Starlight on the Snow - Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Trigger Warnings: drug usage, references to selling drugs, armed robbery

June 22nd, 2017

Ash’s father was high.

Gabriel drove like a maniac, his thin arms trembling as he handled the shift with one hand and the wheel with the other. His eyes were manic, wild as they darted about. The sound of his muttering, frenetic and paranoid filled the emptiness of the car, leaving Ash with nothing emotionally solid to grasp onto.

Where were they going? Why weren’t they going to the dealer’s house? The plan was to do all of the drops, collect everyone’s payments, and then head to Ricky’s place to pay him all of that week’s earnings.

After Gabriel had not only smoked a large chunk of the product they’d been given to sell, but also spent the first few weeks’ worth of earnings that month on whatever it was that was threading through his veins right then, Ash had been confident he’d get the money back together before today.

Clearly, that would not be the case.

Ash had one hand curved around the front of the seat by his thigh. His right elbow rested on the windowsill, and his forefingers and thumb were splayed out over his forehead, temple, and down the side of his cheek. He wanted to close his eyes, but the fear that he wouldn’t see his own death coming kept them open.

There had been three near-accidents already, and Ash was sweltering inside the inferno of an anxiety attack. His father had mixed the dealer’s product with Ash’s weed and fried so hard that afternoon that he was gone. He was just fucking gone, and there was nothing Ash could hope to do.

At this point, he was waiting for the crash.

“Fucking idiots,” he heard Gabriel snarling as he swerved into the right lane, then dodged a suburban to swerve back into the left. “Fucking idiots, all of them. They don’t know who the fuck I am. They don’t know me, and they don’t know how bad I could fuck them up.”

“Dad,” Ash said, forcing his tremulous voice to stay within a lower register. “You need to slow the car down.”

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do, son,” Gabriel said, his voice wracked with more emotion than Ash could handle at the moment. “I don’t have it. I just don’t have it.”

“It’s fine,” Ash whispered, more to calm himself than for his father’s sake. He heard horns honking at them, felt his heart rate spiking as the car sped up. “We can go to the bank, or—”

Smack.

Pain, flaring along Ash’s jaw and up into his eye. He saw stars. Hands clutching his now-aching jaw, he hunched forward and tried to reign in the rage that had plagued him ever since his father lost control over their small family.

“What the fuck?!” Ash shouted, whirling on his father. “Dad! Jesus fucking Christ!”

“Why are you so fucking stupid, kid?!” Gabriel roared, his bloodshot eyes seeming to bulge out of his head. He turned fully away from the windshield, glaring at Ash as though he wanted to slit his throat. His black hair was starting to come out of its ponytail, which he’d scraped together at the base of his skull that morning. His stubble added to his overall feverish disposition.

He looked like a monster.

“There’s no fucking money in the bank, you fucking idiot!” Gabriel continued to roar, taking his hand off the stick shift and nearly stalling the car. Ash had to grab it and shift the gear before it did. “That’s why I told you to go to Portland and try to sell there! You fucking—”

He cut himself off with a furious grimace that looked vicious. Ash cowered against the car door, holding his left hand up in a defensive position.

“I did,” he said, too terrified to look away from the road. “I went after graduation. Remember? I went to the—”

“No, you didn’t!” Gabriel roared, his hand whipping out and grabbing the side of Ash’s neck. He shook him with a violence, the movement and vehemence causing him to turn the wheel back and forth. The car went from left to right, and another person honked. “Because if you had, we wouldn’t be in this fucking situation, you stupid piece of shit!”

“No, fuck that!” Ash pointed an angry finger in his direction. “I gave you five hundred dollars, Dad! I gave you five hundred, and you spent it on—”

“No!” Gabriel yelled, shaking his head and turning so sharply that Ash fell against the door again. “No! You didn’t give me all of it! You didn’t—”

“Yes, I fucking did!” Ash’s heart exploded in his chest, anxiety swirling together with ire, his incredulous hands splayed in the air parallel to his head. “Are you fucking kidding me? Yes, I did! I gave you five hundred dollars right when I got back! And you fucking spent it on PCP and crack in two days!”

