Walking with my father through our city’s nicest outlet mall, a pair of pink glasses snatched my attention. Having been going through an intense pink phase, I begged my father for them. He relented with a grin, and we proceeded to then have our own photoshoot with them in the corner of the food court with a few cups of ice cream. I was grinning the entire drive home, and waited in anticipation to model them for my mother. We walked into the house to find my mother sitting on the sofa facing the door with a murderous expression. “Where have you been?” She asked quietly. My Father blinked. “I figured you want a little time to yourself, y—you’ve been so stressed...I took Paris down to the mall—” He stuttered “I told you to pick her up from her friend’s and come straight back. Is that too complicated?” she demanded. “N—no, sweetheart,” Is all he said. It was all he said for the next fifteen minutes as my mother mercilessly tore into him. Concluding her rant by ripping my treasured glasses off my face, scratching my cheek, and not caring. “Go to your room,” she ordered. I spun on my heels and ran upstairs, confusedly swiping away tears. The next morning my Lucky Charms were ruined by my father’s apology. It was a bland statement littered with a few professions of love, and no self-worth. She forgave him on the condition he never does it again. He agreed and I quietly stirred my milk until it was time to head to school. I decided on the bus ride I didn’t want to ever end up like my father. That decision had turned into a promise as time went on and the cycle unerringly repeated. I promised myself. How did I end up here? Feeling the glasses ripped off my face again, as I was forced to face the reality that my boyfriend is a murderer. “I’m sorry,” he said with surprising sincerity. “But we need to leave.” I shook my head in disbelief. “Paris,” he pleaded. “You said you ran away,” I said. “I did.” “Like me!” I pushed. “I did!” he burst out. He saw my expression, I must’ve looked stunned. This was the most emotion he’d ever expressed around me, and his cheeks turned pink with a slight blush. He collected himself and elaborated. “I shot my father, and I ran away.” His eyes met my completely unguarded ones with a broken expression. “I killed my dad.” At the sound of a car almost silently pulling up to the house, his expression hardened. “If you come with me, you’ll be considered an accomplice, and if this doesn’t workout we’re going to jail.” I sagged against the wall. “You do have the option to stay here, let them find you, and state that I kidnapped you and locked you in this house.” His stiff posture was the only sign that this bothered him at all. “That will take the blame off you, and you won’t have to deal with your mom about running away.” He walked over to the corner of the room and grabbed a shotgun. “If you do decide to come with me,” He added while keeping his eyes carefully trained on the gun as he checked the ammunition. “We need to leave. Right. Now.” He shoved an armchair against the front door and finally turned to me with a blank expression. “So?” “Where would we even go, Cato?” “My father owns a cabin in the woods that we used to visit in the summer. It’s completely secluded, and no one else knows about it.” I took a second to think but was cut short by a sudden pounding on the door. “Police. Open up!” I held out my hand for the shotgun, and he handed it to me, confused. I winked at him. “I’m a better shot.” He couldn’t stop from cracking a smile, so I didn’t mention I was also less likely to kill anyone. I grabbed a duffle bag and began shoving clothes in there by the time the second knock came. “Police! We’ve blocked the exits. You have no way out!” I tossed the bag to Cato, and he seamlessly threw it through the garage door and into the trunk of the yellow jeep that resided there.. “You have five seconds to come out with your hands in the air.” We raced for the car doors. “Five.” I cocked the gun. “Four.” He pressed the garage remote’s button. “Three.” He started the car. “Two.” I put on my seat belt and he revved the engine. “One.” We were shooting out of the garage faster than I could comprehend, but I didn’t need to, I wasn’t focused on that. The police car parked in front of the garage barely gave us enough time to swerve out of the way, but it was plenty of time to blow out the tires. Once the gunshot sounded through the air, the police readily responded, but not at our tires. I hunched over as bullets ricocheted off the metal railing of the car. The speedometer steadily rose, so in a few moments we were out of range. A fact that was punctuated by sirens sounding up behind us. I glanced over at Cato. He was still, eyes completely focused on the road, we were going about twice the speed limit. I carefully looked him over, heart thundering. “Did you get shot?” He shook his head. “No.” I sagged in the chair with relief. After a pause he glanced at me. “Did you?” I smiled. “No.” He nodded. “That’s good.” We didn’t slow down for another ten minutes, but after a while we were inconspicuously cruising at the speed limit. I still wasn’t relaxed, but there were no cars in sight on the two lane country road. We would be fine for now. I glanced at the clock that read 7:45. “When do you think we’ll get there?” “Probably