This Is Where It Ends

by Marieke Nijkamp

  “Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure if he plans to come back. He won’t come back, will he?”

  “Of course not.” I gesture for Chris to get one of the police officers when another voice cuts in.

  “He won’t come back. He must know the police are outside. He’ll be looking to get out.”

  My breath catches. Autumn. Ty’s sister. I don’t know her well, but Ty often talked about her. She was always the most important person to him. “Autumn?”

  “Hi, Claire,” she says dully. “I’m sorry.”

  I bite my lip. “Me too.” With my free hand, I scribble what Matt said onto a piece of paper and then add Autumn Browne. Chris runs over to the command tent, where everyone stares at the school’s blueprint. An officer nods at Chris, and they walk toward me.

  “Will they get us out?” Matt asks.

  “Of course,” I respond. “The police are coming to help you. You’ll be safe, Matt.”

  The officer throws a pointed glance my way, trying to get my attention, though I’m not ready to share the phone. “Matt, hold on a sec.”

  “Is that your brother?”

  My hands tremble. “Yes, sir.”

  “Can I speak to him?”

  I hand over the phone, and the officer starts talking. I pull my hair out of its ponytail and shake it over my ears to give my hands something to do—something that doesn’t include grabbing the phone back and running off with it, because that’s all I want to do. I need to hear Matt’s voice. I need to know he’s safe. I need to tell him everything will be all right.

  • • •

  SYLV

  When the initial rush of escaping the auditorium passes, the silence of the hallways overwhelms me. I can’t believe Autumn’s still there. I can’t believe we left her behind.

  A year ago, a few days before Thanksgiving, Tomás, Abuelo, and I threw Autumn a surprise birthday party. Mr. Browne had taken Tyler out of town for some trade show, and I knew it was the best present they could have given her, but I wanted to give her my own gift.

  By midnight, we’d eaten all of Abuelo’s cooking and finished the last movie in our cheesy dance flicks marathon. It seemed as though all of Opportunity slept as I walked her home. From my house to hers was perhaps ten minutes, nothing more. Apart from the occasional porch light, the houses were clad in darkness, which gave us the illusion of solitude.

  I wanted nothing more than to kiss her, but instead, we held hands. It was the bravest thing we’d ever done.

  “It’s the witching hour,” Autumn said. Her smile slipped away, and her eyes grew distant. “Do you suppose there are ghosts in Opportunity? Secrets that linger? Legends that will remain after we’re all gone?”

  Her words sent a chill down my spine, but before I could answer, she changed the topic. “I’m auditioning for Juilliard. I don’t know how yet, and I’m probably insane for thinking I have a chance, but I need to try. Will you help me?”

  I stroked the palm of her hand with my thumb. I hated that she felt as if she had to ask me. “Of course I will.”

  “Good.” She smiled, though the shadows obscured most of her face. “Because if I stay here, I don’t think I’ll matter. When I die, I want to leave a legacy—the Royal Opera House, the Royal Ballet, a small company in an open-air theater somewhere, even a drama school in a small town. But not Opportunity. Not in some place where I don’t belong.”

  “And you won’t have to. We’ll get you in,” I said, though selfishly, I wanted to keep her in Opportunity. Because she made me feel human and loved and important. But Abuelo always said there were two types of people in this world: those who belong to the soil and the good, rich earth, planting their seeds to blossom, and those who belong to the road and the endless horizons, carrying their home on their shoulders wherever they go.

  Life turned Autumn into one of the wandering, and she was becoming restless.

  But when we reached the dark porch of her empty house, she was still beside me and she was still mine. And before she could think of a hundred and one good reasons why we should be careful of what the neighbors might see, I leaned in, cupped her cheek in my hand, and kissed her.

  Jay (@JEyck32) → Kevin (@KeviiinDR)

  Kev, please

  10:38 AM

  Jay (@JEyck32) → Kevin (@KeviiinDR)

  I wanted to ask you to prom, you know. You wouldve laughed at me. (But hopefully you wouldve said yes.)