“No, you didn’t. You gave me three. I remember. You gave me three!”

“It was five hundred dollar bills.”

Gabriel said nothing, only choosing to shake his head repeatedly.

As the car went ripping down the next road, zipping around cars full of horrified and confused drivers, Ash’s hand found the amethyst. He felt the smooth side of the crystal again and again, thumb passing back and forth over it. He wished he could just go back to that night. To that night with Tayshia in the hot springs. He would rather drown there than be in this car with his father.

He couldn’t even call his mother. His father had taken his phone and thrown it out the window when he was going ninety down the freeway.

“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Gabriel muttered. “Ricky’s waiting. He is waiting for us to show up with two thousand dollars. We don’t have it.”

“How much do we have?” Ash asked.

Gabriel remained silent, shifting the gears and speeding up again.

“How much do we have, Dad?!”

“Not enough, Ash.”

Ash scrubbed his face with his hands, feeling cramped. He was too tall for this car. This world was too small for him, this place where his father dragged Ash behind him by hooks pierced through his flesh. Where he ignored his screaming, ignored his agony, and kept walking.

He never should have started helping his father. The prospect of money for shit like tattoos and food and girls had been too much to pass up. And now, here he was, riding the edge of death with Gabriel. Gabriel, who couldn’t go one fucking day without shooting up and smoking like the waste of space he was. Gabriel, who couldn’t go one fucking day without hitting Ash and calling him names.

Gabriel, who’d once spent his time planting roses for his wife that would bloom in the winter, and gardenias that would litter the garden with white.

“We have to get some money,” Gabriel said, and then he let out a sob. “We have to get some fucking money!”

Ash dropped his head into his hands, his panic threatening to send him into a tailspin. “Ricky’s got guns, Dad."

“I know.”

“He’ll come to the house and kill mom, or me, or all of us!” Ash shouted. “How could you be such an idiot?!”

He flinched when Gabriel raised his fist to him again. “I know, son! I know! And you know I’m trying.”

Except that he wasn’t trying. He hadn’t tried in months. He’d lost everything. The only thing they had was the house, and that was because it had been in Ash’s grandfather’s will. Gabriel couldn’t work because he was never not high. Ash hadn’t had time to find a summer job yet—not when he was driving the other car to the city all the time to fix his father’s mistakes.

If Ash didn’t sell enough, then how was he supposed to protect his mother from his father’s selfishness?

He let out a groan and then buried his face in his hands again. “God fucking dammit, Dad! He’s going to kill us. He’s going to shoot us dead and kill us!”

Gabriel ran a red light. “He’s not. We’re gonna get that money. We’re gonna have to...to...fuck. Fuck.”

Ash flinched when his father slammed his fist against his horn.

He didn’t know what they were going to do. There were no options. None. Ricky was the one person in Crystal Springs who had complete control of everything coming in and out of town. If he didn’t do it himself, he had plenty of people who would show up and handle their family for him.

They were dead.

“There.”

Ash looked out of his father’s window. There was an ice cream shop there, a standalone building with a small, full parking lot. The June sunlight glinted off the shop windows as someone opened the door and entered it with their toddler.

Gabriel swerved across the road, barreling through the oncoming traffic as he went hurtling into the parking lot. Ash’s heart leapt in his chest, terror freezing his veins to ice, and he gripped the stability handle above his head. Gabriel yanked on the wheel, the back of the car whipping around and slamming into the bumper of someone’s minivan. The crash caused Ash’s body to jerk to the left, his elbow and bicep straining to keep himself upright.

“Out.” Gabriel reached across Ash, breathing heavily as he opened the glove compartment. He reached inside and pulled his pistol from within. “Out of the car.”

