true colors - jb & ag 《completed》

{twenty}

Rainn's cries for help ricocheted in Ariana's brain as she raced out the front door with Mom and Justin on her heels. Once outside, she scanned the porch and the front yard for her brother's blond head, but there was no sign of him. This was all her fault. If someone had hurt him, she would never forgive herself. A choked scream escaped her throat as she ran down the front steps. "Rainn!"

"Help! I'm up here!"

All three of them raced out into the yard and spun to face the house.

"Oh my God!" Mom gasped.

Rainn dangled from a broken length of iron railing that edged the third-story roof. His little feet ran in midair, trying to gain purchase, but the gable was steep and too far out of his reach.

"Stay still!" Ariana yelled, afraid his frantic movement would rip the rail from its mooring.

A few workers rushed around from the back of the house, where they'd been packing up, and one of them suggested, "I can reassemble a scaffolding below him."

The railing shifted a fraction and Rainn jerked, falling half a foot. He shrieked and Mom yelled, "There's no time!"

"What's the quickest way to the roof?" Ariana asked Justin, but he wasn't beside her anymore. He was climbing one of the porch columns like a tree. The muscles in his back bulged as he boosted himself up onto the overhang. Ariana's heart catapulted into her throat.

Her mom mumbled a prayer under her breath, and Ariana joined her. Please, God, let Justin reach my brother in time.

Justin balanced on the porch roof, which was nothing more than a slanted sheet of metal, and made his way toward the second-story balcony. A gust of wind slammed into him and he sidestepped, slipping. Ariana gasped, but he regained his balance and reached for the veranda above him.

"Mom! Help!" Rainn's voice tore a hole in Ariana's chest. "I'm slipping!"

Tears streamed down her mother's face, but when she responded, her voice sounded strong. "Just a few more seconds! Someone's coming to get you!"

Justin had scaled the narrower columns of the second-story veranda when a horrible wrenching sound ripped through the air. Rainn let out a bloodcurdling scream. Justin pulled himself onto the tapered roof just as her brother dropped. Springing forward, Justin threw out his arms. Rainn slammed into him, and Justin pulled him tight to his chest. But as Ariana sucked in a sharp breath of relief, the impact of her brother's body threw off Justin's precarious balance and they both toppled backward.

Ariana watched their freefall in horrified slow motion.

"Move!" A workman knocked her to the ground. Two painters stretched a blue tarp between them. "Pull it tight!" the foreman instructed. A split second later Justin and Rainn slammed into the cloth with a whoosh. Their impact yanked the tarp out of one of the men's hands and pulled the other off his feet, causing the tarp to roll over Justin and Rainn.

Stuck in a nightmare where she couldn't move or speak, Ariana stared at the too-still cocoon of blue plastic. Why weren't they moving? Mom ran up and flung the tarp back. Rainn sat up and blinked. "Mom?"

Sobbing his name, she lifted him into her arms. Ariana's eyes raked over her brother's body as he wrapped his arms and legs around their mom like a little monkey.

Ariana turned back to the tarp, where one of the painters knelt over Justin, blocking her view. "Hey, kid, are you okay?"

Ariana scrambled up beside the workman, then sunk to her knees in the grass. Arms and legs sprawled, eyes closed, Justin lay as still as a corpse.