by R. T. Lowe
Rita nodded and whispered something in her sister’s ear and she quieted.
Pop-Pop-Pop.
The gunfire was close. Still outside the store, Tanner thought, but close. Too close. Could he get to the manager? he wondered again. Where would he keep his keys? His pocket? Maybe the counter? In a drawer? Could the shooters see him if he stayed low? Crawled?
“No! No! No!” a man’s voice cried out desperately. His pleas for mercy seemed to echo and swirl endlessly and then—Pop-Pop—they were silenced. Where was he? Tanner wondered, feeling his legs shake. The next store over? The concourse?
Pop.
A woman screamed.
Pop-Pop-Pop.
Silence. Then distant wailing. Small cries for help.
The Chvrches song pounding through the speakers cut out. Someone had hit the off button or pulled the cord. Someone inside the store.
The blood in Tanner’s veins seemed to go cold and he felt himself drifting in front of the girls, nudging them until they were brushing up against the back wall. He stood there as if he could actually shield them from whatever danger might come down the hallway, not sure exactly what he was doing. Was he being brave? Stupid? Was he really prepared to risk his life for two kids he didn’t know? Tanner knew he wouldn’t live forever, but he never dwelled on his own mortality. The subject depressed him. He didn’t take his life for granted, though he always assumed he’d get through high school and graduate from PC, and maybe even marry Miranda and have some Mayer boys of his own. Now he wondered, for the first time in his life, if that would ever be. The little one behind him—Rupa—was struggling to remain quiet, shuddering with each shallow breath. Tanner tilted his ear to the curtain. He thought he heard something. A rack sliding across the floor on rollers? Is that what it was? Did he imagine it? Clothes swaying on creaking hangers? Hushed voices? Were the shooters inside the store? Searching for victims? It sounded like—
Footsteps.
Someone was approaching, padding slowly toward them. Then it stopped. Tanner’s pulse raced uncontrollably. He was afraid to breathe, afraid whoever was out there could hear his rushed breaths.
Rupa sniffed. It wasn’t much of a sound. But it was enough.
They waited.
Rubber soles lifted and fell, sticking lightly to the tile, squeaking. A shadow fell across the floor, growing larger, darkening the hall. Rita tensed and cupped her sister’s mouth. Tanner took a step forward, making a fist, his arm shaking. Was this really how it was going to end? he wondered. Would it hurt? Would he feel pain when the bullets tore through him? Would he suffer? His thoughts turned to the people he loved. What would Miranda do when she found out he’d been killed? What would his parents do? His brothers? Would they miss him? Light a candle for him on his birthday? Would their lives really go on without him?
The curtain was thrown back in a sudden whoosh of steel rings flying over the steel rod.
Tanner let his arm fly.
His fist connected with a man’s face, a glancing blow to his mouth. The man grunted and stumbled back, banging heavily against the wall. Eyes on the floor, the man raised the barrel of his long rifle, aiming it at Tanner. The man looked up.
Tanner knew him.
“Mr. Stanton?” he sputtered out quickly, fumbling for the words, voice breaking.
The man’s eyes narrowed for a moment, then he lowered his gun and blew out a heavy sigh of relief. On the front of his tactical vest was a single word: POLICE. “Tanner? Tanner Mayer, is that you?”
“Yeah,” Tanner replied and dropped to his knees, feeling his eyes grow warm with tears, not sure if it was from lingering fear or because his prayers had been answered. “I play football with Cody,” he tried to say, but he was trembling all over and could barely speak.
“I know who you are, son,” Mr. Stanton said gently, nodding at the family of five as they spilled out from the other dressing room, arms raised to the ceiling. Then he turned his head and shouted, “All clear! Post a man in front! We got kids back here!” His eyes moved to Tanner. “Are your parents here? Your brothers?”
Tanner shook his head, feeling bewildered, like the world had tipped upside down for a moment and then suddenly righted itself. A minute ago, he’d traveled to the darkest place he’d ever been, a waking nightmare that had forced him to contemplate how Miranda and his family would react to learning of his death. Now he needed to call them and let them know he was still alive before they got word of the shooting and started to panic. Still alive. I’m still alive. It didn’t have to turn out this way, he thought, and the realization made him feel cold inside. There were people out there who weren’t so lucky. He’d seen them. Their loved ones would wait for their calls, but they would never come. He felt for the phone in his pocket, curling his fingers around it, grateful to be alive.
