All I can do is stare at my dad for what feels like eternity. I stare and I stare as my jumbled brain struggles to process what's happening. I will it to work faster but it still feels foggy and disorientated, must be from the meds I was on.

My dad pushed me out the way.

He. Pushed. Me. To. Safety.

He risked his life for me. In any typical father daughter relationship I guess that's to be expected. But we're not your average father and daughter, we barely even know each other. I know they say the love of a parent is unconditional but I've never really believed that to be true, I mean parents can do all sorts of shitty things, like leave and not come back, like risk getting involved with dangerous powerful people and getting murdered for it. Or maybe that's just my parents.

This restores my faith a little. Someone does love me, I'm capable of being loved. I hate to admit it, but since my moms death I was afraid I couldn't be loved. Jackson never loved me properly, not like I deserved to be loved. My mom didn't love me enough to put me first when deciding to play poker against killers. My dad didn't love me enough to stay. But now I can see he does love me, I mean he jumped in front of a bullet for me.

I look at him now, with tubes coming out of his arms and liquids dripping into various receptacles before running under his skin. I gape at his pale face that looks sunken and aged beyond its years. He has all sorts of electrodes attached to him and wires coming off in all directions. Seeing him like this makes my stomach want to hurl itself out my body, but the consistent steady beat of the heart monitor reassures me a bit.

"He looks worse than he is," Mitch stated as if reading my mind, "the bullet only cut his skin, it didn't go in. It got him on the side of his chest on the left, under his arm."

"Only a couple of inches from his heart though," Nico added in a reverent tone. Mitch shot him a look so harsh he paled and looked at me with pink embarrassment touching the tops of his cheeks, "the point is that it missed his heart. All the doctors say he's going to make a full recovery."

"He's going to be fine," Sawyer repeats standing by my side, I feel his hand brush against mine as he links his pinkie finger through mine. A feeling of soothing ran up my arm and I instantly felt myself become calmer, Sawyer was better than any meds they could offer here.

"He'll be awake by the end of the day they reckon and out within a week," Mitch contributed in an overly cheerful voice. He hated this whole thing I could tell, he despises it when things are out of his control, when he's not able to protect the people he loves. I've never seen someone with such a drastic urge to take care of those around them.

Behind me I hear Nico's phone ping, then Mitch's and finally Sawyers in quick succession.

"Grey," they all state at the same time.

"Let's go and see him before he injures someone," I sigh. I want to see Grey but I feel bad leaving my dad. After he risked his life for me the least I can do is stay by his bedside.

"He probably won't be awake for a few hours," Sawyer whispered in my ear, this whole mind reading thing was getting creepy now. I guess we spend so much time with each other we've all become tuned into each other's thought processes.

"Bye dad," I disconnected my hand from Sawyer's and instantly felt the emptiness from his lack of touch. I walk over and take my dads hand instead and give it a small squeeze. My form of a thank you.

Again I follow the three other boys to Grey's room in a kind of trance, my mind is rethinking everything that happened. How did my dad get there? How did he know what was going on? What happened to our shooter?

"Let me fucking go!" I hear Grey before I see him, his roars echo down the spotless white corridors of the hospital.

When I enter his room I see him wrestling against two nurses, a man and a woman who are trying to pin his arms down to the bed. However, the second he sees me all the fight goes out of him and his arms go slack. He stares at me for a long moment and so do the two nurses but they seem more relieved that Grey's protesting has stopped.

"Hi," I'm nervous now. All I can see when I look at Grey is his face pressed against the hard tile floor of the swimming pool with blood and water pooling around him.

"Get over here now Vegas," he throws his arms out wide so I stumble over and can fall right into them. I let myself be engulfed in the strong comfort of his hug as I press my face into his shoulder and feel his muscular arms contract around me. I feel so safe in the tightness of his embrace which isn't constricting but comforting. Soon, without my permission I feel tears slowly start to slide down my face, then they're all coming at once and I'm heaving out heavy sobs into Grey's shoulder. Every emotion I've had pent up since receiving that first text is all coming out now. Grey only holds me tighter allowing me to cry with abandon onto him and not worry that I'm getting snot and tears on him. I'm grateful for that.