  10:39 AM

  Chapter Nineteen

  10:39–10:42 A.M.

  AUTUMN

  The phone lies in front of us on speaker.

  Matt rests against my knees, one hand clamped around mine. This leaning position seems to be the most comfortable for him. He’s seen the blood spread across his shirt, but I don’t think he understands how serious it is. He treats it as a mild annoyance.

  The auditorium is quiet. Even during the brunt of Ty’s anger, students were whispering and whimpering. This silence is comfortable for the first time.

  The police will be here soon, and I’m lulled into thinking normal life will resume again. Tomorrow will be a day like any other, as if this nightmare never happened.

  When the officer on the other end of the line tells us to hold, I lean my head against the seat—the cut on my cheek throbs, the pain spreading across my face—and squeeze Matt’s hand. “Feeling better?”

  “I knew Claire was waiting for me,” he says. “She had track practice. She was grumbling about it all morning. She hates the cold.” He is silent for a moment. “I told Chris to slip some ice down the back of her shirt if he could.”

  His matter-of-fact tone makes me smile, but I can’t deny his voice is fading. And I don’t know what to do except keep talking to him. “If I had a brother like you, I would be waiting with snowballs at the ready. Though you’d probably be far better at throwing them than I am.”

  He shifts against my legs, and I feel him relax. “Do you think it’ll actually snow? I’d like to see it at least once. Tracy—my older sister, who’s in the army—told me it snowed when she was in elementary school. Days in advance, everyone stocked up on groceries as if it were the end of the world. School got canceled and the shops closed. And then it snowed. Big, fluffy flakes. For about two hours.” His laugh turns into a cough. “So everyone had the day off for nothing.”

  I remember that day. Mom taught me how to make snow angels, though there was barely enough snow. I was mesmerized by it all, but I hated how the cold seeped through my coat and clothes. It was the last time we had real snow, not the frosted dew we mistake for snow these days.

  Matt continues, “Claire wouldn’t have a snowball fight. When Tracy left, she forgot how to have fun. She worries too much.”

  “Maybe we all do,” I say. Maybe we all worry about our siblings too much. “When Dad shouted at me, Ty would listen to me. When I missed Mom, he would comfort me. He always told me he’d take care of me. I wish I could have done the same for him.”

  I don’t know why I tell him this, but it feels good to say it out loud. Matt’s quiet for a long time. When he speaks again, his voice has faded almost completely. “You shouldn’t blame yourself for what your brother chose to do. That’s what Claire told me when Tracy enlisted. I was so scared. I didn’t want her to go, so I pushed her away. But Claire told me Trace didn’t do it because of me. It was her choice. And I could support her, but I shouldn’t feel guilty.”

  I squeeze his hand. “You’re a fantastic brother. You make them both proud.”

  He tries to turn to me, but he’s weak. My fingers remain wrapped around his; it’s the only thing I can do to keep him from slipping away from me.

  “Autumn?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m so tired.”

  • • •

  TOMÁS

  Inane schoo
l policy. Why lock all the classroom doors between periods? No one in their right mind would try to steal OHS property. The textbooks and clunky school computers are not worth the trouble.

  We make it to the corner before gunshots echo from downstairs. We freeze, Fareed jiggling a door handle, Sylvia standing in the middle of the hallway. The shots come closer, and I drag her into a doorway with me because she can’t become his next victim. She struggles as if she doesn’t realize it’s me, then stills.

  Fareed edges toward our side of the hallway. “We have to keep moving,” he whispers.

  “Ms. Miller’s classroom?” I ask.

  He nods.

  I grab Sylv’s hand and pull her with me. We rush toward one of the last doors, with its trademark singed lock. I accidentally “broke” it before winter break. Or more to the point, I blew it up.

  Now I push open the door with ease. Although we won’t have to worry about being locked out, we can’t protect ourselves here either. But Far’s right. We have to keep moving.

