W\\CKED

Seven Minutes

[Jul]

I stood outside the thick oak door, bracing myself for what I was about to face. The door groaned as it gave way; my father's philosophy was that no one could sneak up on you if you chose not to keep your door hinges oiled.

At first glance, his study seemed a place of comfort. Soothing pops and snaps emanated from the fireplace as flames suckled on a pile of logs. Large bookshelves were crammed with thick volumes on my father's favorite subjects: physical combat, photography, and pulp fiction from the previous century. A glass case displayed relics from all over the world, a reminder of his younger days when time and curiosity allowed him to travel.

But the ceiling lights, had they been on, would have revealed the dust thick on the tops of countless unread volumes, the decaying wood and green-tinted iron of the daggers and ancient coins in the display case, and the black soot thick along the rim of my father's favorite portrait of Mom from the fire that burned, always burned within the tar-black hearth.

"I'm sorry," I said timidly.

He sat in a leather chair angled toward the fireplace, watching the shifting rhythms of the flames. His shoulder moved slightly at the sound of my voice, but he did not turn to look at me.

"Haven't I taught you to be more careful?"

"We were only—"

"You're not supposed to leave your bodyguard's side in public. No exceptions."

I was quiet for a moment, surprised by the anger that spat up in my stomach at his words. He treated me like I wore a leash—and he kept it very short. "It's not like I was alone. My friends were there."

His fingers clenched the armrest, a scattering of old scars across his skin pulsing white in the firelight. "It only takes a second to be dragged out of sight, for your friends to turn around and find you gone. One second. Do you remember when the Masters boy was abducted? All he did was wander around a corner while his mother talked on the phone. Two days later, she paid a ransom and was still forced to bury her boy in a casket."

He was using an example that I knew opened old wounds for him. He saw that incident as a personal failure, an echo of the tragedy that destroyed our family.

I touched the rigid surface of my scar. It was a constant reminder of the day half my family died, but it was also a reminder that it was Dad's family, too. He lost his wife, his son, and he almost lost his little girl.

The same little girl who wandered into the woods tonight without anyone to protect her.

"For seven minutes, you didn't answer your phone." That was the real reason for the harshness in his voice, the reason he wouldn't turn from the smoldering fire to look me in the face.

I could have argued that I couldn't hear the phone ring when it was buried in the pocket of my thick cloak, but the truth was I wouldn't have cared if I had. I was too busy daydreaming about Dae while my father waited for a phone call to tell him his daughter was still alive.

"I'm sorry." I forgave him, as I always did, for needing so desperately to keep me close. "I won't do it again."

He inclined his head, a nod as brief and to the point as it could get. He was dismissing me.

"Goodnight, Dad," I whispered as I shut the door between us.