Midnight Butterfly

eleven.

Seconds after the gunshot Charlie kicked down Max's door without hesitation. His eyes filled with horror. Carly ran up behind him and covered her mouth bursting into tears.

"Call an ambulance!" He yelled at her.

Charlie kneeled in front of the bed.

"Max, please wake up. Please tell me you didn't do this to yourself." He teared up.

Moments later an ambulance arrived and paramedics filled the room, dragging Charlie and Carly out of the house. Police showed up at the scene as well and separated the two for questioning.

"Can you tell me what happened ma'am?" A detective asked Carly.

Her eyes were glued onto the body bag being carried out of the house.

"I was downstairs, I heard a gunshot, I ran up to Charlie breaking Max's door down. When he got it open, there was blood everywhere." She held in her emotions.

"How was Max acting this morning?"

"He came down into the kitchen and said he was thankful for having us take him in but that he needed to go."

"Max was an addict correct?"

She gave the man a dirty look. "Max was clean. I only caught him once or twice while he was with us, but that was in the beginning. He was really trying to get his life together."

"Thank you for your time ma'am." The detective finished taking notes in his notepad and went off. A few feet away Charlie was talking to another detective.

"Sir I need you to calm down."

Charlie was pacing back and forth, crying and angry at the same time.

"How can I calm down when I just watched my brother die?"

"Can you please tell me what happened this morning."

He sighed. "He was acting all weird, apologizing for nothing, and saying he needed to go. Then he went up to his room and Carly said she heard him crying in there. We were going to call his doctor but then I heard the gunshot and I panic and kicked the door down and saw him there." His voice cracked.

"Do you know where he got the gun?"

"Back in high school he stole it from our father as protection."

"Protection from what?"

"Our father."

The detective always took down a couple of notes.

"Can I go to Carly now?"

"Go ahead." He stepped out of the way.

Charlie ran to Carly and they hugged tight. Carly started crying in his arms.

"We should've done something this morning, said something." She said.

"How could we have known? I don't understand why he would do this. He was my only family."

She picked up his chin. "We're gonna get through this, you and me, together. I promise."

He smiled at her and hugged her tight again.

Despite their appearance on the outside Charlie was spiraling into a depression that was long predicted, he was more like his father than anyone could've imagines. Carly was in love and she meant it when she said she would never leave him, despite the long road to recovery they both had ahead of them.

As the ambulance drove off Carly watched as the truck disappeared around the corner, then she looked back at their house swamped with officers. Immense sadness surrounded her. There was a cold gust of wind suddenly. Leaves blew around making an even more mess of the place. She looked up at the sky, this morning it was a perfect day, bright and sunny, and now the cloud were clustered together and it would soon rain. As she was looking up she noticed something that caught her attention. A butterfly, a bright green butterfly.