B0160A5OPY (A) (22 page)

I still want to know what happened in the office.

“But you said you got Tyrone,” I say.

“Damn straight! When he locked himself in Como’s office, he left his things behind. But I took them out. One into his laptop,” he mimes shooting downwards, “and one into his phone. You should have seen the pieces fly! Maybe I’ll get another shot at him on the way out.”

“Did you shoot anyone else?” Luke asks.

“Not, yet, pretty boy.”

I feel a moment’s relief. L.J. hasn’t actually shot anyone. Yet. And surely, if he really wanted to, he could have shot any number of kids already. He’s not out of control. But his next words shatter any illusion that we’re not still in real danger.

“What I need is a hostage to get me out safely. And I came prepared.” He pats the handcuffs protruding from his vest pocket.

“L.J., think!” Luke urges. “Where would you go? They’ll get you sooner or later. Why not surrender now, before this gets any worse for you? You haven’t hurt anyone yet.”

“You want to be the first, pretty boy?”

Juliet starts sobbing again.

“Shut up, you,” L.J. snarls at her. “It would give me great pleasure to blow off your stupid head, so don’t tempt me.

Juliet’s eyes bulge even further, but she silences herself with a small hiccup.

“This is Lieutenant Linda Bedley speaking.” The magnified voice echoes through the halls and over the grounds. “I would like to speak to the person or persons with weapons who are inside this school. Our tactical task force has every entrance and exit to the school covered. We would like everyone to walk away from this without injury or loss of life. We need to chat about your options. Please call me on the following number.” The voice recites a cell phone number.

“D-do you want to use my phone?” I ask, holding it out to L.J. in a hand which trembles.

He snatches it out of my hands and hurls it across the room. It ricochets off a window frame and flies outside.

“Chat on that, pig!” L.J. shouts after it.

Luke catches my eye, shakes his head with a miniscule movement. L.J. reaches out his beefy left hand and grabs Luke by the upper arm.

“You,” he says. “Pretty Boy. You’ll make a good-looking hostage.”

“No!” I say, at the same time as Luke says, “It won’t work.”

“You know, I think it will. The cops won’t kill a student with all the cameras on hand to film it. But even if they do, death by cop doesn’t sound so bad to me, especially if I get the satisfaction of taking you down on my way out. That might even be a real pleasure.”

I’m horrified. Paralyzed by shock and fear.
No!
is all I can think.
No, not Luke
.

“Why are you doing this, man?” says Luke. “What have you got against me? I never bullied you.”

“You never
noticed
me,” says L.J. “At least they saw me. Besides,” he pulls Luke closer and removes the handcuffs from his vest, “you and your kind are the reason that I get given such a hard time. Everyone’s supposed to look like you, act like you, swim like you. If you’re gone, it’ll be easier for everyone else who can’t measure up.”

I can’t stand here, frozen like a coward, and just let this happen. I rush forward at L.J., ignore the weapon he points straight at my chest.

“No, stop! Leave him,” I beg. “Don’t do this.”

“Back off, Sloane,” Luke shouts at me. “Just back off and let him do what he must.”

“Yeah – back off and leave me.”

“L.J., please, you can’t do this. Just give me the gun and I’ll tell them it was all a mistake. I’ll tell them how Perkel –”

L.J. reaches up his left hand and slams it into my shoulder, shoving me back, hard.

41

A chance

I stagger backwards from L.J.’s blow, jostle into Luke, but manage to right myself before I can fall.

“Always trying to help – like you have all the answers. You!” he barks the last word out on a bitter laugh. “As if you’re any better off than me. Tell you what – you
can
finally help me now, Munster. Here,” he tosses the pair of handcuffs at me, “make yourself useful and cuff Naughton to me.”

He grabs Luke’s right hand with his left and holds their arms extended out to me.

“Aw, we’re going to make such an awesome couple, pretty boy. The TV cameras are going to get some great images. If the zombie teacher is watching, he’ll get real jealous.”

He urges me along, poking the rifle’s barrel tip into my ribs. I am thinking quickly. I am thinking so quickly that I am sure it must show in my eyes. But I force myself to move slowly, carefully holding the handcuffs up and moving closer to their hands. There is a tiny key inserted in the cuff lock. I turn it to open the manacles.

