The bullet wasn’t in her arm.
She knew where it was.
Wedged deep in her chest, just below her armpit. At the rate her breath was coming, it had pierced her lung. She’d heard about things like that, her and Aiden watched real life trauma on TV.
Her gaze stayed on the drip of blood. It would be justice if she died. After all, it was her fault. She’d as good as killed Aiden when she’d persuaded him to come back inside.
Her chest tightened and she hitched in another painful breath as tears leaked from her eyes.
She loved him.
The trail of blood came from the thin, soaked T-shirt she’d wadded up and jammed between her arm and her chest to try and stem the flow.
She squeezed her elbow tighter against her side and drew in another staggered breath as she clenched her teeth until they ground to stop the hysterical sob lodged at the back of her throat from escaping.
Silent. She had to stay silent in case he came back to check. Back to shoot her again. Finish the job he’d started.
She needed to move. Check on the others. Make sure the little ones hadn’t been disturbed by all the crashing around. She’d drag Josh away from his gaming and ask him what they should do. He was good. He knew how to handle Daddy. When she wanted to challenge, Josh was the voice of reason.
She rubbed her forehead. This was different. Josh couldn’t change things, but he’d help her. If they called the police, Daddy would go to jail and they’d blame her. There had to be another way.
Before she moved, she needed a moment to drag oxygen into her deflated lungs.
She had no idea where Daddy had dragged Aiden’s body, but what she imagined was the muffled bump of her boyfriend’s head bouncing along the hallway had stopped.
She’d managed to yank on a pair of fleecy pyjama bottoms without much effort but drawing a top over her head and getting her arm through the armhole had proved a different matter. After the struggle, she’d flopped back on the bed, breath soughing through her burning chest, wild spirals of light shooting behind her closed lids.
After a brief struggle, she’d managed to prop herself up to listen.
The house was silent.
The house was rarely silent. Even in the dead of night, there would be creaks and groans. It was as though it knew, as though it waited.
She swung her legs off the bed and with a grunt of pain, slipped to her feet. And there she was, head reeling and barely a memory of how she’d come to be propped against the doorframe.
Poppy pressed her hand to where she’d slipped her mobile phone into her pocket and stared unblinking down the length of the brightly lit hallway until her eyes stung. She concentrated on the end wall where it took a right-hand turn down another length of hallway to her brother’s room. That’s where he was. Where he’d taken Aiden, she was sure. But not so sure she didn’t hesitate. What if he was in the twins’ room next to hers, or Mum’s?
A blink released a torrent of tears that washed down her cheeks and dripped off the end of her chin, but she quelled the desperate desire to sob, to run screaming into her mum’s room. There would be no point.
She pushed away from the door jamb and took three tentative steps towards the area above the stairs where the landing widened into a large square with her mum’s overstuffed antique chaise longue placed against the back wall so it overlooked the split staircase and galleried hall.
She drew in an anguished breath. It was her fault. If she hadn’t persuaded Aiden to stay, her daddy would never have killed him.
Whether he’d meant to shoot her or not, she couldn’t be sure. Maybe it was only Aiden he’d wanted to kill, but the deadened glaze over her daddy’s eyes lent her no hope.
She skimmed her shoulder against the short stretch of wall between her room and the twins’ just to give her balance and a sense of direction as her head whirled.
Reluctant to wake them, but conscious she needed to do something, check they were asleep before she went to Josh, she edged their door open slow enough so it didn’t creak. Please don’t let them be witness to Daddy’s violence.
Exhausted with the effort, she leaned against the doorjamb as her energy drained from her as surely as her blood did. If only she had the strength.
A muffled thud had her whipping her head around to scan the hall.
Was Daddy coming back? Had he heard her?
Her breath stuttered in her throat, stuck there as the rhythmic thud, thud, thud of her heart filled her ears before she blew it out again in a violent rush.
She pushed away from her support to stumble into the room, and edged the door closed behind her before she took three faltering footsteps into the pale golden circle of light from the nightlamp the twins still insisted on having.
Poppy held her breath as she moved deeper inside the room. She reached out trembling fingers to touch Geraldine’s soft cheek and froze.
Horror gripped her at the sight of a small neat hole in the centre of Geraldine’s forehead as the thick trickle of damson red blood pooled in her closed eye sockets.
Rasping in a small breath, Poppy swung her head to look at Talisha. With almost perfect precision, the exact hole bled out, but this time left a trail of blood which dripped crimson onto her sister’s pristine white broderie anglaise pillowcase.
Poppy sank to her knees by the side of Talisha’s bed and pressed a hand hard against her mouth to stop the sobs from erupting.
Her stomach pitched and threatened to throw up the ribeye steak she’d been obliged to eat for the sake of keeping the peace with Daddy earlier that evening. While he was out of the house, she went pure vegetarian, but it had been his birthday, his meal choice. His insistence that it was a treat. But he knew she didn’t like to eat meat. It was his little show of power, superior strength of mind.
She screwed her eyes shut until plumes of white light exploded behind her eyelids. She didn’t want to open her eyes again. Didn’t want to see, but she had no choice.
Swallowing the bile, she kept her eyes downcast as she opened them again so she didn’t have to see her sweet little sisters.
Miss Tilly, Talisha’s raggedy doll lay in a crumpled heap on the floor by the bedside. One of a pair their grandma had bought for the twins when they were born. Talisha had cherished hers, even more precious since grandma had died the previous year. Unlike her son, grandma had been warm and generous to a fault.
Poppy took hold of Miss Tilly and rocked as she hugged her, silent tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t deserve to be alive. It was her fault. She’d killed her baby sisters through her thoughtless selfishness. All because of a boy.
Clutching the doll, she pushed up from the bed, the sharp stab of pain shoved its way between her ribs and her knees turned to water, but she forced herself to swivel around without looking again. She wrenched open the door, no longer caring whether she made a noise or not, and beat a quick exit, but blood and desperation drained from her to sap her energy.
Along the landing, Poppy stumbled to a halt. Hesitated. She leaned her left hand against the pristine white balustrade as she pressed the T-shirt hard against her wound, knowing it made a difference to staunch the flow. She’d taken her St Johns Ambulance lessons. She knew what to do. Her teeth gave an involuntary chatter. It wasn’t the same as in class. That was controlled, calm. Her head juddered. It wasn’t the same at all. The class instructor never mentioned how hard it would be in real life. With real blood and real dead people.