Chapter 26
26
Aviva, age 10
I jerked awake in my princess bed, pulling at the frilly cover and sheets as I sat up. I loved the bed—the headboard was shaped like a castle, the sheets had little tiaras on them. Even though he never called me it, my mother would tease that I was my dad’s little princess.
Something had woken me up, and I wasn’t sure what.
I strained my ears. The old, creaking house was silent. Weirdly silent. It was like our always “settling” house (which is what mom would say when I got worried about ghosts) was holding its breath and waiting to see what came next.
I wanted to go back to bed, to hide under the covers and pretend nothing was wrong. But I knew.
It’s okay, Aviva , I told myself. You’ll just go check on your parents and Asher, make sure everything is fine, and go back to sleep.
Climbing out of bed, I opened the door slowly, creeping down the hardwood floors in my bare feet, ignoring how cold it was. My parents were always so, so careful with money, they turned the heat down low, even in harsh winters in upstate New York. They tried to hide we were struggling, but even at my age, I could tell.
When I reached the end of the hall, I paused. My parents’ bedroom door was closed, and I’d learned not to just burst inside. They loved each other, and I’d accidentally walked in on them before—it’s how I’d learned what sex was. I tried to force myself to knock, but something stopped me. Something small and scared.
If you go in there, you’ll never go back.
I shivered again, this time not from the cold.
I knocked, softly.
“Aviva, Asher, go away.” My father yelled through the door.
I began to turn away, when I heard my mother crying.
“Please, please don’t hurt them. We’ll give you anything…”
Something was wrong!
Ignoring my dad, I twisted the knob and pushed the door open ? —
My parents were standing together near their bed, my father blocking my mom’s body. Two men in masks were pointing guns at them, just like in the action movies my twin, Asher, made me watch.
I thought I screamed. I thought it pierced the night. I’m not sure.
One of the gunmen turned. His teeth flashed through his mask in the dark room, and then the gun was on me, freezing me where I stood. The other was trained on mom.
My heart raced.
“No!” dad yelled, glancing back and forth between us, and even in the darkness I could see the helpless horror in his eyes.
And then Asher was at the door, too. He was in sweatpants and his Wayne Gretsky t-shirt. . I’d always teased him for that, because the hockey player was so old now, but he was adamant that Wayne was the coolest, and if I didn’t understand that, he felt sorry for me .
“Asher, run.” My mother said in a choked voice.
“Don’t you hurt my family,” Asher said.
The gun shifted again, this time pointed at him
Wayne wasn’t going to save my brother from a gun.
Bam.
Thud.
I jerked, looking at my brother. He still stood there, his face twisted in horror as he looked across the room. I twisted to see what he was staring at.
This time, I knew I screamed.
Dad lay on the floor, a dark pool spilling out from his head. His eyes were wide open in frozen fear.
Mom fell to her knees, sobbing.
One gun followed her. The other was still trained on my brother.
“What are you going to do, princess?” one of the masked men mocked. “Princess” sounded so ugly, so scary. “Watch your brother and mother die?”
There was a clicking sound—the safety, I knew from movies.
My body was moving before I even realized it. Thoughts flashed through my brain, startling as gunshots. I loved mom, but my twin was my whole world.
I dove in front of my brother, my twin, the most important person in my life, just as I heard a pop and my whole world exploded into pain.
There was a second pop. My mom screamed the scariest scream I’d ever heard.
And then everything went dark.