My hands tremble as I slip one of the handcuffs over Luke’s wrist, and look up into his face. He is trying to say something with his eyes, but I cannot guess what it is. Time moves slowly. I stare deeply into his wide hazel eyes as I click the handcuff closed and remove the key. My mouth is dry. I try to make more saliva.

“Sloane, I shouldn’t have blamed you. I was wrong. I’m sorry I –” Luke begins, but L.J. interrupts.

“Let’s make our relationship more committed. Permanent,” he mocks, turning their linked hands over so that his is now on top of Luke’s.

They say that in moments of extreme danger, your life flashes before your eyes. But for me, it’s different. Of course it is.
His
life flashes through my mind.

I see Luke: his broad shoulders and long legs, the hair that turns the color of molasses when it’s wet. I see the grace of him as he powers through the pool’s water, the gentleness of his hands when he rescues a spider, the sad understanding in his eyes when he looks at his mother. I hear the laugh that transforms his face when he rolls around with his puppy, feel the touch of his finger tracing the line of my scar down my cheek, hear him telling me I’m beautiful.

He still has a chance to let go of his grief and hatred. He still has a chance for love. I have seen – can it really just have been minutes ago? – how much he cares for Juliet. He has a chance to heal his relationship with his parents, to live a full life.

I think of that shaded house where his mother sits and drinks, and of his father who keeps himself busy and talks incessantly to fill the silence. What it will do to them if they lose another son – one whom they did not appreciate while he was alive?

A world without Luke would be emptier, less than, missing some essential part.

“Hurry up,” L.J. shouts at me.

I pull my gaze away from Luke’s and look down to where my hands – steady now that my decision is made – cup his. I lift the other end of the handcuff and open it to its fullest extent.

Luke will be okay. A dent to his masculine pride, that’s all. Maybe a little guilt. But I know better than anyone that you can live, even love, with guilt.

He’ll be fine. But I’m selfish. I can’t live through another loss, in a world from which he has been taken. The decision is easy really.

42

Settling debts

I move the open hand-cuff to L.J.’s hand. He lifts his wrist up to receive the restraint. Then I spin to the side, yanking Luke’s manacled hand with me. In one fluid movement, I click the cuff closed over the water pipe and put the tiny key in my mouth. I swallow hard, twice, and then open my mouth wide, sticking out my tongue to show L.J. like I’m a contestant on some bug-eating reality show.

L.J.’s jaw drop. He swings the rifle around in his right hand and hits me across the face with the butt, and I crumple to the ground.

My ears are ringing and I feel dizzy, black spots and white lights speckle my vision, and my stomach and fingers feel cold. But I will not allow myself to pass out. I stay doubled-over, hands over my face for a few seconds – long enough to spit the key I had hidden in my cheek out into my right hand. Both Luke and L.J. are shouting at me and rattling the locked cuffs. I reach out and grab the leg of my desk with my left hand and hold onto it to steady myself, while I allow my right hand to fall down by my side, to drop the key down the side of my sneaker.

“You want me to kill you? Right now? Do you? DO YOU?” L.J. screams at me, waving the rifle in the air. “Or maybe I should kill him?” He points the rifle at Luke. “Maybe I should just blow a hole through him right now. Would you like that?”

Using the desk, I pull myself back up to my feet. I shake my head gingerly in answer to L.J.’s questions. My jaw burns like it’s on fire and I can taste blood, but I feel grimly satisfied. Luke is stuck, trapped in this classroom. He won’t be going anywhere with L.J. Juliet has slumped into a seat and is trembling uncontrollably. Tears stream down her face and she has a fist stuffed into her mouth to stifle her sobs.

“Get me out of here, Sloane!” Luke bellows, shocked and angry.

“I can’t – I swallowed the key.”

“Maybe I should just cut you open and get it out,” L.J. threatens.

“L.J.,” I say, stepping between him and Luke and trying to keep my voice low and calm. “You don’t need him. Take me.”

“No!” Luke shouts. He yanks the cuffs against the pipe.