Mr. Stanton nodded grimly and turned his attention to the sisters. “Where are your parents?”
Rupa began to sob and her sister put an arm around her shoulder, bringing her into her chest. “We’re with our mom,” Rita answered. “She was here but had to go to the ATM. She said she’d be right back.”
Mr. Stanton’s eyes widened and slowly misted over. He put a hand to his mouth and his face softened, tears sliding from the corners of his eyes. He looked down at Tanner for a moment and then his gaze returned to the sisters. “My poor dears. My poor, poor dears.”
Chapter 3
Reunion
The campus had awakened from its month-long slumber and it seemed to be in a welcoming mood, coming to life after the lonely days of winter vacation: The windows in the ivy-shrouded stone buildings glowed warm and yellow; columned entrances and graceful arches spanning the cobbled walkways danced in shimmering white light; and along the paths winding their way through the grounds lampposts blazed, lighting the way for the new arrivals settling in for the semester.
Harper waited outside the Caffeine Hut staring in Felix’s direction, the last of the day’s sunlight dissolving, streaks of deep violet rimming the horizon. His breath caught in his throat and he slowed, surprised at the sudden attack of nerves. In the weeks they’d been apart, her allure, and his feelings for her, had faded. But now that the real Harper (and not just a memory) was standing there like a picture out of a magazine, his feelings felt less certain (and less faded). His mind turned back the pages of time to that day in December when they’d kissed in his room. That night wasn’t supposed to end until the next morning with their bodies tangled together. Instead, Bill had ‘hypnotized’ him and he’d returned to his bedroom on the night of his eighteenth birthday where he’d witnessed himself destroying the house and killing his parents. The fact that he was unconscious at the time did little to lessen his guilt. The dark memory sobered his nerves instantly. He forced a smile and muttered, “Hey.”
“Hi Felix,” Harper replied, smiling back, cheeks pink from the cold. “How was your break?”
Simple question, yet Felix hesitated—what could he tell her that wasn’t a lie?—and Harper broke in before he could answer.
“Look,” she said, stepping away from the door to allow a pair of giggling upperclassmen to enter the bistro, “if it sounds like this is rehearsed, it’s because I spent the last month doing a lot of thinking. I like you, Felix. I really do. You know that.” She glanced down for a moment. “I mean, I told you I liked you and I thought we were going to…” She gave him a shy smile and he knew she was alluding to their plans that night. (“And then after dinner we can go back to my room, and do it again. And maybe even again—if you’re up to it.”)
Where was this going? he wondered bleakly. In his limited experience with girls, anything that sounded too rehearsed usually ended up with “but I still want to be friends.” He felt like she was breaking up with him, but that wasn’t possible. They weren’t together. So what exactly was she trying to accomplish?
“Anyway,” she continued, “it didn’t work out and it doesn’t have to work out. I’ve been thinking about what’s inside here.” She placed a gloved
hand over her heart, her blue eyes troubled. “I don’t like who I’ve become. I’m too dependent on guys. I’m too needy.” She paused and a gust of wind tousled her long blonde hair across her face. “I know how this is going to sound, but I realize I’m pretty. I’ve always gotten guys to do whatever I want, and I’m not going to pretend like I don’t notice every guy I meet wants to have sex with me.” She frowned and shrugged with resignation, as if embarrassed. “I’m not dumb or oblivious. But I’ve let that define me—and now look at what I’ve become. I’m moody. I’m emotional. If I don’t get my way, I act like a spoiled little shit. I’m a cliché. That has to stop. I want to be a better person and that means I’m going to focus on me.”
Felix figured Harper had always had her way with guys. She was hot and guys were into hot chicks and if she used her hotness to manipulate them, then so what? Wouldn’t all girls do the same thing if they looked like Harper? Her speech was impressive in its own way, but he didn’t really believe a girl as attractive as Harper could stay single for long. “So…are you, um, done with guys?”
“Yes.” She leaned forward and placed her lips on his.
