care now. One less tie to my old life burned away, taken from shaking hands by the hand of death itself.

Maybe it was permission for me to think this way, that I had the right to do what I wanted to.

"Hailey...please, say something?" That same concern was there as hands found my shoulders and rubbed at them gently. "I need to hear you, y'know? Need..."

"I'm scared." My voice sounded quiet, far away - not my own. My brain was going a million miles an hour, trying to see those last few moments for myself, trying to keep my mind on the good memories of my childhood...

But there was a stabbing cold in my heart. Fear.

The fights had become more frequent, and it was becoming more and more obvious that my mere existence was contemptuous to Hunter, as I knew, obviously, that I was favored more.

Part of me took that with a smile, knowing that nothing would hurt me as long as Randy was breathing. He'd said so. Promised.

The fear, though - told me he may not be breathing for long.