Wait.

Ash unbuckled his seatbelt with slow, cautious movements. His father glared at him as he ripped his own seatbelt out of the buckle. He opened the door.

“Dad?”

Gabriel said nothing. He got out of the car.

“Dad!”

His father clicked the safety off and cocked the gun.

“Get out of the car, Ash. Get out of the fucking car and do whatever I tell you to do.”

His father was high. They were out of money. Ricky was waiting for them. Ricky would kill them if he found out that the money was gone and some of the product, too. They’d just crashed into someone’s bumper. Gabriel had a gun. He had a gun.

He wanted them to go into the ice cream parlor.

No.

“Dad, stop!” Ash cried, shoving his door open and scrambling out of the car.

“Shut up,” Gabriel snarled. He spun to face Ash, grabbing the front of his shirt and dragging him closer. “Do what the fuck I say, or else you’re the one that’s going to Ricky’s. Do you want that, boy? Do you want to be the one who tells him that you don’t have his money?”

Ash vibrated with the desire to leave. To convince him to do something different. To keel over and die right there.

He didn’t want to do this. He didn’t want to be involved in this.

He wished he could call his mother.

“Block the door,” Gabriel said, pressing the barrel of the gun against the side of Ash’s head. “Don’t let anyone follow us in.”

Ash’s face contorted into an expression of pure hatred. He’d never hated his father more than he did at that moment. He’d never been in the position to see not a single speck of light in his father’s soul. But here, right now, he saw none.

There was nothing in Gabriel’s eyes. Nothing at all.

As his father turned around and wove his way between the cars, Ash looked down the highway. He saw a shopping center across the street. The cars zooming by. The blue sky, void of clouds with the sun beating down from high above. Everything was so peaceful. So normal. So nondescript.

He felt like he was trapped within a prison of his father’s making.

“Ash,” his father hissed from between two pickup trucks. “We’re a family. We do this together, do you hear me? You’re in this just as deep as I am.”

“We don’t need to do this,” Ash said, tone pleading as he dragged his hands through his hair. “Please, Dad.”

“Then what can we do?” Gabriel waved the gun in the air, the cars providing an eerily ordinary soundtrack for this horrifying moment. “What’s the better option? Because this is Ricky we’re talking about. You know what he’s done. You know what he’ll do. Do you want to see your mother die, son?!”

Ash was surprised he had the capacity to care when he was fucking high.

“No,” he said, biting the words out through clenched teeth.

“Then let’s.” Gabriel jabbed his chest with the gun and Ash nearly lost the contents of his stomach. “Go.”

After a suspended moment spent holding each other’s glares, Gabriel grabbed him around the back of the neck and dragged him towards the ice cream shop.

They neared the door, Ash lurking behind his father with sweating palms, a wildly-beating heart, and tears clawing at his eyes. A man was exiting, laughing as he told a joke to the woman beside him. When he nearly ran into Gabriel, the man’s first reaction was to apologize.

Until his gaze fell to the gun.

“Cathy, get behind me.” The man shoved the woman behind him, holding a hand up to ward Gabriel off. “Now, just hold on a second, man.”

“Back inside.” Gabriel’s voice had hardened like diamond, but with none of the beauty. “Get back inside now.”

The man nodded, he and the woman—who was already crying—moving backwards into the building.

Ash squeezed his eyes shut and turned his face away. It was almost too much to look at, watching his father be the one to do this horrible thing. He stood there for a couple of minutes, panicking and debating.

He could leave right now. He could leave his father to do this alone, leave all these people at Gabriel’s mercy, and go home. He could tell his mother what happened. Maybe he could even convince her to pack up and leave. They could drive away from Crystal Springs without looking back.

“Ash. Now.”

“Shit,” Ash whispered, his voice breaking. “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to—”

“ASH!”

He jolted, the sound of his father’s tone frightening him into action, and he went inside.

