**BELLA**
I come back to myself in pieces, awareness bleeding in slowly and painfully, my head pounding and my body jolting with every stride as I realise I’m not lying down anymore, I’m moving, and not on my own. The first thing I register is the forest, branches blurring past in streaks of shadow and moonlight, the air ripping cold and sharp into my lungs, and then the pressure across my stomach and ribs clicks into place and panic snaps awake fully.
I’m slung over his shoulder.
My father’s.
My arms hang uselessly for a second as my mind catches up to what my body already knows, and nausea rolls hard through me when his scent hits, familiar and wrong and soaked into my memory in ways I thought I’d finally escaped. My head bounces against his back as he runs, every impact sending spar
