I know it, too.
I take a deep breath, but all I smell is smoke as I lift my head a little and peek through the bars.
My hands slide over my mouth to cover it, but a tiny gasp slips out as I watch Daddy stumble back a few steps, like someone pushed him too hard. But I don’t see anyone, and I don’t think it’s the mailman anymore.
Then Daddy falls.
His body crashes to the ground with a loud thud. Blood starts to spread under him, reminding me of the time I spilled red paint over the floor when I was dancing to a song.
My brain screams at me to move, to go help Daddy, but my body doesn’t listen.
I can’t blink. I can’t move. I’m stuck.
“I love him,” a woman shouts. Her voice is scratchy, as if she’s been crying, but she doesn’t seem sad. When I’m sad, my voice is small, quiet. Hers is loud and earth-shattering. I don’t recognize the voice, and I can’t see who it belongs to. She must be standing on the porch.
Hidden.
Who is it?
I want to move. To see.
But a whisper inside my head warns me to stay where I am—out of the way.
“You should have known better,” the lady says. This time her words are meaner. They’re more deafening, as if someone turned the volume up. Her words crack through the air with the sting of a whip.
Daddy would never hurt anyone.
“I never wanted this to happen, but you left me no choice. You ruined everything.”
That’s the last thing she says before I hear the click-clacking of her shoes and the door slams behind her, shaking the frames on the wall behind me so hard one falls and breaks.
Move, Lucia. Move your feet. Daddy’s dying.
With unsteady hands, I push up until my belly lifts off the floor and I’m on my knees. My fingers fold around the wooden railings and I grip it tight as I pull myself to my feet.
Then I start to move.
I walk the short hallway to the stairs. When I stop and look down at them, my head spins. There seem to be a hundred steps, even though I know there’s not.
When I finally touch the first one, it’s cold against my skin. Every time I lift my wobbly foot up and drop it to the next step, a bunch of tiny shakes race up my legs and make my teeth chatter. I think I might fall, but I keep going. One step at a time. The wood creaks under my feet, just like it does when I’m sneaking downstairs to eat ice cream in the middle of the night, hoping no one catches me.
I’m almost at the bottom.
Just one more to go.
I stand still for a moment, just looking at it. My toes curl over the edge, my knees shake with the kind of fear you’d feel jumping off a tall building. I close my eyes and then I move.
My foot hits the floor, and my eyes pop open, lips quivering.
I made it.
But my chest is tight beyond belief. Imaginative hands wrap around it, squeezing the bravery from me and replacing it with dread.
I move at a snail’s pace, the same way I do when I’m trying to sneak up on Daddy to scare him, but I know it’s not a game.
I just see red.
A big, glowing puddle of red all around him.
