I hold my breath and slide the magazine out, just like he showed me. It’s empty.
But not for long.
Crawling out of the closet and into the master bathroom, I sit cross-legged on the floor in front of the vanity. I open the cabinet doors and dig all the way to the back, knocking over bottles and boxes and brushes until I find it—the jewelry box where Mama hides Daddy’s bullets.
Hid.
My heart pounds against my ribs as I pull the whitewashed wooden container out, both because of what it holds and because of what I find hiding behind it.
A hot-pink cardboard box.
With a picture of a manicured hand holding a pregnancy test on the front.
I set the jewelry box down beside me and reach for the pink rectangle with wide eyes and shaking fingers. The plastic sticks inside rattle when I pick it up. Opening the box, I notice that one of the tests is missing. I know Mama was pregnant for a while back when I was a kid, but she lost that baby after a bad fight with Daddy. She told me it was God’s will.
I knew better.
I check the expiration date. Then, I blink and check it again.
These tests aren’t twelve years old. They’re current.
“Oh, Mama. What did you do?” I whisper, tears blurring the date on the side of the box.
Whatever that test told her, it went with her to the grave.
Like mother, like daughter, I think, sliding a stick out of the box.
I flip it over and read the instructions, noticing that it says this brand can detect a pregnancy seven to ten days after conception.
God. Wes might actually be right.
His words echo in my hollow soul as I wander over to the toilet.
“She’s pregnant,” he’d announced, cupping my belly, his eyes shining with sorrow and pride.
I couldn’t process those words at the time. I was too busy watching my entire world crumble at my feet. Too busy dismissing it as just a clever tactic to keep me from taking his place. But as I wait for the results—loading bullet after bullet into the magazine of my daddy’s gun, even though I only need one, just to give my shaking fingers something to do—I think about what he said again.
And realize that I never got my birth control shot in April.
I never even thought about it. The world was about to end, and my boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—had just left for Tennessee.
But then I met Wes.
And the world didn’t end.
It was handcuffed and ripped out of my arms instead.
I slide the clip back into the handle and take a deep breath. The gun is heavier when it’s fully loaded, both with the weight of the bullets and the weight of what they could do. But when I pick up the plastic stick lying on the counter, when I read those eight letters glowing on its digital screen, it feels even heavier than the gun.
PREGNANT.
I lift my head to look at my reflection in the mirror above the sink, but I don’t even recognize the girl staring back. Short black hair. An inch of blonde roots. Pistol in one hand. Positive pregnancy test in the other. And a dark, desperate madness in her sunken eyes that I haven’t seen since the day my daddy put a shotgun in his mouth.
I drop both the test and the gun into the sink and take a step backward with a gasp.
You’re pregnant, the girl in the mirror whispers to me.
“Honey, we’re home,” a voice calls from downstairs.
Rain
Mrs. Renshaw’s cheery voice from downstairs spurs me into action. My jeans are too tight to stick the gun in my pocket, so I tuck it into the back of my waistband, replacing the one Mrs. Renshaw stole. I shove everything else back inside the cabinets and shut them as quietly as I can. Then, I turn off the lights and dart across the hallway to my bedroom. I find what I’m looking for on the floor by the closet, right where I left it—Carter’s oversize Twenty One Pilots hoodie. I pull it on and sigh in relief when I see how well it hides the pistol.
“Rainbooow!” This time, it’s Sophie’s voice I hear.
Guilt seizes my chest when I think about what she might have found up here if …
I push those thoughts out of my mind and try to clear the emotion from my throat. “Hey, Soph!” I croak out, testing my fake smile. I go to tell her that I’ll be down in a minute, but before the words can form in my mouth, I hear the clomping of eager footsteps flying up the stairs.
“Rainbow!”
I barely have time to spread my arms before I find myself being tackle-hugged by my favorite ten-year-old. I expect her to begin chattering away about how she got here, but instead, she buries her face in my sweatshirt and bursts into tears.
“Hey … what’s going on?” I smooth my hand over her long braids and pull her tighter.
“I’m just … I’m just so happy.” She sniffles, wiping her wet eyes on the soft black cotton. “I didn’t think we were ever gonna get outta that place. I didn’t like it there. There were no beds and we had to shower in the rain and the big kids were so mean. And then your friend beat up Carter and took you away, and I was so scared.”
Sophie lifts her little face and gives me a grin so big that I notice she’s missing at least two teeth. “But Mama knew what to do. She called the police, and they found you! And they put that bad man in jail!”
Her hug lit a candle of joy in my heart, but her words blew it right back out.
“When Mama came back, she said God was so proud of her that he blessed us with a new house and a new baby!” Her little overwhelmed eyes fill with tears again, and all I can do is hug her tighter so that I won’t have to look at them anymore.
Instead, I have to look at her brother as his six-foot-three-inch frame fills my bedroom doorway. His shirt is splattered with blood. His lips and one eyebrow are split open. His left eye is swollen shut. His nose is puffy and slightly crooked, and his usual cocky swagger has been replaced by a dark thundercloud of anger.
His one open eye narrows at the sight of me. Mine widen at the sight of him.
“Is it true, Rainbow?” Sophie squeals. “Are you really gonna have a baby?”
I hold Carter’s stare, feeling the same question hanging in the air between us. Then, I sigh and tell her the truth, “Yes, sweetie, I am.”
Carter’s gaze drops to his sister’s back as he takes in those four little words.
“Are we really gonna live here? With you? Forever?”
“Of course we are, shrimp,” Carter grumbles through his mangled mouth, cutting me a warning glance. “Look.” His eyes dart to something over my shoulder. “Rain’s already got your bed ready.”
Sophie and I both turn, and I’m shocked to discover that he’s right. The last time I saw it, my bed had a shotgun blast right through the middle, but now it’s covered in a pristine unicorn-mermaid-cat comforter. Wes must have gone next door and swapped out my mattress and bedding for Sophie’s. He mentioned that he was able to salvage some stuff from the front half of their house.
I didn’t realize he’d meant a whole bed.
With every step I take toward it, I feel closer to him. Closer and yet so much further away. I lift one knee and crawl onto the soft surface, my hand sliding across the place where a giant hole used to be. I lie with my back to my uninvited guests and pull the spare pillow to my chest. It doesn’t even smell like smoke.