But it’s too late.
My grandmother gasps at me, arm slipping, and fires at my mother in that single breath.
I become nothing as the bullet hits my mom.
There’s no sound.
No sight.
No senses at all.
I push forward as though I’m moving through wet cement. I’m running, but the air pushes back. It won’t give, won’t let me reach her.
And she’s falling backward, her hair floating up to hide her face, her arms drifting forward.
Fire.
It starts in my throat, tearing from my lungs, piercing myears.
Screaming.
I’m screaming.
She hits the ground, and I’m miles away, so far away. I see her skull thud against the wood floor, see it push her back up so that she slams down a second time.
I slip.
I slip on her blood.
Blood from her leg, which had been pooling while she traded her freedom so that I would know I was loved.
Blood that gurgles up from high on her chest and trickles down over her shoulder.
I’m hurting her, I have to be hurting her, when I reach her, grab her. “Mom. Mom. Mommommommom.”
“It’s okay,” she says. She’s still lying to me. I can feel her lies sticky and wet on my hands. “It hit my shoulder, Katelyn. Look.”
I look, but all I see is blood.
Mom’s short, sharp breaths come into focus. Sneakers thudding across the floor, squeaking and skidding. A lamp crashing to the floor.
My grandmother yelling.
Malcolm grunting.
And a second shot.
This time, there is sound.
The clatter of the gun as it falls to the ground.
The thud from Malcolm’s body hitting the floor.
The cry from my grandmother as he nearly takes her down with him.
Malcolm rolls his head toward me, and I see a dribble of blood escape from the corner of his mouth.
Blood. I’m drowning in it, and it’s almost as though I can taste it flooding my own throat. I’m choking on it.