The silence that had fallen over the entire shop was almost as horrifying as the nightmare itself. There were about fifteen people inside: a couple of families with small children, some younger girls from Christ Rising, the man with the woman named Cathy, and then two clerks behind the counter. Everyone was on the ground, hidden beneath tables. In the center of the room, on one lone table, were a pile of cell phones.

Gabriel brandished the gun at the clerks.

“I said give me all of the money you have in your fucking registers!”

The taller girl behind the counter cried, “W-We don’t have c-cash here! We only—only have a c-card reader! I’m s-sorry, we just don’t—”

“Shut up!” Gabriel whirled around, aiming the gun at each person in turn. He held the muzzle against his head, tapping his skull and gritting his teeth. “Fuck. Okay, just—everyone pull out your wallets. Come on. Let’s go.”

Ash stood in front of the door, his legs shaking and his hands unsure. He alternated between running his fingers through his hair and rubbing the line of his jaw. He couldn’t look at anyone. Didn’t want to.

He didn’t want to remember any of this because they were fucked.

“Ash, get them,” Gabriel spluttered, gesturing with the gun. Ash cringed. The people flinched. “Get the wallets! Get the fucking wallets!”

Ash hesitated.

Gabriel stomped over, shoving a table out of his way as he went.

If the door wasn’t already behind him, then Ash would have backed up. He turned his face to the right, glaring at his father out of the corner of his eyes.

It felt like Gabriel didn’t realize who he was. He wasn’t aware that it was him. He was so lost to his high and his panic and his idea that doing this was the answer that he didn’t realize he was holding a gun to his son’s face.

“I don’t want to have to ask you again,” Gabriel breathed, his voice as sinister as shadows rolling across the moors.

Ash cast his gaze downward, towards the tables and the floor.

Why didn’t his father understand? They’d already gone too far. Even if they managed to get the money together to pay Ricky, would it matter?

Wait a minute.

There were two people underneath the far left table that he hadn’t seen before. He couldn’t see their faces, but something about the way they were sitting showed him that their muscles were tight. Sprung.

If Gabriel saw them, there would be problems.

“I’ll do it,” Ash said, shoving his father’s hand away. His glare washed up and down Gabriel’s frail body, watching the way the drugs running through his system—and ruining his life—made him tremble. “I’ll do it, so just fucking move.”

Gabriel did, and Ash went to the far right—to the table with the girls from his school. They stared at him in dumbstruck horror. They were probably thinking that he was exactly the person that everyone had always thought he was.

A fuck-up.

A failure.

A monster.

Ash collected the wallets, coin pouches, and purses of every person in the establishment. He hated the way it felt, looking into their eyes and seeing pure terror shining back up at him. The children were the worst. They didn’t understand what was going on, or why the bad man was taking their allowances away. Their parents were trying to calm them through tears of their own, but it seemed that it was very clear that Gabriel was in an erratic state of mind.

As he waited for the woman at the second-furthest table from the left to shakily pull her wallet out of her purse, Ash’s gaze slid over. He could see that one of the people hidden beneath the furthest table was a girl. She was on the smaller side, with shorts and sneakers on—pink sneakers. Whoever was next to her was a burly man.

Ash’s hands were clammy, slick with sweat. So slick that he dropped the wallets. He hated the way it made his stomach churn. As he crouched down to pick the wallets up, he hung his head. He needed a second, just one fucking second. He wanted to cry.

What if his father shot him?

“Ash.”

The whispered voice sounded familiar.

His mind flashed back to the night before graduation.

The caverns. Crystals studding the walls. Sloshing water. His hands on her waist. Her body, leaning back against his own.

Tayshia.

She knelt there beneath the table wearing a pair of denim shorts and a pink tank top. Her braids were gone, leaving her with the short Afro that he recognized her wearing a few times a year. Her facial expression was determined as she glowered at him.

