I shuddered on the walk to the office. I had all of my stuff and Mat was standing right there. I had to fight back the tears until we got to the car. He closed the car door but didn't start it. "Y/N, I'm getting kind of sick of having to pick you up early from school because you were mouthing off to a teacher, or getting in a fight, or both. You can only keep this up for so much longer before you start getting in real trouble for it." He lectured, frustrated. "I'm sorry. I really didn't mean to-" I only got that far before tears started flooding down my cheeks again. I curled into a ball of fear, bringing my knees up to my chest. I covered my face with my arms as I cried. He reached out to touch me and I flinched. Then I gagged a few times. That's when he realized. After so many years of living in abuse, I was quite literally worried sick about what would happen to me.

I could feel his mood shifting into sympathy. "Y/N," he gently ran his fingers through my hair. "I didn't mean to make you cry, I promise. I'm not going to hurt you." As much as I wanted this to make me feel better, it didn't. "Y/N..." he soothed. "You are safe. Come here." I fell into his chest, one of his arms wrapped around me tightly, the other was on the back of my head, slowly ruffling my hair. "Are you alright?" He cautiously asked. "Dad, I'm sorry. I really am." I sniffed. "Did you just call me...Dad?" He said in half-confusion, half-joy. "Is that okay?" I asked, scared that I did something wrong. "Is it okay? You have no idea how long I have wanted you to call me that!" He kissed me on the forehead and let go of me. I wiped away my tears with my sleeve. Then he noticed the scratches and claw marks on my face. "Did...you do this to yourself?" "Oh, um...not intentionally?" I unconfidently replied. "You were that stressed about what I would do to you?" "Im sorr-" He interrupted me. "No, don't apologize. It's not your fault. Is there anything I can do to make you feel more comfortable with me?" "I'm not sure...I don't fully understand it myself." "Okay, we can work on that. Now, I want to hear what happened from your perspective..."

He finally started the car and as he drove I told him exactly how it went down. From the AirTags to my breakdown outside of the classroom. He listened intently and after I was finished he had a few things to say. "First and foremost, she really grabbed your wrists?" He questioned. "Yeah." "I certainly don't blame you for that part of the story, she had absolutely no right to lay her hands on you and that was not an overreaction. And second of all, I don't think that the AirTag was just another kid carrying it." "What do you mean?" "So it started on the bus, right." "Yep." "Birdseed doesn't ride on your bus, yet they also had that notification. This means that it can't be the same one." The gears started turning in my head. "So...there are two?" "Nobody else has been talking about this?" "Not that I've heard. Birdseed tried talking about it with Nora and she didn't know what they were talking about." "Can you check if you have another notification?" I pulled out my phone as Mat was parking in front of the house. Just as he suspected, there was another notification. He exhaled. "Let's get this straight, the two kids with famous parents both happen to have AirTag alerts...I don't want to freak you out y/n, but I think you and Birdseed have a stalker."

"WHAT!?" I started to hyperventilate again. "What if they are trying to find where we live so that they can come into our house and kill us. Or what if they are planning to leak our address..." "No, no, no, stay calm. Take a deep breath." He tried to prevent me from having another bout of anxiety. I tried but in the moment of panic, I couldn't do anything. "I can't-" He firmly placed both of his hands on my shoulders, trying to steady me. "Okay, slow down. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. And breathe out." I followed his calm instructions and felt surprisingly tranquil afterwards. "Okay, check your backpack for it. Be sure to look in the front pocket and the other nooks and crannies where it might be. I unzipped it and dug through, hoping that I would be able to feel the metal disk. I looked around the outside and then spotted it wedged into the water bottle pocket. Mat looked up how to disable it and eventually, I got it done.

Then the irrational visions fired up again. "Mat, what if-" "Now we are back to 'Mat'?" He teased. "Sorry." "It's all good, you can take your time to get used to it. "The AirTag was in this one location for a while before it was actually turned off, which means that the owner still probably knows where we live." "It's turned off now, so they won't be able to see the location anymore." He tried to comfort. "But they had enough time to write down the address or take a screenshot..." "There isn't much we can do if that is the case. I'm afraid we will just have to hope for the best and forget about it." I nodded and got out of the car.