  I drag in Sylv, and Fareed shuts the door behind us. He leans against it, and we all pause for a moment. I hear no footsteps, but I doubt we would hear someone approaching who didn’t want to be noticed. That scares the living daylights out of me. Tyler could be here any moment and we wouldn’t know.

  I take in the room.

  The heavy lab tables are in fixed positions, making it impossible for us to use them as barricades. Sylv pushes against one of the tall cabinets, but it doesn’t budge. She trembles and seems to deflate.

  “Could we have stopped Tyler?” she whispers.

  I sigh. “With superpowers maybe?”

  Sylv rolls her eyes, and in any other situation, she would’ve replied with a string of Abuela’s favorite curses. “That’s not what I mean.” Her exasperation makes me want to hug her.

  At the same time, I can’t help but ask myself similar questions. Did we do the right thing? Did opening the auditorium doors give people a chance or did it cause more deaths?

  “We all did the best we could,” I tell her.

  “But what if—”

  “This isn’t your fault. No one can or will blame you. Unless you stay here and we get shot, because, in that case, I won’t let you hear the end of it. Come on, let’s get the windows open,” I whisper-shout.

  I move across the room and flip the locks of a window. The roof outside is flat, but there is no space to hide. Tyler only needs to stand at the windows to shoot us.

  Fareed climbs on the windowsill and beckons for Sylvia.

  She hesitates. “What if I could have had him arrested?” Her voice is almost inaudible, but it stops me in my tracks.

  She won’t meet my eyes.

  I grow cold all over. “Sylv, what did he do to you?”

  • • •

  CLAIRE

  The doctors, the police officers, the news crews, the parents—a hush falls over the crowd. In front of the school, three SWAT teams prepare to enter the building: one to safeguard the area and two to make their way to the auditorium. The police have already warned us that they won’t be able to carry out the wounded until the school is secured. It would make the injured targets. But they will take care of them, and they will save as many as they can.

  I stare at the phone that still lies in front of the police officer and me.

  Oh please, let Matt manage to walk—run—with crutches. Even if he is tired.

  I need him home so I can be the sister he thinks I am.

  Chris places a hand on my shoulder.

  On Matt’s birthday, Chris and Matt played on the lawn. Matt had lent a set of crutches to Chris, so both held their balance on one crutch, using the other in a mock battle. Their breaths formed clouds in the cold, but neither wore their coats, to Mom’s dismay. Matt didn’t care about the cold. He jumped, though his legs could barely carry him. He ran without fear of falling. And Chris treated him like the little brother he never had, chasing him and being chased. It was so nice to see them both so happy.

  I got Matt’s Star Wars–themed birthday cake out of the bakery box.

  “They’ll spoil their appetite if we get that out now,” Mom said, putting plates on the table.

  “For fries? I don’t think that counts, Mom. Besides, the way Matt’s been running around, he’ll eat a horse.” I stuck my head outside and shouted, “Dinner!” across the yard, then started to put silverware at each place.

  “I’d be relieved if he did. He’s been feeling nauseous lately.”

  I glanced at her. “Are you sure? He hasn’t lost weight.”

  She gave a curt nod. “Dad and I have to talk to his pediatrician. If it has to do with his kidneys, he might have to be—” She swallowed the “hospitalized” as Chris and Matt came blundering into the kitchen. Mom gave me her best we’ll-talk-about-this-later look. With Dad working long hours to pay for the medical bills and Tracy overseas, Mom confided in me more and more. And I hated knowing that even the smallest, stupidest infection could threaten my brother’s life, simply because the lupus caused his immune system to have trouble multitasking—situation normal, all fucked up.

  I’d have preferred to stay blissfully ignorant than face the possibility of losing Matt.

  “Awesome…” Matt stared at his cake. “We need a picture!”

  Mom took her camera off the counter and zoomed in on him and Chris standing on either side of the cake. Mom makes scrapbooks, and recently, Matt had taken over that hobby. At first, I thought it weird, but when Tracy left for training, I began to understand the value of tangible memories.

