Burn

by Sarah Fine

  Photo © Rebecca Skinner

  SARAH FINE was born on the West Coast, raised in the Midwest, and is now firmly entrenched on the East Coast. She’s a clinical child psychologist and the author of the Guards of the Shadowlands series and Of Metal and Wishes.

  You can visit Sarah Fine at sarahfinebooks.com

  or on Twitter @finesarah

  MY DAD IS ALMOST TO THE BACK DOOR, HIS CELL PHONE at his ear, his words staccato and commanding, talking so fast, I can’t catch any of it. Christina is close behind him, pale as a ghost. I look over my shoulder to see all the kitchen workers staring at the door to the cafeteria. The cops are pounding on it, shouting, “Police! Open the door!” over and over again. But I’ve created just enough uncertainty to hold them in place for a few seconds.

  I squat low by the heavy metal door to the outside, feeling the breeze at my back as Christina holds it open for me. I wrench the cap off the container in my hands. A few seconds later, I’ve laid a little vegetable-oil welcome mat for anyone who chases us out this way. Again, it will gain us only a few seconds, but I’m thinking we need every advantage we can get.

  Christina takes off, and I weave through a set of Dumpsters and recycling containers, hot on her heels. She’s fast as hell and agile, too, and she streaks into the open and sprints behind my father, who’s several strides ahead of us, cell phone in one hand and the scanner in the other. He runs straight up the sidewalk. A few faces are pressed against the classroom windows, no doubt happy for the distraction. A black SUV skids around the corner, from the street at the front of the school, and accelerates toward us. For a second I think we’ve got another enemy, but my dad waves his arms at the vehicle.

  He brought a getaway car?

  His powerful strides don’t slow as he looks over his shoulder, as if to gauge our distance from him. As soon as I see the expression on his face, I know the cops are closing in. I don’t even turn around to look. Instead, I kick it into overdrive and close the distance between me and Christina. We’re a few car lengths from the SUV, and whoever’s inside has thrown the passenger-side door open. We’re going to make it.

  My father doesn’t dive through the open door like I expect him to, though. He turns back and runs toward me as Christina sprints past him and ducks into the SUV. Before I have a chance to wonder why, I hear a series of echoing cracks and the windshield of the car next to me shatters. A voice back by the Dumpsters yells something, but I can’t make it out. My dad is right behind me a second later, shielding me with his body. The police are firing at us like we’re terrorists or criminals, like we’re a threat, and I have no idea why. They’re not supposed to shoot at unarmed civilians, right? Especially right next to a school?

  My brain is a soupy fog of questions and fear as we stumble the last few feet toward the SUV while the world explodes around us. My dad flinches and falls against my back with his full weight, nearly knocking me over. The groan that rolls from his throat is pure, animal pain. He reaches around me and presses the scanner into my chest. “Take this,” he says, sinking to one knee.

  I turn toward him, the scanner dangling from my fist. The back of my father’s pressed white shirt is blossoming with red.

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