by Regan Ure
I put my phone in my bag and began to walk swiftly to my fate.
A gunshot rang out. My heart froze.
Then another gunshot rang out.
“Haven, you have five minutes,” Grant’s yell echoed through the hallway.
Damien
That fear that settled inside of me when this whole incident had started began to disappear as my eyes swept over her. She wasn’t hurt.
I felt a hand settle on my shoulder and turned to see Detective Green. His eyes weren’t on me; his eyes were fixed on Haven. He knew I wanted to go to her and he was reminding me that I had to stay where I was.
I swung my gaze back to Haven. With every step she took closer to safety I held my breath. A dreaded feeling began to grow in my chest. I wouldn’t relax until I held her safely in my arms.
Her eyes found me in the crowd. She was scared and it took everything in me not to rush to her. Doing nothing went against every instinct that surfaced in me.
I fisted both my hands and dug my nails into my palms while I watched helplessly from the sidelines.
Keeping walking to me, I willed anxiously, trying to relay the message in my eyes. But she stopped and I felt the air lock in my lungs.
She’d just gotten to the bottom of the steps when she pulled her phone from her bag and answered it. The cops and I watched her silently.
Who the hell would be calling her now?
Her features turned from scared to petrified as she clutched the phone closer to her ear.
The night we’d finally started dating I’d told her about good and bad moments that defined who we were, and I knew, the very moment her eyes met mine, that this was going to be a defining moment.
The second she made the decision, I saw it in her eyes. It happened in slow motion. Still with the phone in her hand, her eyes pleaded with mine. I began to shake my head, trying to convince her not to do what she’d already decided.
“Grant has Chris!” she yelled and I felt the pain in her voice.
I watched her eyes glisten with tears, and from where I stood I saw a tear slide down her face. She looked at me with such sadness and resignation, it nearly broke my heart into two.
Then she did the unthinkable—still clutching the phone in her hand, she turned around and ran back inside the school.
“No!” I screamed as I tried to run after her, but Detective Green and another cop held me back. I thrashed desperately, but they refused to let go.
“Haven!” I screamed. All my fears washed over me at once. The fear of losing someone I couldn’t breathe without drowned me from the inside. Memories of my brother dying in my arms flashed through my mind.
I felt like someone had ripped my heart out. The pain was too much to bear and, when the cops released me, I fell to my knees. If I was broken before, I was shattered now.
I’d promised to keep her safe and I’d promised I wouldn’t let Grant hurt her again. Now I knew I was breaking both of those promises to her and there was nothing I could do but watch it happen.
She’d gone back inside. She wasn’t safe and Grant was going to kill her. I felt so helpless.
“You have to do something,” I begged Detective Green, while I was still on my knees.
“We are doing everything we can,” he assured me. “But we can’t let you go inside.”
I knew that whatever they were going to do wasn’t going to be enough. The detective helped me back up to my feet.
“Who is Chris?” he asked.
“Her friend.”
“She went back inside to save her friend,” he said softly. The thickness growing in my throat stopped me from answering him, so instead I nodded my head.
In this type of situation it was impossible to hope that everyone would make it out alive, especially Haven. It angered me. She’d just been getting her life together. We were finally happy.
I couldn’t think about a life without her, it just wasn’t possible to live and breathe in a world she didn’t exist in.
A gunshot rang out. My heart froze.
Then another gunshot rang out.
Before the thought even formed in my mind, I started to run toward the school. Detective Green had been preoccupied with the gunshots and hadn’t been paying attention to me.
I heard shouts from behind me as I reached the entrance to the school, but I didn’t care. Nothing was going to stop me.
All I could do was hope I wasn’t too late.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Haven
Fear of the evil I was about to face made me hesitate for a moment. I pushed the fear down as I forced myself to take another step forward, and then another.
Instinct screamed for me to turn around and run to save myself, but I ignored it.
As I turned the corner I saw Mark standing inside the classroom doorway beside the art class peering toward the art classroom that Chris and Grant were in. The classroom door to the art room was slightly ajar. He turned at the sound of my shoes on the floor. His eyes locked with mine, and then widened in surprise.
The last time he’d seen me I was headed out the school and to safety, but that had changed.
I wondered if he knew it was Grant.
He shook his head at me when he realized I was walking to the classroom where the gunman and Chris were, but I kept going. He wasn’t going to stop me. If he stepped into the hallway to stop me then Grant might see him—and then no one would be getting out of this alive.
I have to, I mouthed to him when I walked past him to the door. I pushed the door open as I stepped into the classroom. Grant held Chris with one arm around his neck, the gun in his other hand held against Chris’ head.
I felt relief at the sight of Chris being unharmed. The relief was short lived, though, because he was still in danger.
“Close the door,” Grant instructed with a triumphant smile. He’d won. After attempting to kill me once before, and stalking me for weeks, he had me firmly in his clutches.
Nervously, I turned and closed the door behind me, and then I turned back to face him.
