I dread seeing Fathom. Imagining his disinterested face when I enter our room is brutal. With every step closer to our meeting room, I feel my heart rate accelerate. I’m jangly and loose-limbed, sunburned on the inside, and nervous like a child who has lost the hand of her mother in a big crowd of strangers. And I’m angry, too. What wall fell down inside me that has now let this boy—this arrogant, angry, moody punk—charge inside and seize territory?
And I’m disgusted with myself. Disgusted with the jumble of confusion in me, my suspicions whispering the truth in hushes, explaining it all in a voice that’s just below audible. You are feeling that boy in every cell.
“I thought he was coming around,” Bonnie says to me when I arrive. Clearly my face is broadcasting what I’m trying to fight inside my head.
I shrug. “Every day is something new.”
“Today he’s sullen,” Terrance warns.
I take a deep breath and reach for the door.
Fathom is in his spot beneath the window. He doesn’t look up, just stares into the slightly-less-little tear in the paper and says, “I believe that we should stop meeting.”
I stand as still as I can, willing myself not to run away.
“I am uncomfortable with these meetings and—”
“We can’t.”
He sits up and looks at me, confused.
“Why can’t we?”
I shake my head, not so much at him but to myself. I can’t tell him why these meetings have suddenly become important.
“You’re being forced?” he continues.
I nod. Oh, yes, Lyric. Remember why you’re doing this? You’re trying to get your family out of town. Remember that plan, stupid?
“My father ordered me to come to this school so your people will stop harassing us. I have no choice either, but I believe Fiona will help me with reading just as well. Meeting with you further is tedious. It also threatens to poison my traditions with—”
“Poison?” It’s an ugly word, and the insult makes my face sizzle with anger.
“I do not want to be a human,” he says. “I know it’s your job to make that happen. I won’t let it.”
Pop!
“What was that?” he asks.
I raise my finger to my lips, hoping he understands the international gesture for “Shut the hell up,” then I move to the door and listen. I know a gunshot when I hear one. The guards are shouting into the radio, demanding information, while a voice barks back at them: “Shots fired. Shots fired. We have a hostile in the building. One minute to lockdown. All nonmilitary personnel and police must get out of the halls. This is a military action. I repeat, all nonmilitary and police need to get into a classroom now for lockdown.”
I hear another pop!
I open the door and tentatively step into the hall. “What is going on?”
“Get back into the room, Lyric!” Bonnie shouts. “There’s a shooter in the school!”
“How?”
“Get in the classroom!” she bellows. I turn to do what she asks, but Fathom is behind me, blocking my way.
The door closes behind him, and then we hear a loud buzzer. Bonnie rushes and tries the knob.
“It’s locked,” she shouts as she rushes to another door, but it’s locked too, as is the next one. She pounds on a door and demands to be let in, but no one answers. “The auto locks have activated.”
“Auto locks?”
“They’re part of the school’s security measures. In an emergency they lock automatically. It keeps a shooter from going room to room on a killing spree,” another of the soldiers explains. “We can’t get in unless someone opens the door from the other side.”
“We’ve got to find a place for these kids to hide,” Bonnie orders as she grabs my arm and pulls me down the hall. She jerks me so hard, my bag falls and everything spills out. I watch the contents skitter across the floor: pens, notebooks, tampons. I lean down to grab them, but Bonnie pulls me up.
“Leave it!” she yells. I look up and see a soldier shoving Fathom into a janitor’s closet.
“An Alpha does not hide,” Fathom argues.
“Whoever is firing that gun is dangerous.”
“I am dangerous as well,” he says as his black blades fully extend. Shnikkt.
“Hostile has a grenade!” a voice shouts through a radio.
“Both of you in here, now!” Bonnie barks.
There is an explosion, and a black, acrid smoke drifts up the stairwell.
“Suspect has discharged an ordnance and is heading up the north stairwell!” another person shouts on the radio.
“What is an ordnance?” Fathom says just as Bonnie pushes me into the tiny room too.
“Keep quiet,” she orders, then slams the door tight, plunging us into darkness.
“This is cowardly,” Fathom says.
My hand reaches up and clamps down on his mouth. He’s irritated but doesn’t pull away, and we stand in the dark, quiet and waiting. When I’m sure he understands he needs to be silent, I let him go. We wait in this tiny room without an inch to move left or right, so near that when he exhales I can feel it tickle my eyelashes. His body is boiling hot, a furnace. I can almost hear him crackle and pop. Or is that me? Because something is going on here, something that feels like a craving.
Boots stomp down the hall outside, and someone tries our door. I hear someone raging about the Lord’s Army and “a righteous war,” but other people are shouting too. It’s hard to tell if there is just one maniac or a whole legion.
Bang!
The sound is right outside, which causes me to jump and let out a little squeal, and this time it’s his hand on my mouth. I can smell the salty sea on him, an aroma I know from my mother’s hugs and the beach and yoga. Maybe it’s psychosomatic, but it calms me.
“I will not allow you to be harmed, Lyric Walker,” he whispers.
I stare up into his face, catching only the outline in all this dark, and I believe him.