Felix stepped back, surprised, the warmth and softness of her mouth lingering, tingling in the cold. “What was that for?” he stammered, breathing in her wonderful scent.
“One last kiss,” Harper whispered in his ear. “We’re going to be friends now, Felix August. Just friends. And that’s to remind you of what you’re missing out on.” She flashed a teasing smile and turned, slipping through the door left ajar by a short kid in a woolen hat.
“Hey August!” a voice called out from the direction of the Courtyard, the plaza bordered by the Student Center and Woodrow Library where every path on campus wound its way back like the threads in a spider’s web.
Felix jumped in surprise, his head turning to see Allison approach, feeling as if he’d been caught doing something inappropriate. “It’s not…not what you think,” he mumbled, eyes dropping to his shoes for a moment. I didn’t kiss her, he thought, shifting nervously. She kissed me. Then a second thought. Why does it matter?
“I don’t care,” Allison replied stiffly with a weary roll of her eyes. She stopped, crossed her arms and leveled an intense gaze at him.
“What?” Felix asked, though he was fully aware of why her green eyes were smoldering and it had nothing to do with Harper kissing him. When he’d returned from Ashfield Forest that morning he’d found her waiting for him in Downey’s lobby, wired, anxious and very, very angry.
“You know what,” she told him.
He did. Now she was going to let him have it. He considered darting into the bistro and availing himself of the sanctuary of his friends, but that would only postpone the beatdown.
“Well . . .?” she pressed.
“I’m sorry.” Felix looked down again, thinking he could placate her anger by presenting her with the souvenir monster tooth he’d excavated from his neck, but the sensible part of his brain convinced the rest of him that would be a monumentally bad idea. He kept it in his pocket. “I shouldn’t have lied about…you know, checking my mail and going to…you know…there.”
“Damn right you shouldn’t!” She cocked her head and set her mouth so firmly he thought her teeth might crack. “Hey!” She glowered, waiting until he raised his eyes to hers. She leaned close. “We talked about this back in Cove Rock, remember? If you ever do that to me again—if you ever lie to me or shut me out or conceal something from me because you think you need to protect me—I will fucking kill you myself. The Protectors and the Drestianites and those nasty monster things you were telling me about won’t get another opportunity because I’ll do it for them. We’re in this together, Felix. You and me. Maybe I used to be okay being your little subordinate sidekick, but not anymore. Got it?”
“Got it,” he groaned.
“Got it!” she demanded.
“Got it,” he repeated again. He smiled, even though there was nothing about Allison’s expression suggesting that was an appropriate reaction. Allison was tough, but she was also empathetic, understanding and no one knew him or cared about him more than she did. She would never fucking kill him. In fact, she would give up her life for him as he would for her. That was the irony of her threat, and that was why he smiled. “You scare me sometimes.”
“Good.” She opened the door for him and said with a sigh, “You have lip gloss on your face.”
Embarrassed once more, Felix used the heel of his hand to scrub roughly at his lips as they passed the small tables across from the bar.
“You need to show me the ghost lady,” Allison whispered and nodded at the wall of vintage black and white photos. “I’m dying to see what she looks like.”
Felix’s eyes flickered to the Founder’s Photo, and there was Agatha Pierre-Croix, standing between PC’s other founders, Lucinda and Constance, in front of Inverness at the Old Campus, generations before it would become known to everyone as the dead campus. “On the way out,” he whispered back, relieved Allison’s tirade was over (a tirade he’d known was inevitable because there were too many people hanging around the dorm earlier for Allison to lay into him).
They spotted Lucas at the same time, sitting on a purple faux velvet loveseat with dark wood trim and gold piping, Caitlin beside him, her arm around his shoulder. He was leaning slightly forward, his palms pressed against his eyes, hair sticking up more than usual. Something was clearly wrong.
Alarmed, Felix and Allison threaded their way quickly through the bustling bistro.
“Hello Allison,” Harper said flatly, standing beside the garish little sofa.
“Hey,” Allison replied, sounding slightly prickly. Felix didn’t know if they’d already seen each other at the dorm (the school had been busily restoring Allison and Caitlin’s old room, which Felix had torched in his sleep after reading his aunt’s Journal, and now they were back on the third floor across from Harper), but if they hadn’t, their initial meeting of the new semester seemed decidedly frosty to him. “What’s going on?” Allison asked.
