Little Angel

32

James

"Mum, are we nearly there yet?", I asked her, sat in the back of our caravan as she sighed deeply. 

"We get there when we get there", She said through gritted teeth, obviously annoyed at my antics. I huffed and sat back in my seat, looking through pictures of me and Sam on my phone. We had decided after a few days of letting them get settled to go and visit.

Charlie said we could go and see them anytime although he hasn't answered his phone for a few days so mum got a little bit worried. Last night she told me to pack up the caravan in excitement though I could tell something was going on. Sam might be the smart one but I'm not stupid. She would of called me through Charlie by now, so it was pretty obvious something had gone wrong.

"What's wrong poppet?", My mother asked me, noticing my worried expression. I put my phone down and quickly jumped into the passenger seat so we could talk properly. 

"I'm worried about Sam Ma, she hasn't called, texted, even visited since she went with her brothers, and I know Charlie called you before hand and was all worried about them going to live there, so what if he was right? What is they were dangerous?", I rambled on quickly as my mother smiled at me. 

"What?", I asked her, annoyed she wasn't taking me seriously. She raised her eyebrows at me and stared back onto the road, the long boring road that seemed to go on forever.

"I just didn't know you cared about her this much", She said, her tone going all odd and squeaky. I shook my head quickly and slumped in my seat. She laughed at my moodiness and shook her head slowly. Her tone suggested she was joking though her expression still showed worry for them.

"She's my best friend, of course I care about her", I replied quickly, staring at the road that went on for about a million miles. 

"And Charlie?", She asked me with a small smile, as though I had completely forgotten about him.

"Of course, he's like an older brother to me, do you remember that time me and Sam wanted to hang out at the park, he came too because he knew Sam wouldn't go without him. You know why?", I asked her with a grin as she gave an expression of "Why?".

"Because I asked him to, with a grin of course, but he did it because I specifically asked him to because I wanted to hang out with Sam", I said with a look of pride on my face. She scrunched her face up in a jokingly way, once again shaking her head. 

"You sure it wasn't because Sam wanted to hang out with you", She asked me, a small smile on her face. I sat in silence for a moment before shaking my head quickly, jumping back up in my seat, restless from the long drive. 

"No way, Sam hates the outdoors, and the reason she is friends with me is because we have always been friends, if we had met now, she would of probably shunned me", I replied back defensively, knowing that I was Sam's only true friend. Mum laughed at me, shaking her head more quickly this time as she messed with the radio.

"I'm messing with you J, we all know she loves you and vice versa, and you are probably right, the kid is smart but she has no social tact whatsoever", She said to me with a smile as I laughed along with her, nodding in agreement.

"We should be there soon, oi, put your seatbelt on, what if we have a crash?", She said as a joke, coming up to the turning to their new house. I rolled my eyes and put the seatbelt on sarcastically, though it was as a joke, not disrespectful. 

My mother wasn't like the typical mother, she was weird in a way, we were more like best friends that it being a parent-child relationship. We had s'mores at one in the morning once, she woke me up with a fire blazing and chucking a bag of marshmallows onto my face, grinning from ear to ear. Whenever I had a football match, she would paint her face in my team's colours and wore a jersey with my number on it, made specifically for her, sipping on vodka during the game, but it just made her more enthusiastic when we won. She would do the same for Charlie too, the jersey for his team was hung up the wardrobe. 

"Right, here we are, this is the address they gave us a few weeks ago so it should be the same, I seriously doubt they would of been moved out already. I also found a site only ten minutes from here where we can hook the van up to the water and pipes, so we can stay here for a while", She said with an enthusiastic smile, excited to them too. I said nothing about school, it wasn't the same without Sam, it was too, boring. 

She treats them like they are her own and I know Charlie loves it, Sam it more hesitant. Although she has known my mother for a very long time, she is different to other people, so time didn't necessarily mean trust, it just meant that Sam loved my mum but she didn't one hundred percent trust her. 

I was the only person she trusted.

"What are you grinning at?", My mum asked me with a matching grin, pulling into the seemingly very long drive way. I held my head in the air in protest of answering her questions as she shook her head.

"Alright J, you know the manners, the sweet words you need to say right? Don't make me look bad in here", She said in a now firm tone, that serious tone I knew not to mess with. I nodded slowly and looked back at this humongous home. 

"Oh my God", My mother said with her mouth half open, staring at without a doubt, the biggest house I had ever seen. As I looked to my left, I noticed movement from my right eye, it might be a gardener of some sorts.

"Look at this place", Mum said once more as my senses told me something was seriously wrong. My heart was starting to thud as I realised something.

"Where is everyone?", I asked quietly, unbuckling my seatbelt as she turned to me. She shrugged her shoulder as she quickly looked around the area. After a few minutes of driving through, I noticed something moving on the roof, something black was starting to emerge from a hole.

Was that...a gun? 

"Mum, we have to go now!", I yelled as I jumped onto the steering wheel, causing her in surprise to press down on the accelerator, swivelling back towards the entrance. Gun shots went off, smashing the right hand mirror of it's hinges as she screamed in shock, my own terror so large it was silent. 

"Mum, fucking drive! Go, Go, that way there", I screamed in fear as more shots rang through the fountain that was planted in the centre. She screamed loudly as we headed for the exit, looking all around us to spot when the next bullet was going to hit. A scream occurred from my mother.

"Shit, Shit, don't freak out J, I'll be alright", I heard her say. I turned quickly to her to find she had been shot in the upper arm. I held my hand out and applied pressure as she swerved across the road, more shots ringing out in the air. 

"I'm okay J, nearly there", She said, however, as she said it, the gates started to close slowly. Her face turned to one of pain to determination, putting her middle finger up at the shooters as we gained speed. 

"Mum!", I yelled as we got closer to the gate, the caravan barely having enough room to make it. She screamed as we drove faster as I joined in, making sure to keep the pressure onto her womb. 

Crash. 

We did it, we had made it through the gate! We heard the gun shots airing off towards the caravan, some of them hitting on the side however we didn't care. We were alive.

"Who the fuck were those people?", I asked, trying to take mum's mind of the fact she was bleeding out. She shrugged her shoulders as it caused her to cry out in pain, clutching onto her arm.

"We need to go to the hospital!", I shouted as I took control of the wheel, she shook her head in protest as her breathing became deeper. 

"We can't, how the hell are we supposed to explain this?", She asked me as I thought for a moment.

"We could always just lie, say we headed into a bad neighbourhood, we don't know the area, it was a hit and run, please mum. We have to lie, who else is going to help us?", I asked her, she shook her head. 

"I don't know J, what if they come after us", She asked me as she started crying, a few tears falling down her cheek, I quickly flicked them away and firmly told her.

"Hospital. Now".