“I thought a couple of shots would hurry you up,” Grant sneered with an evil smile. The fear I’d felt before was nothing to what I felt now, facing evil in human form.
When I looked at him I remembered every beating he’d given me, every time he’d told me I was worthless. He personified every bad memory I’d had in the past seven years.
“I’m here,” I said with a calmness I didn’t feel. Inside of me was the little girl that wanted to run and hide from the evil I was facing. My heart hammered in my chest.
“Haven,” Chris whispered. There was despair in his voice. He knew why I was here. I could see he was torn between his own fear for his life and the fear of what Grant would do to me. There was also helplessness in his eyes because he couldn’t stop it from happening.
I dropped my bag to the floor and took a step closer, offering myself to him so he would let Chris go.
“Let him go,” I said, feeling my fear and panic begin to rise. I was at his mercy. “You have me now, you can let him go.”
Grant’s evil smile widened as he looked from me to Chris, and then his gaze returned to me.
“What if I don’t want to let him go?” he taunted, tightening his arm around Chris. Although Chris struggled against him, he couldn’t ease the grip around his throat. My heart stopped.
I don’t know why I thought he would let Chris go. He wasn’t going to let either of us live.
My eyes moved to Chris to plead for his forgiveness. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. Sorry that I’d dragged him into this. If it hadn’t been for me, none of this would have happened.
At that moment I couldn’t help but wish that I’d been able to ignore Chris in the beginning. Even though it meant I wouldn’t have had the incredible and happy moments I’d experienced with the people I loved, I would give it all up to save my friend.
I felt the tears sting as the realization set in that my best friend was facing death because
of me. The thought that I wasn’t going to survive this didn’t scare me—all I could think about was Chris.
“I think I’m going to make you watch me kill him, and then I will put you out of your misery,” he explained as he pointed the gun at Chris and then pointed it to me.
No!
“Please,” I began, begging for my friend’s life. I felt the tears begin to slide down my face while I struggled to face the fact that Grant was going to punish me by shooting Chris in front of me. I’d rather die than face that.
“I’ll do anything you want if you just let him go,” I tried to plead. Grant’s smug smile widened as I dropped to my knees in front of him.
“Please,” I begged, my eyes fixed on Grant.
Tears began to form in Chris’ eyes as he watched me beg for his life.
“No,” said Grant calmly as the smug smile slipped from his face. He pointed the gun to me.
I dropped my head into my hands. There was nothing I could do. Grant wasn’t going to change his mind.
“It was your fault that the woman I loved died.” He said it with such venom that I flinched. It was hard to believe that he was capable of loving anybody. I wasn’t surprised he blamed me for my mom’s death.
“Every time she looked at you, she remembered what she’d lost,” he spat at me. “She remembered the man she’d lost. That’s why she drank so much. Then, when drinking wasn’t enough, she started taking pills to block the pain. It’s your fault!”
In his eyes I’d pretty much held a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. I’d been responsible, and there was no arguing with him. I swallowed hard as I looked at Grant. The grief in his eyes was real, but I didn’t care. My mother and him meant nothing to me; and after everything they’d put me through, I hated them. Hate was a strong word to use, but it was the only word to describe how I felt.
They had been supposed to take care of me and love me, but they hadn’t. Instead they’d abused me mentally and physically so badly that I would never be the same carefree girl I’d been before.
They’d taken something away from me that I would never get back, no matter how much I tried to push on with my life now. They’d broken me.
And now he was going to take one of the most important people to me from my life.
I’d never felt such hatred.
“If it weren’t for you she’d still be with me,” he argued and I saw the glistening of tears forming in his eyes. I’d never seen him cry. “Now I’m going to make you watch him die.”
He paused for a moment as his gaze flickered from me to Chris, then it settled back on me.
“But I need to make sure you won’t try anything.”
He pointed the gun to me and before I could even understand what he was about to do I felt the pain explode in my left shoulder. He’d shot me. The force of the gunshot pushed me backward and I landed on my back on the floor. I screamed.
I smelled the metallic smell of my blood pouring from the wound. I had no idea how to deal with a gunshot wound, but I was pretty sure if I didn’t stop the flow of blood from it I’d bleed to death.
Closing my eyes, I put my hand to the wound to stop the bleeding. The pain was indescribable and I bit my lip to keep from screaming out again. Tears streamed down the sides of my face as I gasped in pain.
“Haven!” Chris shouted while he tried to break free of Grant, but Grant held him tighter around the neck. In my haze of pain I saw Chris elbow Grant in the stomach and stamp on his foot.
“No,” I gasped.
In pain and momentarily stunned, Grant released him.
I wanted to get up and help Chris but the pain was too much and all I could do was lie on the floor, watching it unfold in front of me.
Tears slid down my face and blurred my vision slightly.
They began to struggle. Chris had his hands wrapped around Grant’s wrists, trying to stop him from taking another shot. But Grant was bigger and his evil grin widened as he managed to force the gun to point at Chris.
“No!” I managed to scream.
Almost simultaneously I heard two shots and breaking glass as the classroom door crashed open.