around eight, we were going pretty fast for a while,” he responded breathily. I looked him over again. “Did you get hit, Cato?” He paused. “Nothing serious, we’ll deal with it when we get there.” I groaned. “I’ll be fine, Paris.” He glanced away from the road to look me in the eyes. “Okay? It’s only fifteen minutes.” “I asked you if you got hit.” “I’ve been in a car chase, and you need to stay calm and focus.” He responded. “I needed you focus.” “Only fifteen.” I repeated reluctantly. “Only fifteen.” The cabin ended up being beautiful. A quaint wooden structure cocooned by flowery trees, shrubs, and vines. I typically would’ve been overjoyed at the prospect of staying here for any period of time, but the tourniquet I’d fashioned to stem the bleeding in his arm was falling apart, and he was starting to bleed out. I climbed out the driver's seat and slammed the door behind me. “Fifteen minutes my ass.” I rushed up to the door and grabbed the handle, but before I could even turn the keys it swung inward. I frowned, cautiously taking a step forward and glancing around. He said there was a first aid kit in the bathroom underneath the sink. There was a hallway just beyond the living room, so— My thoughts were cut off by the door slamming shut behind me. Before I could turn, arms were around me, squeezing. I shoved the person away and heard a quiet sob. I spun to see a woman shaking her head with a hand over her mouth. “Baby…” “Mom?” She came forward to embrace me again, and I didn’t push her away, more from shock than anything. “Two weeks. You’ve been gone for almost two weeks,” She breathed. “We’ve missed so much,” she sobbed into my shoulder. After a few moments she pulled away and looked me over. “Oh, sweetie are you okay?” she managed. “I’m fi—” “Well, everything’s gonna be okay now. Your father is out back with the truck. We’re taking you home.” She tugged my arm towards the hall and for a moment I let her. I missed my dad, I missed school and my friends nagging as much as I wouldn’t admit it. But I caught myself. “No, Mommy, I’m staying here.” She stopped mid-step. “What?” “I’m not going back.” After a pause she turned around with a carefully neutral expression. “Is it because of that boy?” Her face was unreadable, but in her eyes I saw that all too familiar stomach-churning expression. “What boy?” I took a step back. The corner of her mouth twitched. “Cato William Ashford was born September 19th 2002, he is the only son of Jason and Lilly Ashford. Lilly died in a car crash while her husband was driving, he sustained serious injuries that cost him his job and he was living off the insurance money. He had fallen into depression induced alcoholism before he was beaten to death by his own son about...two weeks ago.” I took another step back. “How do you know that?” “Did he tell you killed his dad?” she asked gently. “Beat his own father so badly the man’s body gave out?” I didn’t answer. “I’m not letting you stay here with that boy, we're going home.” “No, mom.” She spun back around exasperatedly. “So what, you're going to stay here with a murderer? Do you think he’s going to fall in love with you or some shit? Do you think you can change him? You can’t change a man, honey, trust me, I’ve been trying to for twenty years, and your father is still a bumbling idiot—” “Stop.” She raised her eyebrows. “Stop what?” “Talking!” I exploded. “Just stop talking for two minutes! Dad is incredible, and I know that’s hard for you to understand, but at the very least you can stop putting him down, he is so much a better person than you could ever hope to be, and you shouldn’t even speak his name unless it’s in admiration.” Her wide eyes just egged me on. “Hiring a private investigator to dig around a stranger’s life is slimy, but if you're going to do it, maybe don’t hire one that leaves out valuable pieces of information. Like how Cato’s father had been beating him since his mother died when he was eight years old!” I shouted. “So yes I know about him murdering his father, and yes I’m sticking with him!” She watched me quietly as I walked up to her. “I’m eighteen years old and I can do whatever the hell I want, and I am staying here.” She regarded me for a long moment. “You’ve decided, huh?” I nodded. “Well, your father is at the side of the house with a pistol, and if I don’t come out with you in a few seconds you’ll find a hole in your boyfriend.” What. She glanced at her watch. “Oop, time's up!” My stomach dropped and turned on my heel and raced back the way I came, with my mother smugly following after me. A single gunshot rang out. I froze. My mother started laughing. I couldn’t see him through the jeep's windshield. When I tried to take another step my knee gave out. The world was spinning, and why was the sun so damn bright? I got up to clumsily sprint to the vehicle and found him laid out across the two front seats. “Cato?” I managed to call out. One of his eyes opened, and he smiled, and my heart started beating again. Suddenly I noticed so many things. He’s shirtless with a bandage on his shoulder, and a very familiar first aid kit is sitting in the back seat. My mom is standing behind me confused, until we all turn at the sound of a gun being cocked. Standing a few feet away, with the barrel aimed at my mother, is my father.