[Friday Writing] The Knock

[Every Friday, I'll be finding a writing prompt and writing whatever comes to mind.  It won't always be a gem of a story or it might be a poem, but this is to get my writing juices going.  This week's prompt comes from 105 Author Blog Prompts.  Today's writing comes from #2 under the Creative Writing Prompts.  Please enjoy.]

"A knock on the door in the middle of the night is never a good sign" is something that her mother said.  That was never more true than when Rebecca woke up to a loud knocking on her door.  No, not a knocking, a pounding.  She threw on a robe and slipped her feet into slippers before going to see what the hell was happening.  She turned on a few lights along the way, grabbing one of her house phones as she did so.  Looking through the peephole, she saw that it was her brother Michael.  With a sigh, she opened the door and let him in.  "What the hell are you doing?  Are you drunk again?  Do you know it's three in the bloody morning?!"

"Yeah, I just, I had no place to go," he said.  His hands were shaking and she could see that his shirt was covered in blood.  His face took a few hits as well, with one of his eyes swelling shut and bruising.

"Is that your blood?" she asked, in a low and shocked voice.

"Yes.  No.  I don't know!"  He tore off the shirt and threw it on the floor.  "Look, I went to the bar with Matt, kay?  We had a few, he went off with a girl, and next thing I know, I'm awake in a back alley with blood down my shirt!  And it was only me in the alley!"

She bit her lower lip and thought.  Matt was a childhood friend of theirs and it was a weekly tradition to get drunk together.  She never thought that they drank into blacking out, but ignorance is bliss sometimes.  "Then we need to call Matt."  She started to dial his cell phone number, hoping he hadn't changed it in the last few years.

"He wasn't there!"

"This is the only thing I know to try," she said.  "Go put ice on your eye."

He sighed and marched off to the kitchen, opening and closing her cabinets and fridge like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

"Oh please pick up," she quietly prayed in the phone and smiled as it picked up.  "Matt?"

"Actually, ma'am, I'm Officer Donovan of the Chicago Police.  The owner of this phone is in surgery at the moment."

She blinked.  "What?"

"From what we've been able to figure out, he was in a bar fight with someone.  That someone beat him up like he was going to kill him."

She froze, not even breathing, as she looked to where her brother was in the kitchen.  Her eyes moved to the torn shirt, stained with blood, and she heard the officer trying to get her attention.  "Could you send someone over to my apartment?" she asked and gave her address.  "My brother showed up all bloody and I know he was drinking tonight with Matthew Clarke.  That's the name of who owns the cell phone."

"Ma'am, we'll send someone right over.  I want you to stay on the phone with me, if you can," he said.

"Yeah," she said and looked over at her brother coming back into the room.  "Find the ice okay?"

"Despite your organizational skills?  Yeah," he said before flopping down on the couch.  "Did you get a hold of Matt?"

She nodded.  "He's just taking his sweet time getting back on the phone since he's got manners about not taking a piss with me listening in."

"That was one time and you keep on bringing it up."

She was about to say something when there was a sharp rap at the door.  "Ma'am, that's going to be my partner and another two with him in case.  It's okay to answer the door."

"What the hell?" her brother asked.

"Probably Sarah.  She's nearly overdue and would have come knocking for me to stay with her kid until her mom got here."  She went over and opened the door, standing back as the three policeman rushed in and quickly cuffed her brother.  She moved away as her brother started to swear and try to get to her, calling her a bitch for calling the cops and how mom would never forgive her.  She was shaking at the end and was grateful when one of the officers led her over to a table to sit.  "There's a blood stained shirt," she said quietly.  "He didn't have any memory of what he did, but, he could have - I just - "

"You did the right thing," the officer said soothingly.  "We're going to take the shirt as evidence, as well as the bag he used.  Do you have someplace to stay for a bit?"

She nodded before breaking down into tears.  She moved back into her mother's house for a bit, where there were arguments about how it was handled as mom took her brother's side, and she refused to go to the trial.  The last she heard, her brother was looking at anywhere from nearly life in prison to just a few years.  It didn't matter; she was moving to a new city where nobody but very close friends had the address.  She didn't need another night wondering if her brother nearly killed a friend.  All she needed was a life away from her crazy family.