My eyes fixed on Chris as he fell to the floor. I watched in horror as a dark red stain began to form on the side of his shirt.
Grant grunted as he fell to his knees, the gun still in his hands. Blood poured from a bullet wound in his right shoulder. I couldn’t understand how they’d both taken a bullet.
Grant tried to shift the gun he still held into this other hand but Damien tackled him to the ground and wrestled the gun from him.
Please don’t let him get shot, I chanted in my mind.
I glanced to see Chris grimace in pain as he held his hand to the wound to try and stop the bleeding.
The classroom window opened and I glanced to see that Mark had jumped through the window. The window was broken.
The pieces of what had happened began to connect together: Mark had shot Grant through the window just as Grant had shot Chris.
Damien stood up and pointed the gun in his hand at Grant, who was still lying on the floor, holding a hand to his wound. The hatred I felt for Grant was mirrored in Damien’s eyes as he glared Grant.
Mark ran over to me and when he reached me he dropped to his knees as he stuffed his gun behind into the waist of his jeans.
“How are you doing?” he asked, with a crease in his forehead as he lifted my hand from my wound. I cried out in pain.
He ripped his shirt off, bunched it together and pressed it to my open wound. The pain was so bad I nearly passed out, but I held on for Chris. I needed to know he was going to be okay.
Damien
Once I got inside the school I knew the cops couldn’t stop me, but I had no idea where Grant was with Chris.
For a moment I stopped to listen for any telltale sounds that would indicate to me in which direction Haven had gone. But it was hard to hear anything over the beating of my heart that seemed to echo right through me.
I tried to fight off the panic. I felt I had to stay calm. I had trouble remembering where my own classes were, so there was no way I’d remember which class Chris would have been in when Grant had started his attack.
And for all I knew he could have dragged him into a different class.
The soft sound of my footsteps thudded against the floor as I frantically started walking down the hallway trying to find Haven.
I felt the hopelessness of the situation wash over me. I was running out of time and the only way to try and find them was to look. It was all I could do.
The chance of actually finding them before it was too late was slim, but I couldn’t do nothing. I couldn’t lose her. It just wasn’t a possibility I could comprehend.
I began to jog down the corridor, peering through some of the gaps in the slightly open classroom doors. I leaned against some classroom doors to try and hear something, but all the classrooms I checked were quiet.
I was running out of time. I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to push that feeling of loss I’d felt when Dylan had died out of me. I never wanted to feel that again.
Then I heard a gunshot and a scream. It was a sound I would never forget.
It was Haven!
Fuck! Was I too late already?
“Haven!” I heard Chris scream.
The panic in me made the air lock inside my lungs. I knew where they were. The sound of the gunshot had come from the opposite side of the hallway.
As desperately as I wanted to find her, I couldn’t help the fear that I might be too late and she was already gone.
Not knowing was better than knowing she wouldn’t spend another night sleeping in my arms, or smile at me and make my heart flutter. If she were gone, my world would be over.
I began to run toward the side of the hallway that the sound had come from.
Even though I was closer, I had no idea in which classroom they were in.
“No!” I heard someone scream. It was Haven.
&n
bsp; Fear and relief intertwined filled me. She was alive but she was still in danger.
I sprinted down the hallway. Just as I came up to the classroom I’d heard the noises coming from I hesitated for a moment and then I heard another gunshot.
Although I had no idea what was going on, I crashed through the door and into the classroom.
Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I took the scene in. Time seemed to slow down as I glanced at Haven, lying on the floor in a pool of her own blood. Horror filled me at the sight. I wanted to go to her but I needed to take out Grant first.
I swung my gaze to see Chris lying with a hand to his side, where blood was beginning to seep from. Then my eyes settled on Grant, who was on his knees with a gun wound in his shoulder. He was still holding a gun.
Hate filled me at the sight of the monster that I’d never met. I could see he was trying to change the hand that held the gun. I couldn’t let him do that, so I charged for him.
I didn’t care about my own safety. Haven and Chris were both lying in pools of their own blood and I needed to make sure that Grant didn’t fire off anymore shots.
I tackled him to the ground and grabbed the gun from his weak grip. At the sight of me with the gun held to him, he lay still and I saw fear in his eyes. He should be afraid. It would be so easy for me to point the gun at him and pull the trigger.
Then it would be over, and he would never be able to harm Haven ever again. I was so tempted.
I heard the window open and I turned to see Mark jump through the window. He didn’t even glance my way, he went straight to Haven to check her. As much as I wanted to swap places with him, he knew what he was doing and right now, Haven needed him more than me.
It had been one of the perquisites of the job: they had to have medical training. After Grant had left that horrible message for Haven on the garage door my parents and I had been so frantic with worry, and there was only so much protection the cops could offer. My mom had suggested we hire a bodyguard to protect her and I’d agreed.
I gave Grant one more glare before I walked over to Chris, with the gun I was holding still pointed at Grant. I was reluctant to take my eyes off him but I needed to see if I could help Chris while Mark checked Haven out.
