Pacifier

// Isabelle \\

With one final deep breath I took the plunge, flinching when my bare feet scraped the cold metal and my body hit the ladder which hit the wall with a loud clang. For a moment I stood stiff, eyes squeezed shut, heart racing, ears listening out for any sign of life who might have heard me.
Getting caught now would be pathetic.

The night however remained still and I was left to assume that my brother was still out, that Van was still out, and that Blakes was asleep because if he had been awake he'd have been listening for sonething which sounded exactly like that. He'd be in my room searching for me, certain that we'd been attacked.

The rungs of the ladder were thin and sharp and they dug into my feet a little harder with every rigid step I took. The more carefully I stepped the deeper into my soles they seemed to dig and so, eyes wide open and focussed sharp on the floor i hurried down the skeletal frame and darted away around the corner, down an alley that lead out onto a road of terres houses i recognised from the walk to school.

But everything was different at night. Everything looked different. With tall looming shadows, and ricochets of unrecognisable sounds, echoing off the walls until they'd morphed into cries and screams. I knew in my heart that they were only foxes, that it was probably somebody completely normal talking to their boyfriend on the phone as they walked home from work, but every scratch, every shadow, every set of headlights which rounded the corner slowly, like a scene from taxi driver, had my nerves a little more frayed. Had my eyes welling up with tears and my heart racing 100 miles an hour.

It was cold, my damp hair stuck to my face and the dirt and the grit beneath my feet kept cutting me and digging in. I tried to keep my eyes ahead, tried to stand tall and bold and brave against the night but the fear of gettinf glass in my feet kept my eyes on the ground and though I sort of knew where I wanted to go, it was difficult. The streets weren't so recognisable in the night. I kept missing things.

Thats when I heard the gunshots.

Two crashes, like thunder in the night, they ricocheted off the houses, rattled the bins in the street. I lost my breath, stumbling back into the wall, shrinking down into the doorway of a nearby house. Petrified.

For a second there was silence and then I heard a shout. The voices were unrecognisable, too distorted by the ditance between them and me but I knew who it was.

It was the Reids and it was my brother. There'd been a confrontation and I couldn't tell who had won. Only that whoever it was had sent their opponents running towards me. Skidding around the corner stopping for breath barely a meter away from me.

I was frozen, eyes wide open and fixed on the shadow with the ragged breathing. He was keeled over, his whole body shaking, adrenaline cursing through his veins. His blood on fire with the fear and the agony of his escape.

He stood slowly, leaning up against the wall to support him and when he did my heart plummeted because I didn't recognise him. He wasn't a bottleman.

"Shit," i heard him breath, spitting blood as he went, "shit," he groaned sliding to the floor, catching the glow of a streetlight momentarily. It lit up his face, the blood streaming from a puncture in his clothes.

"Fuck," i mouthed, watching him, waiting for him to do something else, waiting for him to get up and leave so that I could make an escape, but he didn't, he just sat there, curled up against the wall. Shrunken back into the shadows, wheezing and struggling to breath. Like he had a razor blade lodged in his throat, every breath sounded like agony.

"Oh god," he mumbled, "oh god oh god oh god," he shook, shivering, the rain soaking him through, his pain engraved in his expression, deep wrinkles around his eyes.