Seven Days by Josie Leigh Read Free Book Online

no doubt she’d succumb, too. I couldn’t leave her to follow in my example, the precedence I’d set for how girls in the Patrick family kept from getting evicted and having a father you had to hide from because he was in withdrawals.
    I only had fleeting memories of what life had been before my mom had died, and where I was taking Ryan was one of the few good memories I had from my former life. I hoped that he would love it as much as I had. I hoped that it would live up to my own expectations, since I’d previously seen it through innocent and naïve childhood eyes.

Chapter 5
     
    Click.
    “ See, bitch, I’m invincible,” I heard my dad say from the living room.
    “ Whatever, Dick , you just got lucky,” my mom spat, emphasizing a nickname my dad hated.
    “ Quit stalling, Anne, my buzz is wearing off and I left the rest of my stash at home,” I heard Ben complain.
    “ That’s cause she’s scared, baby,” the voice of a woman I didn’t know taunted.
    “ Gimme the damn gun, Candy. I’m not scared of jack shit,” my mom snarled.
    I didn’t know why they were playing with a gun, because my dad always said that a gun wasn’t a toy. He said that someone could get hurt. All I wanted to do was sleep, but the party noise was making that impossible. The air in the trailer was also thicker than usual and it made my head feel funny. Laying my head on my pillow, I closed my eyes as the house shook from the explosion of the bullet being released from the chamber and into my mother’s head.
    “ FUCK!” I heard my dad yell and chaos seemed to erupt through the house and I felt the thunder of people leaving as my father’s footsteps stopped outside my bedroom door. “Carrie, here’s the phone,” he said as our cordless hit the pillow beside me. “Call nine-one-one, tell them she shot herself, that you were home alone with her, you’d gone to bed, I was at my friend’s house. I wasn’t here, I was never here,” he instructed before bolting from the doorway and disappearing like the rest of the party.
    My sister was at a sleepover three houses down. I was supposed to be there, but I got sick and my mom thought it would be better for me to stay home tonight. I didn’t complain then, but now I wished I wasn’t here. Slowly, I sat up in my bed and swung my feet over the side as if I were being drawn to the living room by a magnet. Grabbing the phone, I dialed the emergency number and walked to a place I knew I shouldn’t be.
    Beer cans and liquor bottles littered every available surface in the kitchen and there was powder residue on a mirror on the kitchen table. The whole house smelled like burnt plastic and sulfur.
    Then I saw her. She’d been sitting on the brown floral couch she’d picked up at a yard sale down the street. The arm rest under her head and cushion where she sat were soaked with nearly black blood. Her head was lolled back into the crevice between the arm rest and the back of the couch. Only the curtains and window contained the splatter of bright red blood I’d been expecting.
    Her eyes were open and shock seemed to be frozen on her face as she struggled to breathe. My dad’s revolver was still clutched in her hand, even though her grip was loose.
    “ Carrie,” she choked out as blood flowed from the open wound on her temple. I followed the path from her ear to the cushions and down toward the floor. A small pool was already forming on the carpet near where her empty left arm had fallen.
    I couldn’t seem to tear my stinging eyes from my dying mother as the phone in my hand stopped ringing and finally connected.
    “ Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?” the nasal voice on the other end of the phone asked. Then, as if the operator’s voice pulled me from the state of shock I’d been in, I started screaming and couldn’t figure out how to stop.
    “Shit! Carrie! Carrie!” I heard from beside me as I came back to consciousness. “Look at me,” I heard Ryan demand. “Please,