Beside her was a big, burly man that Ash assumed to be her father. His head was shaved and he wore a simple pair of cargo shorts and a tee shirt. The expression painted upon the umber-brown of his face matched her own.

Ash’s heart dropped into the pits of Hell.

“Ash, what are you doing?” Tayshia whispered.

He stared at her. The amethyst around his neck felt heavy, like it weighed ten thousand pounds. He wanted to rip it off. It represented something else—some starry-covered universe that didn’t belong to him. Not after this.

Why was she here?

Why did it have to be her?

“Stay here,” he whispered back, his brows pulling together with desperation. “Please.”

Gabriel snapped his fingers. “Come on, Ash! What the fuck are you doing?! Bring me the wallets!”

Ash hurried to his feet and over to his father’s side, dropping the wallets onto the table he stood next to.

Gabriel pointed to the pile with the gun. Sweat poured down the sides of his face, into his eyes where it clung to his lashes like raindrops. His eyes were woven crimson with the lasting effects of the drugs he’d taken an hour before.

“Wait. There’s people over there.”

Sinking, right to the bottom of Ash’s chest.

“You forgot those two,” Gabriel said, frantic gaze darting back and forth between Ash and the table. He aimed the gun directly for the peek of knees that showed. “Get them up. Get them—get them out. I want their wallets, too.”

Ash didn’t move.

Gabriel shoved the gun up against his son’s temple until it hurt. “Get over there before I shoot you!”

Ash shuddered, fighting back tears.

He could remember a time when his father spent his days toiling in the garden, planting and growing the most beautiful flowers in the state. He remembered going to festivals with him as a child to showcase his famed roses and gardenias. Waking up on Christmas to bouquets that Gabriel had gathered just for Ash’s mother. Hearing his parents’ laughter through open windows in the spring as they tilled the soil in the garden.

Everything was different now.

Ash’s grandfather died and it broke him—took Gabriel and shattered him into thousands of pieces that never seemed to come together unless he was high. Ash had no idea when it started and he supposed it didn’t matter. The first time Ash came home to see his mother crying at the kitchen table because the bank account was empty and the garden was seedless should have been the last.

Why was his father doing this to him? To all of these people? He didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Not himself. Not the people in the restaurant. Not Tayshia.

Of all people, Tayshia deserved this the least.

Turning on his heel, Ash walked over to the table. He placed a shaking hand atop it and sunk down into another crouch. His eyes met Tayshia’s, cerulean crashing against hazel in a silent argument. Because that was what they were good at, wasn’t it? Arguing with each other. Not getting along. Despising one another for reasons unknown just because their personalities clashed.

“No,” Tayshia said.

“You have to.”

She narrowed her eyes. “No.”

Ash frowned. Did she not grasp the gravity of the situation? Did she not understand that his father had a gun?

“Just give me your guys’ money,” he said, “and maybe he’ll let you stay under here.”

Tayshia didn’t move. Beside her, the man he thought was her father wore a stern, calculating expression.

“Is your father intoxicated, son?” he said, his baritone oddly soothing in the tension of the moment.

Ash closed his eyes for a moment and then said, “PCP and—and cocaine.”

“Crack?”

Ash nodded. It was so absurd, hearing the names of the drugs and having it not be in some don’t do drugs ad. Absurd and sad.

It didn’t matter how soothing this man’s voice was. It didn’t matter how calming or assuaging or settling it was. Ash’s family was broken. After this, it was destroyed. Eradicated like a black hole had ripped it into shreds and devoured it.

“Ash, what’s taking so long?!” Gabriel roared, causing the children across the room to start screaming and crying anew. “Hurry the fuck up!”

“Leave my daughter alone,” Mr. Cole said to Ash, his voice still calm as he reached into the pocket on the side of his shorts leg. He withdrew his wallet with a slow hand. “Leave her be and take my wallet. It’s better that you just do what he wants you to do.”

