In self-defense or the defense of another [Pt. 3] The gun went off. The scream was immediate and blood-curdling as Ross Manger released Sally and collapsed on the ground. She collapsed to her knees beside him, her lungs refilling hungrily. Suddenly struck by the realization that she didn’t really want their father to die on her floor in front of her brothers, she located the bullet wound - the side of his chest, and she didn’t know how far through - and pressed hard. He let out another scream and squirmed away slightly, but Sally held firm with the pressure. Her eyes followed the path the bullet had traveled, right up to the barrel of the gun.
Jake Manger trembled, his gun-toting hand shaking almost so hard it would have seemed impossible for him to have fired if there was anyone else in the room with a weapon. Aside from the labored breaths of their dying father, the room was silent for a moment.
“Jake?”
His older brother’s voice snapped him back to reality, and immediately, his cheeks were overrun by tears. The gun fell from his hands with an unsavory clatter as his bright blue eyes scanned desperately between his family members. “I-I just had to make him stop.”
He and Arnold glanced at one another and stepped over to where their father and sister were. Ross was no longer screaming, his breathing growing shallow despite Sally’s best efforts. He was slipping, slipping, running out of time, and they could all see it. The light was fading from his eyes.
Sally knew there was nothing more she could do, that by the time any medical professional could arrive - magic or Muggle - he would be gone, and she released the wound, standing up between her brothers. Her hands were red, stained by their father’s blood. Jake felt his breath catch in his throat. This was real. It was really happening.
Her voice was slight but audible as the word fell out of her parted lips. “D-... Daddy?” Jake was sobbing audibly now, but their father could offer response to neither the name Sally called him for possibly the only time, nor the burst of tears from his youngest son. But his eyes, the pools so deep but so hazy, so like Sally’s and yet so different, looked back up at Jake, whose hands covered his mouth to try to contain his wailing but to no avail. But the tear-filled eye contact could not be maintained for long, as Ross’s eyes rolled back, and he was gone.
He fell to his father’s side, gripping him by the shoulders and supporting him tenderly. “Dad, no!” he cried, completely in the throes of his grief and regret. “Dad! Dad! Please don’t do this! Please!” Jake began shaking him by the shoulders. The hand placed on his own did not stop him, but after a moment of struggling in vain, he felt two arms scoop him up beneath the arms and drag him away, flailing and crying.
Arnold stood Jake upright a few feet away. “He’s gone,” he states in a tone that was meant to be matter-of-fact but was involuntarily tainted by emotion. He too grieved. They all did.
The two older siblings both looked at their brother, and then at one another. “Jake,” said Sally, stepping over to the two boys. “Get out of here. Go home. We didn’t have plans today, got it? Arnold and I were here. You were at home. Okay?”
Jake blinked away his tears. “Wh-what? But what about-” he looked over at the gun and saw his brother picking it up, squeezing the grip and placing a finger on the trigger for just a moment, and sitting it back down.
“Go,” said Arnold with a finality. “Go talk to Mom. See Peyton. Drink some tea and take a deep breath.” He looked to Sally briefly, for strength, and then back to Jake. “We’ll take care of this.”
The Teppenpaw alum between at his Aladren siblings once, but, trusting their instincts, conceded. “Okay.” He wanted to give them a reassuring smile, but he couldn’t force it. With a deep breath, he Disapparated. Then Sally and Arnold took a breath as well. They were alone in an understood silence - she knew exactly why Arnold had bothered touch the gun: for fingerprints - but not for long, as the fireplace swirled once more.