Dakota was breathing shakily as she nodded and moved toward the back door. She slightly cowered, instinct with the sense of her mother around. She heard a gun cock in the kitchen and she peeked into the window, barely missing her mother's piercing eyes as she duked down again

Dakota didn't answer, her peripheral vision barely catching the window sliding open. She reached for his arm but a shot rang out from the window, Hunter crying inside the house

"Nate!" She hissed, dropping beside him and her back shielding his body from the woman in the window. "....Kota?" The woman breathed, anger laced into her voice. "What do you want from me?" Dakota pleaded, her hand pressed to Nate's wound. "To talk....about things we have to settle." The woman growled, anger turning to fury. "Nate Nate Nate..." Dakota said, fear and pain dancing in her eyes

Dakota was torn between her husband and their child, unable to defend them both. Rage falred in her eyes, making her see red all around. "I'll be right back. I promise you." She murmured to him, checking the magazine in her gun and storming inside the house. Dakota spotted Hunter almost instantly, wrapped up and crying on the couch. She darted over to him but was intercepted by her mother. "You fucking bitch!" Dakota yelled, a smug smirk on her mother's face. "What the hell?!" Her mother was silent before falshing the gun. "If you know what's good for your family, you'll get out of here and leave the child with a proper mother." The woman sneered. That hit home. Dakota nearly fliunched as he eyes shifted to her son

Dakota ground her teeth together and tackled the woman, her fury and pain from her childhood and teenage years crashing back to the fists that landed on the woman's face. "I built a life without you! I hoped you were dead! In hell!" Dakota yelled, able to be heard everywhere within a mile radius of the house, clear as day. Her mother squirmed and tried to shove Dakota off of her, but she was on a roll and there was no stopping the pissed off mama beaar that had awoken within her.