“Okay.” Ash accepted the wallet, looking at Tayshia one last time. “But you both have to stand up. It’ll be worse if you don’t.”

Tayshia opened her mouth, clearly about ready to protest, but her father covered her shoulder with his hand. He gave Ash an encouraging smile.

“We’re standing now, all right? Together, with you.”

After a few seconds, they all stood at the same time. Tayshia’s father wore a facial expression that was as tranquil as one of the hot springs in the caverns on the mountain. He looked like he knew what to do, and that made Ash feel better about the fact that he was scared.

He started over to his father, casting a glance in the direction of the cowering, terrified hostages. Then, his father stopped him in his tracks with an angry look.

“What are you doing?” Gabriel growled. “Get her wallet, too.”

“She doesn’t have one,” Ash said, his free hand clenched into a fist at his side.

“What’re you talking about? You haven’t even checked her!”

“She doesn’t have one.”

Gabriel’s eyes flashed like lightning. He stormed towards him.

Ash didn’t think—he didn’t think because he couldn’t. He reacted. Spinning, he sidestepped and moved in front of Tayshia. There was a table between them but it didn’t matter. He just knew that he couldn’t let his father think she was accessible. He knew there were other people in the shop—other people who also didn’t deserve to be shot.

But they weren’t her.

His father nearly slammed into him, causing Ash to stumble back against the table. He reached behind him to grab the edge and steady himself. The hardness of the barrel pressed into the center of his chest as Gabriel held his gaze in silent threat.

They were the same height, so Ash was less intimidated by him than he was by the pistol itself. He knew he had to be careful. As long as he was trying, it might be enough.

“Not her,” Ash said, his tone low.

“I don’t have time for this shit, boy.” Gabriel slammed the gun into the side of Ash’s head, holding it there until Ash turned his face away. “You turn around and search her. Now. Search her, or I’m gonna shoot her in the face.”

“She doesn’t have a fucking wallet! Let’s just take the ones we have and go, okay?”

Gabriel’s face contorted with anguish. He smacked the gun against his own forehead multiple times in quick succession. He held a fist to the other side of his head and began to pace.

“No. No, no, no. You don’t get it, Ash. You don’t get it. If we don’t have enough, we’re going somewhere else to get more. Get her fucking money so we can go!”

What?

“Dad.” Ash felt nausea rolling through his stomach. “We can’t do this again. We need to go home.”

“We have to! Why don’t you understand...no. You know what? No. I’m done with this.”

He caught Ash by surprise, his hand whipping forward and to the side. The pistol connected with the side of Ash’s skull, the loud crack seeming to echo around the room. Blinding pain careened through his head, rendering him speechless. He nearly fell over another table as he clutched his hand over his throbbing temple.

Gabriel moved past him. Ash heard Tayshia scream, heard feet shuffling, and then he whirled around. A gasp of horror left his lips as he watched the events play out in slow motion.

Tayshia scrambled back towards the wall, the anger that had been displayed on her face when looking at Ash fading to become fear. She cried out for her father, who moved toward her. He reached for his daughter. The moment he did, Gabriel jolted as though the movement were too sudden.

He pulled the trigger.

BANG.

Mr. Cole hit the ground.

Tayshia screamed and fell to her knees beside her father, who lay prone on the floor beside one of the tables. A small hole in his chest leaked blood, the stain spreading outwards from the wound, crimson soaking the fabric of his shirt.

This was all Ash’s fault. If he had fought harder to grab the wheel of the car from his father, or if he would have refused to come with him, maybe they wouldn’t be here right now. What could he have done differently? What choices could he have made to fix this? How could he fix it now? Could he fix it?

Thoughts whirled in his mind, racing one another to reach the finish line that made the most sense. And all the while, he watched his father staggering around in a panic and Tayshia covering Mr. Cole’s wound with her hands to try and stop the bleeding.

Ash felt as frozen as a star.