A voice rings out through the halls, “The emergency is over. However, please remain in your classrooms for the time being. We will make another announcement when we are ready to proceed with dismissal. Teachers and staff, please stay near your interschool emergency phones to await updates and directions.”
He takes his hand from my lips, and I miss it. It was proof that I survived, and right now I need to feel alive. I reach out, wrapping my arms around his body, clinging to him like a drowning man clings to a life raft, so that I can remind myself that the dead do not feel. They don’t smell another person’s skin or hear the breath of someone leaning into you or feel the warm blood inside another’s veins.
“I know you think I’m disgusting,” I say. “But I really need this right now, so just don’t talk, okay?”
We stand there, still as pines. I feel alive and grateful, and it is only when I hear the doorknob jiggle that I let go of him.
Pale-faced parents wait and watch until they are reunited with their kids, and together they succumb to sobbing. There are reporters everywhere scurrying around the police, military, ambulances, the bomb squad. A few protestors triumphantly bellow how they told us something bad would happen, but most of the others seem shocked. I wonder if they feel any responsibility for this.
My father rushes to me and pulls me into a hug, wrapping me up like he will never let me go. His face is pale and tired. I have never seen him afraid. I hate it. I want that Easter Island head. I want my stony, unmovable dad. Then there are more arms. My mother is here.
“Are you okay?” she cries.
My father panics. “Summer, you can’t be here.”
“I can’t be anywhere else,” she says.
Bex’s dauntless smile has shattered. Shadow stands nearby, trembling and off-kilter. Their shoulders lean in to each other, forming a bridge between the two, a way to pool and share what courage they still possess. The connection is broken only when Shadow’s mother arrives. She’s a short, round Latino woman with thick glasses who drags
the boy into a hug, nearly knocking him and Bex to the ground. His mother sobs, chattering a mile a minute in Spanish, while he tries to calm her. I don’t know more than twenty words in Spanish, which is disgraceful, since one of my best friends speaks it fluently and I am surrounded by people who use it every day, but I don’t really need to know what she’s saying to her son. She’s grateful.
“I’ll take everyone home,” my father promises.
Shadow tells this to his mother. Worry flashes across her face, and she shakes her head and waves us off.
“It’s really no trouble,” my father tries to explain. “It’s best if you go home with a cop. There might be other people out here bent on hurting kids.”
Shadow shakes his head. “We’re fine.”
“I really have to insist,” my dad presses.
“Dad, let it go,” I say.
Shadow takes his mother’s hand and walks away.
“She’s not a citizen,” Bex explains.
My father nods. “Yeah, okay.”
Tammy pushes through the crowd. Her hair is wet, and she’s wearing a pair of dirty shorts and a shirt that stretches across her belly.
“Are you okay?” she cries, trying to hug Bex. My friend’s arms are up, keeping her from a full embrace.
“I’m fine,” Bex says as she steps back.
“Who did this?” Tammy says.
My father scowls. “Someone inside the school opened a door and let a lunatic inside. We’re going through the tapes now, and we’ll be able to identify them soon. None of the children were hurt.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
“He’s dead.”
“Mom, I want to go with Lyric,” Bex says.
“I want you home. You belong with me,” Tammy cries.
“It’s really no problem,” my father says.
Tammy turns on him, and there is a fire in her face that reminds me of the way a lioness protects her cubs.
“You have been good to her, and I appreciate that, but she already has a family,” she bites, then snatches her daughter by the hand and drags her down the street. Bex looks back at me, but after a few seconds I lose her in the crowd.
“She picks now to be mother of the year?” I cry.
“When you’re a parent, you’ll find that you’re capable of making huge changes and sacrifices for your child,” my mother says knowingly.
“She’s just going to screw up again,” I say bitterly.
“Let her try,” my father says.
Chapter Sixteen
I am shaken out of a deep sleep, and I leap out of bed, still feeling the anesthetic-like pull of the dream world. I don’t really know where I am or who is hovering next to me, but I am at once convinced that the lunatic from school has found me. I swat at the air, ready to fight for my life.
“Lyric!” a voice shouts, and strong hands grab my wrists.
I shake off the remains of the unconscious sludge and realize I am in my room. There is no lunatic, only my father, doing his best to avoid a punch in the face.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” I cry.
“Get your things. Russell got out of jail,” he says.
“When?”
“Two days ago,” he says.
“Tammy lied to her,” I say.
I snatch my stuff, and we head into the living room. My mother is waiting. “I’m going too.”
My father is ready to argue, but thinks twice. The three of us dart into the night, ignoring the state-mandated curfew, and walk through the empty streets until we arrive at Bex’s house. Shadow is sitting on Russell’s lawn chair, nursing his face with a cold beer bottle. The knuckles on both his hands are bruised and bleeding.
“He didn’t hit me,” he says. “I tripped over a chair and hit the coffee table trying to punch him in the face. I knocked him down three or four times. When he realized he couldn’t hurt me, he ran off.”
“Where is Bex?” my dad asks.
Shadow points up.
We take the steps two at a time until we get to Bex’s floor. The front door is off its hinges, splintered and smashed. Tammy is in the living room sitting on a dusty futon and smoking a cigarette. She has a bruise under her eye, and part of her scalp looks raw, like a handful of her hair was yanked out by the roots.