“You can still get out of here okay, L.J. Listen,” I point a finger upwards. “Can you hear? It’s a chopper, probably the TV guys. You do want people to see you, don’t you, to notice you? Take me. An innocent young woman always makes a better hostage. It gets the attention, makes the headlines. And the cops will be less likely to shoot if you’re holding a girl.”

“But you’re not as pretty as he is.”

“I know that!” I snap.

It’s amazing, how even now, even here with a gun to my head, that still stings.

“I may not be pretty, but I am tragic-looking. I’ll get the sympathy vote.”

“Or maybe …” says L.J. He is looking now at Juliet, as if considering her potential.

Oh no, you don’t. I will not allow this to happen to Luke again. He will not lose another person that he cares for if I can help it. Besides, I have no great confidence in Juliet’s intelligence. She’s likely to do something stupid and send L.J. off the rails. But I reckon I might just be able to keep him calm. I take a step to the side to block her from L.J.’s approach.

“No, trust me, you don’t want her.”

“Why not?
She’s
prettier than you, too.”

I curse violently.

“What is it with you and
pretty
? Pretty little blonde girls are a dime a dozen. What you want is something – someone – who stands out. Someone that people will remember years from now because of how distinctive she looked. Besides, her blubbering would drive you crazy. You’d kill her just to shut her up before you even reached the main doors.”

Conveniently, Juliet whimpers just then. I can tell L.J. is considering this, wavering.

The tinny, bullhorn sound of the officer’s voice comes through the windows again. “This is Lieutenant Bedley of the West Lake police department. I am speaking to the person inside the building. Drop your weapons and come out the front door with your hands behind your head. If you want to speak to me directly, call me now.” She repeats the telephone number.

L.J. twitches a shoulder in annoyance. His eyes flicker from the sniffling Juliet, to Luke straining against the handcuffs, to me. I force myself to step right up to L.J. We are so close that our chests are almost touching. I move in, close the distance.

“And L.J.,” I say softly, looking right into his manic eyes, “you know that – with me – you can have a lot more … 
fun
.”

L.J. grins. Luke goes ape, wrenching and bucking against the cuffs. Blood smears his wrists where the metal cuts into his flesh.

L.J.’s smile widens. He grabs me, spins me around so that my back is pressed up against him and I’m facing Luke. While Luke pulls and jerks against the cuffs and shouts threats, L.J. strokes his free hand over my hair and then runs it down the side of my neck, and lower, over my breast.

Bile rises in my throat, but I remember Sienna talking about guilt – about settling your debts and making amends – and I swallow it down.

“This is fun and all,” says L.J., “but it can wait until later. Right now, we have to go.”

“No!” Luke screams. “Leave her! You can shoot these cuffs off the pipe and take me. Sloane – please!”

“Luke, shhh.” I say softly, reaching out a hand to touch his wild face, lay a finger on his lips. “It’s okay, really. It’s better this way.”

He jerks his head back, begs me, “Please don’t do this. Sloane!”

“I owe you, Luke. Let me pay off my debt.”

“That’s crazy! There
is
no debt. There’s nothing to forgive – it was an accident! I shouldn’t have blamed you. The past is the past. Sloane, please – your dying won’t bring back my brother!” he shouts, sagging against the cuffs.

That’s when my eyes fill with tears. That’s when I almost lose control. Oh, the difference those words would have made if they’d come sooner. How different everything would have been if he’d had that realization a few months, or even weeks, ago. It has come too late.

Still, the words feel like sweet forgiveness, and I take them and hold them close against my heart.

L.J. twists my arm behind my back and steers me in front of him, like a shield. He pushes me ahead of him, out of the room.

“Okay, okay, I’m moving. No need to break my arm,” I tell him.

Behind me, Luke is still shouting, begging L.J. to let me go, to come back and take him instead.

“Shut up!” L.J. yells over his shoulder.

“I’ll get free, L.J. I will. And if you hurt her, I’ll kill you! So help me, I will.”

“I said,” says L.J., leaning back into the classroom and raising the rifle in one hand, “… Shut. Up.”

And then he fires.

43

Frantic

“Did you shoot him? Did you shoot him?” I yell, wrenching my arm almost out of its socket as I buck back against L.J. who is pushing me in front of him down the hallway.

“Shut up!”

“Did you shoot him?” I scream, frantically struggling to get back to Luke.