I don't know how long I cry for until I have no tears left to cry and I pull back from Grey with only sniffles left. I wipe my eyes with the heel of my hand; feeling embarrassed now that I let out my emotions so publicly. Though I'm glad to notice that the two nurses have left.

"Are you okay?" It's meant to be a question but comes out as more of a demand.

"Am I okay?" Grey hacks out a laugh, "are you shitting me? I'm fine, I've been scared to death worrying about you."

"I'm fine," I force my voice to sound convincing but my previous display of tears show I'm anything but.

"Don't give me that bullshit," Grey warns, "you nearly drowned Cara."

"Mitch had to drag you out the water and all this water came pouring out your mouth, it was horrible," Nico shudders at the thought of it.

"Really?" My eyes wonder to Mitch and send him a silent thank you, I know he understands when he nods his head ever so slightly.

"See Cara, it was you we were all worried about, and your dad obviously," Grey continues passion in his every word.

"Who got my dad out?" I think aloud.

"Sawyer," Mitch volunteers.

I give Sawyer my silent look of thanks again and he smiles in a silent response.

"But you were lying there with all this blood around you," I explain feeling my voice waver at the memory.

"All I've got is one little cut, the bastard had a ring on his finger when he punched me and it cut my skin, then I cut my head on the pool floor. That's what knocked me out and gave me the concussion," Grey shrugged matter of factly like this kind of thing happened to him every day. Though with what he'd told me about his step dad, maybe it did.

"The guy, the shooter, what happened to him?" I ask panic rising up through me again, how could I have possibly forgotten about him. He could still be out there, plotting when next to kill me.

"He got away," Grey admits.

"As soon as your dad pushed you into the pool we heard police sirens and a helicopter, your dad must've called them beforehand. The guy ran for it. They're still out looking for him now," Mitch fills me in.

"They won't find him," I say but something in all of their faces tells me they already know this. They're not naive, they know this isn't over yet.

"Maybe he'll leave you alone now he knows you won't say anything, now he's scared you into silence ?" Nico suggests but we all just give him a look, he doesn't even believe his own words himself. This isn't going to end until one of us is dead and at this rate that looks like it might be me.

"Let's not talk about that," Mitch shakes his head in defeat, "we're all here now, so we might as well enjoy this moment."

"Wait one more thing," Grey interrupted, his eyes were zeroed in on me, "I wanna ask Cara something."

"Be quick," Mitch sighs heavily, "she has to get back to bed soon, she needs her rest."

"What's the one thing you always do?" Grey asked looking at us all grimly, this wasn't the start I was expecting. We all remain silent, "what's so instinctive you don't even think about it?"

There was a tension filled pause.

"Not eating yellow snow?" Nico considered. This coaxed a smile from Grey for a moment before his face resumed an unusual seriousness.

"If there's a gun pointing at you, you move," Grey whispered his voice steely and, even worse, sad. He looked at me with somber eyes that swam with so many emotions his pupils looked like they were sinking far down beneath the rest of his eyes.

"Cara didn't move a muscle," Sawyer filled in the emptiness. I felt my blood run cold with dread.

"I ...," I opened my mouth to explain but found there was nothing I could do that would make my tongue move. Words evaded me.

I couldn't argue against it, they all knew it was true, they were right there. I could pretend that I'd been frozen on the spot, the flight or fight or freeze response, and my body had chosen freeze. They knew me too well to believe that though. I usually fought with every inch of me, I fought to keep up with them, to not let myself be intimidated or blackmailed. I should've fought to live but something had kept me frozen right to that spot.

"Cara?" Mitch prompted his eyes searching mine, I wondered what he found in them. What answers did they give him?

As I looked round at each of them I knew I owed them an answer, they'd all risked their lives by choosing to come with me and be my friend despite everything. So I gave them the truth;

"I wanted to be with my mom again," I whispered.