“Where’s Bex?” my father asks.
“Packing some things,” she says without looking at us. “She’ll be out in a second.”
“What happened? Or is that a dumb question?” I say.
My mother catches my eye and gives me a disapproving look.
Tammy takes a deep drag and lets it out. “Can Bex stay with you for a while?”
I’m stunned. Tammy has never asked for help. She’s never asked for anything, except the time she bummed ten bucks off of me so she could buy a pack of Merits.
“I’ll pay you back for whatever she eats. I just have to get her out of this house.”
“Don’t even think about it,” my mother says. “She can stay as long as you need.”
“Tammy, do you need to tell me something?” my father asks.
Tammy takes another drag. “Bring the dogs, Lenny. Search the place. Maybe you’ll find something that will make him go away.”
Bex enters the room. She’s got a pillow in her hand and a toothbrush in the other.
“It’s cool tonight,” Tammy says to her. “Take something warm. Take the hoodie.”
“I’ll be fine,” Bex says. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”
Tammy shakes her head. “I’ll come get you when it’s safe.”
Once we’re outside, my father pulls us all under the tattered awning of the liquor shop next door. Scraggly-faced men watch us with yellow eyes.
“What happened?”
“It’s nothing,” Bex says.
Shadow shakes his head. “Tell them, Bex. I can’t keep this promise.”
Bex looks like she wants to dig a hole and bury herself inside it. “Tammy fought back. That’s what happens when you fight back.”
“Bex!” Shadow shouts. “Tell them!”
Bex explodes in tears. “Russell was being weird, saying creepy stuff. I thought when he went away he’d stop. Tammy said he couldn’t come back. She tried to lock the door and—”
“What kind of creepy stuff?” my father asks.
“I was in the shower and he—” She chokes. Her face is red and frantic like she’s reliving something ugly. “He pulled the curtain open and . . . he was drunk and he took off his shirt.”
“No, Bex,” I say.
My father reaches for her. “Bex, did he . . .”
Bex throws her hands up and takes a step back, as if the question is a rattlesnake springing from a bush. “No. I fought back.”
I wrap my arms around her tight. She tries to pull free, but I refuse to let her go.
“Tammy came in and stopped him,” she says, breaking down even more. “But he hit her and she fell into the mirror. There was glass everywhere, and he was shouting and cursing and calling me a whore and blaming it all on me. But Tammy knew and she hit him with a skillet.”
“I wish I had seen that,” Shadow says.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I cry.
“I always dump my stuff on you.”
“Because I want you to!”
“I’m taking you down to the precinct, and we’re going to get this on record,” my father says. “I’ll have some guys pick him up. One good thing about the Zone is he can’t get far.”
“Why bother? It just makes him worse,” Bex says, turning to face him. “He gets arrested and he comes back meaner.”
“So this happens a lot,” Shadow says as if all his questions have been suddenly answered.
Bex watches him, near tears and frightened that the boy might dash off into the night, never to be seen again.
“I can’t help you or your mom if you don’t file a report, Bex,” my father begs. “I can have your apartments searched, and I’m sure we’ll find lots of drugs and wea
pons, and we’ll arrest him—”
“And they’ll let him go,” Bex says.
“And they’ll let him go,” he repeats, defeated. “Here in the Zone, there won’t even be a trial, but if he’s dangerous and we can show he’s predatory, then we can keep him.”
“And what happens when you’re wrong and he comes home?” Bex shouts, her words bouncing off the grim-faced buildings that line the street. She stomps off down the street, leans against a streetlight, and sobs. I’m about to go to her when Shadow stops me.
“Let me try,” he says, then rushes to her side. They talk in the bright spotlight, their bodies glowing like angels.
“When we leave town, she’s coming with us,” I whisper.
My father frowns. “Lyric, no.”
“I won’t go without her,” I say.
“We’ll discuss this later,” he says.
“That’s fine, as long as you know I won’t go without her.”
“Does everything have to be a fight with you?” my dad cries.
“Not everything is a fight with me! I’ve done what you two wanted. I kept my head down.”
“We’ve all given things up, Lyric,” my mother says.
“True, but the difference is you two chose to. I was forced. I won’t give up my best friend, especially not when she needs me most, and you shouldn’t ask me.”
“Fine,” my mother says. “She comes with us.”
“Summer, you can’t promise that!” my father croaks.
“She’s right, Leonard, she’s given up enough. But Lyric, you’ll have to tell her the truth.”
Suddenly, I feel sick.
“Do you think she’s going to be able to handle it?” my father says. “She’s got a lot on her plate right now. What if she doesn’t understand?”
I watch my friend crying in Shadow’s arms. What if she doesn’t understand? What if it’s too much for her to deal with? What if she’s horrified? I’d lose her and every connection to the Lyric Walker I was supposed to be.
Shadow asked her to be brave, so she was. Bex filled out the paperwork and wrote down what happened and then had a counselor give her an exam. Then she came home with us. Now she lies next to me in the dark, fidgety, tossing and turning, and unable to get comfortable. I’m doing it too.
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