"You're mom's a whore."
I wasn't sure what set me off, whether it was what the asshole said or the fact that he was just walking away and flicking me off and then threw a snowball square at my face. I didn't normally get angry but with the combination of what was currently going on inside the house between Bobby, Jerry, and Angel and this fucker I just ran after him, picking up my own snowball, hoping to God that there was a large rock hidden in the middle of the frozen ball.
I knew that it was a mistake as soon as I was out in the middle of the street, even before the guy turned around, revealing the hockey mask that he was wearing and the barrel of a gun. The shot echoed through the street, bouncing off the houses that surrounded us. It took me a moment to process what happened, but when it did, I felt the pain full force and it was worse than any pain I'd ever felt before.
"Jack!"
He raised the gun to point at my forehead and I looked at it for a moment before turning my attention to the sky, the only good thing that would come out of my death was the fact that I would get to see mom again.
"Fuck." I sat up in bed, running a hand through my hair.
I felt like a little kid again, waking up from a nightmare from a previous home. It was different now though, I wasn't eight years old anymore scared that Evelyn was going to kick me back into the foster system or that I was going to be locked in a closest or some shit like had happened to me in the past.
No, I wasn't eight years old anymore…and Evelyn was no longer here to come save my scrawny little eight year old ass from past ghosts.
"Everything okay Jackie?" Danielle mumbled beside me.
She sat up slowly, looking over at me with tired blue eyes. I felt bad for waking her up, especially with how tired she'd been with cleaning the house before her dad and stepmom coming over to visit. I looked down at her stomach where her baby bump was showing beneath the baggy T-shirt she'd stolen from Bobby forever ago.
"Yeah I'm fine."
The look she gave me told me that she definitely wasn't convinced by my answer, "Right."
"I'll be fine."
She sighed and raised an eyebrow, a quirk she has picked up from mom years ago, "Uh-huh."
I laughed at her; Danielle had picked up a lot of things from mom, like the way she could push someone into giving her answers without really pushing them. Or the way she could look at you and know instantly that someone was hiding something from her.
"I will be."
She nodded, letting it go now, "So…" she paused for a moment, "I was thinking about names."
"Names?" I still wasn't sure about this whole father thing, especially if the only real father figure I had ever really had was Bobby. I didn't want to screw the kid up because I didn't know how to act with it.
Danielle smiled at me, knowing exactly what was going through my head, "Yeah, I was thinking that if it's a girl, then her name should be Ashley Evelyn and if it's a boy, the we definitely have to name him Tyler Gregory."
"I like those." I smiled in return and brushed some hair out of her eyes.
We were silent then, and Danielle moved closer to me, laying back down again, "Come on babe, tomorrow's gonna be busy."
"Yeah." I wasn't too excited for the morning to come around, her dad and stepmom would be here then…and Daniel Love wasn't all that excited about me knocking up his long lost daughter before getting married.
"It'll be fine. He promised to be on his best behavior."
I rolled my eyes, and laid down myself, putting my arms around her growing stomach and putting my face in her long brown hair.
With everything that had happened in the past six months, with mom's death and the shooting…and Bobby's fucking rampage, it felt nice to know that Danielle was still here. Still around to be my little Guardian Angel, even when she didn't see it that way.
And now that we were soon to have a new little addition to our family, I was glad that I hadn't gone home to mom that day in the snow.