Page 127 of Angels Are Falling

“You’re standing,” she yelled. “He’s not. Just look at him. He clearly needs stitches.” She had already turned her back to me, trying to stop the bleeding.

The patio door banged, and Bella poured out, and everything got worse.

“What’s wrong with Kai?” Bella’s wail went up like a siren, and she was crying before finishing the sentence.

“Bella, go to your room,” I ordered.

Amelie glanced at her, too. “Bella. Baby. Go inside.”

“I don’t want to go inside,” she protested. “August and Jamie are in their rooms, and they are not playing with me. What’s wrong with Kai?”

The yard was coming apart in pieces, but Bella didn’t sense the tension among the adults.

“Please, Bella. Go inside,” Amelie pleaded. “I’ll play hide-and-seek with you later.”

I saw my little sister out of the corner of my eye, twisting her hands, before turning back toward the house. Nobody was watching where her feet were actually taking her.

I was watching Amelie.

Amelie was distracted by Kai’s injuries.

Off to the side, Bella was crouching down in the grass. I belatedly realized she was picking something off the ground and playing with it.

Every drop of theater left Kai’s face at once. And that was how I knew, before my hand even flew to my empty pocket, exactly what she was holding.

Small. Cellophane. White powder.

During our brawl, I had dropped my packet of cocaine on the grass.

“It looks like snow,” Bella said, wet and wondering, to no one, her small thumbs working the zip open. “Did Mommy send this for me⁠—”

“Bella, no.” Kai moved before she had finished the sentence. He crossed twelve feet of lawn in a flash.

The contents of the packet were already on her fingers when Kai had reached her. And then he had her wrist in one hand and the bag in the other.

I moved too. I’d moved the same second he did, but my legs were slow from the fight and the drugs, and I arrived at a patch of flattened grass with my arms out and nothing left to catch.

Kai was already gone, inside, with Bella in his arms.

“Bella!” Amelie was already running behind Kai.

“Bella.” I ran behind them and got as far as the glass door, just in time to witness the chaos.

My phone was out, my thumb hovering over the nine. Then I heard Kai say “Dr. Bower” into his own phone, a direct line, a man with an emergency already on retainer, and I stood at the glass holding three numbers I never got to press. Water was hammering into the sink as he washed Bella’s hands thoroughly with soap, phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. Somewhere between the lawn and the kitchen, the concussion had subsided, and he was fully alert.

Nobody but me was keeping score.

As Kai set her down, Bella—scared and confused about why all the adults were freaking out—started crying again.

Amelie was kneeling in front of her with her nurse voice on. Bella’s voice was too small to reach me, but Amelie’s wasn’t.

“Bella. You’re not in any trouble. Did you lick your fingers after touching the white powder? You can tell me.”

“Okay, good. Did any of it get in your mouth or nose?”

“Stick out your tongue for me.”

“Okay. You’re okay.”