Speak and Ocean of Words - Book One

Chapter Five

Laney

My brother's screams fill the apartment and sent chills down my spine. "Percy, what's wrong?" I asked as I headed out of the room to see what had happened. He was yelling for out mother to wake up and it confused me, why was she asleep on the kitchen floor? I didn't see the blood spots on the floor or anywhere until I stepped into the kitchen. It was pretty much everywhere and now on Percy. My breathing quickened and I swallowed, I wanted to move and be able to think clearly but I couldn't. None of my body would work, it was just stuck like his was stuck with yelling and screaming. I tried to speak, to tell him to get away for when the police got back, but I couldn't find my voice, it was gone. We stood for what felt like hours, but had only been twenty minutes. It had taken the police half an hour to get here and another twenty to get us out of the kitchen and into our bedroom.

A woman stood in front of us, she spoke to us in a sweet and friendly tone but every word she said wasn't being formed into anything in my brain. It was all just empty mumbo jumbo. "You two did a very good job with calling the police when you heard your mom get hurt. Can either of you tell me what was going on before you called us and what happened when you came back?" One of us needed to answer her, but I couldn't. I didn't want to talk to anyone ever again, I didn't want to want to do anything ever again. Percy did the talking for us, he would need to do it for ever probably. "Mom said she was going back to school and Gabe got mad so when we heard him hit her we left and asked the neighbors to use their phone. One of them, he lives up on the top floor, he let us use his phone and then after we called you guys we came back down here and I went to go look for our mom and then I found her like that in the kitchen." His voice was rushed and shaky, I could tell he wanted to cry. I put my hand on his shoulder and squeezed it.

The social worker had told us to clean ourselves of the blood and pack up some things that we would need since we had to go to a foster home. "Here, I cleaned this bag out for you to use and then I'll use this one." Out backpacks had been emptied and now we were stuffing our clothes into one without belongings in the other. "Go see if there's anything of moms." He told me and I nodded. I left the room and went into the other one. I didn't see much of hers lying around, it was just car magazines with girls in bikinis or a play boy and a bunch of dirty clothes strewn all over the place. Going over to the dresser I pulled out her draw and felt for the false bottom where she hid things she didn't want him to find. There was stuff from our grandparents and her uncle along with a large wad of money. That must have been how she was going to pay for her school stuff. "Laney, come on, she said it's time to go." Percy told me as he stood there holding three bags slung over his shoulders.