Caitlin lifted her chin and said, “It’s Tanner—Lucas’s little brother. He was at the mall. He’s fine, but he was there.” Looking suddenly embarrassed, she brought her arm back and held her hands on her lap, lacing her fingers uncomfortably for a moment before sliding them under her legs.
“The mall…?” Felix asked, unsure of what she was referring to.
Lucas looked up at him, eyes rimmed red. “Hey buddy, good to see you. Sorry.” He sniffed and wiped at his face with a shirtsleeve. “The Excelsior Township mall. Tanner was there when the—”
“Shit,” Allison breathed. “The shooting today. Is he okay?”
Lucas nodded, jaw tensed, and waved a hand at his cell phone on the mug ringed table next to the sofa. “I just talked to him. He’s fine. He’s…pretty shaken up. He saw some things and he’s, well…devastated. I told him I’d come home but he doesn’t want me to. I’m not sure what to do.” He let out a heaving sigh and pressed his fingers against his temples. “My parents are with him and so is his girlfriend. My mom said she’d tell me if I should go back. I’m just…I mean…holy fucking Christ!” Lucas’s face went red with anger. “My little brother could’ve died today! What the fuck’s wrong with this country? That’s the third mall shooting since Christmas.”
“Fourth,” Caitlin corrected, never missing an opportunity to contradict Lucas, even at a time like this. “Hi guys,” she said to Allison and Felix, who remained standing, not a single unoccupied seat in the coffee shop. “Some reunion, huh?” Caitlin’s face was deeply tanned and her hair was lighter than before the break. It appeared she’d made good on her plans to spend a few weeks in Fiji with her parents.
“Fourth?” Lucas muttered, stewing. ‘What’s the difference?” He scowled and nodded off to his left. “She’s not helping the situation. I swear I’d give that chick a thousand dollars if she’d just shut the hell up.”
Beside a WELCOME BACK STUDENTS banner hanging
on the stone mantel above a roaring fire, a dreadlocked girl sat on a stool and strummed her guitar, singing the most depressing version of Dust in the Wind Felix had ever heard.
“God, that is awful,” Harper added. “What a morbid song choice for the first day back. I hope it’s not, you know, like a sign, or omen, for the semester.”
Caitlin glanced up at Harper with a mortified look. “That’s a little…scary.”
The darkness in the girl’s voice crept under Felix’s skin and he wondered, briefly, if anyone but Allison would think it was strange if her guitar suddenly broke up into pieces. Probably not a very wise use of the Source, he thought, even if he would be doing Lucas, and everyone else in the bistro, a favor.
“What happened to your goatee?” Allison said to Lucas, trying to lighten the mood. “I liked it on you.”
“Don’t give him any ideas,” Caitlin said ruefully.
“I almost forgot about that,” Lucas said, running a hand over his smooth chin. “C’mon, Little C, if I knew how much you liked it, I wouldn’t have shaved it off. But don’t fret. I have so much man juice flowing through these veins”—he flexed his arms, smiling down at his biceps—“I can grow it back in a few hours.”
“Ewwww,” Caitlin said, scooting closer to her armrest. “Please keep your man juice away from me. Did I mention how much I didn’t miss you over the break?”
Lucas grinned at her, then turned, bulging his eyes at the singer, exasperated. “She started over! You guys hear that? What the hell? She’s got that goddamn song on a loop. I’m gonna say something. I can’t take this sh—”
“I can only carry four so you’re gonna have to fight over them,” a voice rang out. A girl with black-rimmed glasses squeezed herself through the throng of standing students and placed four gigantic coffee mugs on the table. “Caleb told me I could hand out a few ‘welcome back’ freebies and you guys appear to be eminently worthy.” She looked up and said cheerfully, “Hey Felix.”
“Oh—hey!” Felix recognized her as the girl who’d told him about the Founder’s Photo and explained it was actually a reproduction of a painting displayed in the dean’s office. He thought hard for a moment but couldn’t recall her name, wishing he’d paid better attention to her when they’d talked last semester. Something that started with an ‘M’ maybe?