Art by Meialoue

“Help me!”

He blinked himself out of his reverie. Tayshia was looking at him, her eyes pleading even as the tears filled them. She was trying not to cry.

“Ash, you have to help me! Please. Please call the ambulance!”

“Don’t do it,” Gabriel said, his voice slurred. “No. No, you can’t. Don’t do it, or I’m—I can’t let—You can’t—Fucking Hell!”

Ash’s shoulders jumped when his father whirled to face a table and kicked the chair so hard that it clattered to the floor. Whimpers arose from the hostages.

“Please,” Tayshia whined.

He couldn’t take it. Couldn’t take hearing Tayshia beg like that. It made him feel sick to his stomach. Ash didn’t want to be this person, but there was nothing he could do. No way to turn back the hands of the clock.

Mr. Cole was on the ground, bleeding, gasping for air. His eyelids were fluttering. Children were crying. Gabriel was probably going to pull the trigger again. Everything felt so out of control.

Tayshia uttered his name again, leaning over her father as she pressed down on the wound as hard as she could.

“I’ll do anything.” Her gaze held steady even as her voice shook. “I’ll do anything if you just help us!”

Ash’s heart pulled in his chest, tearing in half. With those words, she had broken him down and remade him in the image of a disaster.

Behind him, he heard the click of the gun. His father had cocked it once again, readying himself. Preparing.

“Please, Ash,” Tayshia said. “Help him. He’s my dad.”

He wanted to help. He did.

But how?

His father had a gun. He’d already shot someone—her father. He couldn’t do anything without risking himself getting shot. And maybe that made him a coward. Maybe it did. But he was just a fucking kid. He’d just turned nineteen. Ash was terrified.

So he just stood there.

A clatter.

Ash and his father looked behind them.

The man who they’d run into at the door. He stood at the table of cell phones. He’d dropped one.

“I-I already c-called,” he stammered, his hands up over his head.

Ash felt the blood draining from his face.

“You absolute fuck.” Gabriel pointed the gun at the man. “You motherfucker.”

“They’re on their way,” the man replied, his voice tremulous. “They said there was a cop coming into this area.”

“They’re what?!” Gabriel brandished the gun again, causing several screams to ring out. “Oh, fuck no! Fuck, fuck, fuck! Ash—Ash, get the—no. No, there’s no time. We’ll have to go out the back. The back. It’s our only way out. We have to—we have to figure it out.”

Ash felt like he was sinking into the ground, deep down into the Earth where he hoped he would suffocate. He didn’t deserve to breathe air after this.

Then came the sirens.

Someone spoke on an intercom or a megaphone—some sort of speaker—and warned Gabriel to put the gun down. He had completely lost it, muttering things to himself that sounded hallucinatory. He was sweating even more, stumbling around and knocking into chairs.

“Dad, come on,” Ash begged, his hand curved around the back of his own neck. “It’s over. Drop the gun.”

“No, it’s not—your mother—Ricky—” Gabriel looked at him, but he didn’t seem to know who or what he was looking at. His father had lost his senses.

“Dad!” Ash cried, his voice cracking. “Drop the gun!"

He did.

The moment it hit the ground, the cops swarmed the shop. Ash heard more sirens sounding in the distance. Red and blue lights flickered faintly across the walls, the sunlight warring with them. He was shoved to his knees from behind, a hand pressing on the back of his head to keep him hunched.

Ash watched the pool of blood spreading from Mr. Cole’s body, creeping towards him like it wanted to touch the skin of the man who caused it to pour.

He was dragged to his feet, hauled backwards, and steered towards the door. The police officers were reading his and Gabriel’s rights with gruff voices. The children were sobbing. Tayshia’s father’s eyes were closed, and her hands continued to press on his chest while the paramedics rushed toward them. Tears streaked through the make-up on her face.

Shoved into the back of a police car, Ash once again wished he could call his mother.