  As we sat around the table, Matt at Dad’s place since he was working late again, a slice of cake and honorary Han Solo figurine on a plate in front of the computer for Trace, the sun set and dusk fell. Within our circle of light, we were a family. I wanted it to be like that forever. Not Matt writhing in pain and Mom comforting him until he fell asleep and she went back to her room to cry until Dad came home. But like Trace taught me: If you’re afraid, think about tomorrow, because tomorrow will be a new day. Tomorrow, there’ll be new chances. Tomorrow, I’ll be home.

  Screams ring out over the phone, then Autumn’s voice. “They’re here, Matt. The SWAT teams are here.”

  I sob in relief and lean against Chris. I’m ready for a new day, a new start. I look up and touch my lips to Chris’s.

  He stills. Then he follows my lead and kisses me back. It’s as if I don’t know where he ends and I start.

  This is the first thing that has felt right all day.

  “Don’t ever leave me,” I whisper.

  “Not in a thousand years.” His words are warm on my skin. He leans in and kisses me again as if the world were ending. And actually, it has.

  • • •

  SYLV

  “Sylvia, what did he do to you?” Tomás repeats.

  He stands in front of me, his eyes flashing. They’re so like Mamá’s, brown with flecks of green. He slams his fist into the wall, and it breaks through all the words we haven’t spoken these last few months.

  Before Mamá fell ill, life was brighter and Tomás and I were inseparable. One summer, when we were twelve, we stayed at the farm and sneaked out almost nightly to search for lost treasures on the farm and in the woods. Mamá didn’t know, and Abuelo slept through our ransacking—or pretended to at least. We had the best adventures together—until I climbed the roof of the garage on a dare, fell off, and sprained my wrist.

  We were so scared. I didn’t want to wake up Abuelo or tell Mamá, but the pain made me sick. We hid. Tomás climbed through the kitchen window to get ice for my arm and to raid the cabinets for snacks while I waited in our old tree house.

  When he came back, we drank lemonade and ate candy bars until we couldn’t stand them anymore. Tomás folded the wrappers into airplanes. The pain eased.

  As dawn chased a
way the darkness, we sorted all the night’s treasures—some marbles, an old pair of shoes, and the almost-whole skull of a fox. Tomás only cared about the skull.

  “It’s a part of history,” he said.

  “It’s a fox,” I countered. I held up the shoes, ancient leather hiking boots. “But this? This is a story.”

  He rolled his eyes, and I grinned. “Not just a story but a secret. And all these secrets are ours to keep.”

  He’s always protected me. If we die here today, I don’t want him feeling like he failed me.

  I reach out to him and curse myself when I feel tears trickling down my cheeks. I don’t want him to know Tyler raped me for the same reason I don’t want Mamá to know. I want her to remember me happy. There was nothing either of them could have done to stop him. Opportunity has so many secrets.

  The only thing that matters now is that we are together—we are alive.

  “Nothing. He did nothing.”

  The Adventures of Mei

  Current location: Opportunity High

  >> I’ve never seen so many families and friends of students in one place. Not graduation. Or prom. There are even some of my former classmates. Graduates who never left Opportunity. We hold on to each other.

  Students run out of the school. There are survivors—thank God there are survivors. But that makes it harder somehow. There are so many faces we don’t see. Are they lost to us? I don’t see my dad. I can’t see him anywhere. We all cling to our lifelines. Our phones. Our memories. Each other. I feel so useless here. None of us have any answers.

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  Chapter Twenty

  10:42–10:44 A.M.

  AUTUMN

  When the door to the auditorium bursts open, students scream. I lean over to see what’s going on. Half a dozen officers dressed in SWAT uniforms sweep down the aisle.

  I gently prop Matt up against a backpack. His face is ashen, the angles drawn sharper than when I first saw him. His lips are turning blue, distorting the words he wants to say.