𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐬 || 𝘸𝘢𝘭𝘬𝘦𝘳 𝘴𝘤𝘰𝘣𝘦𝘭𝘭

𝟐𝟔: 𝐚 𝐬𝐨𝐟𝐭 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐜𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝

   Sophia gulped. "I don't know." She kept one hand on the door, which was still slightly ajar.

"I'm your father." He hissed.

"Well, I know that." She kept her tone even, not wanting to heat up the situation any more despite her snarky remark.

He stalked towards her, or at least he tried to. Each step was taken with difficulty, and he swayed from the alcohol that intoxicated him at the moment.

"How dare you...how dare you disobey me." He snarled. Her hand tightened on the door handle, poised in a fight or flight stance.

Her eyes narrowed, chin tilting up defensively. "If you thought for one second that I wouldn't disobey you in order to see my friends, you were wrong." Her words came more steady than she had expected, and she stood up a bit taller.

"You don't scare me dad. And you can't control me."

What happened next unfolded so fast that it was over before she registered that it had happened.

Her dad lunged towards her and she stumbled back out the door, crashing into Walker. He seemed as if he was about to force his way back inside.

Yanking her out of the way, they avoided her dad as he came barreling out behind her.

"Shit, come on!" Hand in hand, they ran down the apartment stairs and through the hallway. As Walker dragged her forwards, Sophia could hear her dad's thunderous footsteps behind them. His incoherent swear words bounced right off their backs as they streaked through the doors and into the open air.

Walker's grip tightened on her hand. "Are you okay?" He yelled over the wind whistling in their ears.

"Yeah, fine!" She shouted back.

The pair lost her dad the second they ran outside. After a few minutes they slowed to a walk, taking in deep heaving breaths.

"I think I should get an award for running that long with a cross country kid." She gasped, attempting a joke.

The wind was picking up, and Walker raised an arm to shield his face. "You're not allowed to stay at your mom's house, right?"

Sophia nodded. "That's right."

"But..." he cocked his head to the side. "Do you have to stay with your dad?"

She mulled the idea over in her mind. Technically she wouldn't be breaking the rules by staying somewhere else. As long as it wasn't with her mom.

"Actually, I don't think so." She shook her head in bewilderment. "How had I not considered that before?"

They stared at each other for a second, Sophia getting a bit distracted by the way Walker's golden curls whipped around in the wind.

He grinned. "Wanna have a sleepover?"

They jogged through the dark and back to the Scobell's house, Sophia attempting to comb through her wind-swept hair as Walker knocked on the door.

Heather opened it. "About time! We were worried because you weren't answering your phone and-" Her eyes locked on the brunette girl standing behind him.

She threw her hands in the air. "Sophia! Sweetheart we missed you! Come in, come in." She shimmied past her son to put an arm around the young girl, steering her inside.

"Yeah, you definitely have favorites." Walker grumbled, trudging in behind them.

The two teens sat everyone down and caught them up on the latest news, Walker showing each picture as they went. Sophia saw Mr. Scobell's hand curl into a fist when the image of the bruise on her cheek appeared.