Crossed

I toss in my bed over and over, the unbearable serin of the baby's cry bangs against my ear drums like a hot iron on bare skin. I throw my pillow across the room, annoyed, my eyes still shut. "I can't take this anymore Gerald!" I hear my mother's voice echo from the almost empty living room down stairs. "Then bloody leave woman!" The angry man who calls himself my father screams back. They were probably both drunk. Like every other damned night in this house. "You touched her skirt Gerald!" My mum's voice still echos. I sit up in my bed, my eyes still shut, knowing very well what will come next. I hear a bang against the wall, it's so strong and loud I could swear I felt the bed shake. Then another sound finds my ears, it's sound like a slap in the face. I lay back in my bed and pull the covers over my head. It was better to ignore them that get involved. I always told that to myself and my siblings since I was 10, but the baby was probably still just...a baby. Her crying was over whelming sometimes but she too had learnt how to sooth herself once the noise was over. "Leave Sekani alone!" My mother's voice echos and my heart jumps right out as I open my eyes wide and pull the covers off me. I search the bed with my hand and find nothing but empty space. Sekani wasn't in bed with me, she wasn't lying next to me, she was downstairs with this pair of lunatics. I jump right out of bed, not bothering to turn the lights on. I hear another bang. Not sure what exactly sure how to define it but it sounded like someone cracked a bone. "Sekani!" I shout as I bolt for the stairs. I rush down as fast as my feet could carry me, and that extremely fast, like I hadn't just been sleeping minutes ago. Worry rushes over me as I turn a corner for the next flight of the stairs, I almost slip but don't stop for a minute. I'm at the end of the flight when I lose my balance and hit the wooden floor hard, a little to hard I feel my ankle snap. But that was the least of my worries. I immediately lift my head up, my eyes searching the room. I find my mother almost immediately, sitting awkwardly on the floor, about five steps away from the door. She looked more of surprised than scared, her eyes lingered on me and her palm was over her mouth. Then I see the pile of boxes behind her, they belong to the new owners of the house. I quickly look around for Sekani, a sigh of relief escapes me the moment I see her teary eyed face. "Are you okay?" I ask her as I try to stand, only to fall again. The floor beneath me was slippery. "Sekani are...." my words get stuck in my throat when I look down at my hands, the are soaked red, soaked in warm red fluid. I begin to tremble and every sound seems to loom out of ear shoot. My breath is hurried and I can feel sweat begin to break from my forehead as I follow the pool of blood I was sitting in. His skull was cracked, at least that was what it seemed like, looking at the rush of blood that was woozing out slight above his right ear. My voice broke, it almost sounded like a cry. My spine was frozen cold but my whole body was swimming in invisible sweat. I watch my father's body lay lifeless on the cold floor and I'm not even sure what to feel. I watch a while longer before the sound of an iron kettle hitting the hard floor snaps me back to reality. My eyes turn to the kettle, then the body standing right before it. I swallow hard as I try to compose myself, to gather my thoughts. To think but it's not working at all. I struggle to get to my feet but I do. The pain in my ankle rushes through my leg and I finch, I look back at Sekani and I know, now was not the time to care about my stupid ankle. I limp over to were Sekani is standing, jumping over the old man's body like it wasn't even there. Tears had felled her beauty face and her nose was already running like it did always when she cried. Her whole body was trembling, I had to pretend I couldn't hear fingers knocking against each other. " It's okay." It's not okay, my voice is a mere whisper when I open my dry mouth. It damn wasn't okay, but how could I tell a that to a thirteen year old innocent child. "I will take...i uhmmm" I stammer on my on words, my bloody hands cover my face for a moment. 'You can do this...Helen you can....' I breath hard, 'you can do this.' I open my eyes and I'm not shaking any more, at least I think I'm not. I gather my smiley face and look down at my sister who is now welling. "Sekani calm down, he is not dead." I say to her. "I didn't mean to kill him...he couldn't just stop hitting mum and I..." she attempts to say but her words are muffled from her crying. "You did good. You defended mum." I lied, "look Sekani, a blow to the head by a 13 year old is not enough to kill an older man like him." I'm lying through my teeth. "But.." she tries again only to cry even more. "He is just asleep, the alcohol got to him. I will have an ambulance come over and take him to the hospital." I tell her, a smile plastered on my face still. I try not to touch her. I wouldn't want her having blood on her. "You go upstairs and sooth the baby, make sure she goes back to sleep." She's not convinced that dad wasn't dead. I can tell by the way she looks at his lifeless body then back at me. I knew i should have scolded her instead, told her she was a murderer, called the police, but she was only 13, she was my young sister, to her, I was everything she wished to be. "Go up stairs or Lileti will keep crying." I couldn't even hear Lileti at all, I didn't even notice when she decided to stop her annoying screaming. I grab mum's phone from the floor and pretend to call an ambulance, I watch Sekani walk away as I fake the conversation, up the stairs, until she finally disappears from my sight. I drop to the floor in a hump. My energy draining from every cell of me. The phone slips from my hands too. I look over at my mother, who was still launched on the floor, watching her husband bleed out. She was in shook, too stunned to even blink, I guess she couldn't think under all that influence of alcohol. I crawl to the lifeless body of my father, I close my eyes a minute, inhale, exhale, then open them wide at him. I reach two of my shaky fingers to his throat. I pull away almost immediately. He was dead.