Tasting Fire

by Kelsey Browning

  What? “Ma’am, with all due respect—”

  “With all due respect, you can’t be objective in this situation. Dr. McKay is on the inside.”

  If he said he wasn’t scared as hell, he’d be lying. But this was Emmy they were talking about. “She’s a professional and so am I. You can’t afford to take me off the team. We have no idea how many injuries we might find in there.”

  She stared him down and finally nodded. “Fine, but you are to function as a medic only, once the operators have secured an area with people who need your help. Don’t go off on your own, and don’t break protocol.”

  “Do we have an ID on the shooter?”

  “All we have is a 911 text with this picture attached.” She held up her phone. On it was a blurry photo taken from what looked like a low vantage point. In it were Emmy, a load of phones in her arms, and a middle-aged man sprawled on the floor with half his face on the wall behind him. There on the left corner was someone else’s pink shoe, some kind of round-toed, flat-heeled deal, but the woman herself wasn’t in the frame. The shoe looked familiar, but he couldn’t place it.

  Cash leaned closer to the screen and enlarged the image with his thumb and index finger. “Who is that?”

  “As yet unidentified. So far, only one shot has been reported. We need to get in there before any more are fired.” The captain pointed to a blueprint layout of the school. “We’ll enter through the staff entrance off the vestibule. That’ll keep us from setting off the metal detector.”

  “Wait a minute,” Cash said. “Did you say staff door?”

  “Yes.”

  “And there’s no metal detector on that one?”

  “No, just in the public entrances.”

  “Always locked?”

  “That’s what I was told.”

  “Then our shooter works for the school.”

  31

  Emmy and Mrs. Southerland didn’t have to pass by the office or any other populated area to access the other classrooms. Outside the band room, the hallway hooked a hard right and opened into corridor that looked fifty miles long to Emmy. So many doors on either side.

  So many kids and teachers behind those doors.

  A sudden and overwhelming panic rose up in her and she froze.

  “What’s wrong with you?” With her gun, Mrs. Southerland whacked Emmy on the scapula hard enough to send a lightning bolt of pain up her neck. “Keep walking. You won’t manipulate me. I can see right through your drama.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “Do you think I wanted to? I never wanted this prison of a job. All the riffraff—smelling like body odor and pot—walk in and out of my office. Doesn’t matter if they have a 4.0 or a 1.0. Equal opportunity, that’s what Principal Campos says. Bullshit. Some of those kids don’t have a single brain between three of them. And motivation? Oh, please. Their phones suck it out of them, even the ones who might have what it takes to be a college student. I used to choose the best and groom them for greatness. At least until Cash Kingston.”

  Oh, God. He was her downfall. Her Achilles heel. It had been less than a year from the time she and Cash graduated to when Mrs. Southerland had transitioned to her position as a guidance counselor. “After Cash decided not to attend college, your business started failing, didn’t it?”

  “You mean after you screwed everything up. That boy moped around like an abused puppy for the better part of a year. I’d touted his success to my potential clients. I took him, a football player with mediocre grades, and molded him into the perfect recruit. And he just pissed it all away.”

  “And without your poster boy, people no longer wanted to hire you.”

  “No one understood that you were at fault. You’re determined to destroy Cash’s life—then and now. Just like you destroyed my business and my life, Emmy McKay.”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “But then you came waltzing back to town recently and nothing I did seemed to persuade you to get the hell out of Steele Ridge.”

  “What do you mean? Did you have something to do with the brick? The rumors and fire? Oh, God, with Jesse Giddings?”

  Whack. Another shoulder tap that almost sent Emmy to her knees. Little white pain spots zoomed in and out of her peripheral vision. Mrs. Southerland obviously knew a thing or two about places on the body that didn’t have a lot of fat cushion on them. “It was you! You’re behind all the incidents that started happening after I returned to Steele Ridge. But why now? It’s been years.”

  “Years that I had to watch the motivation and futures of each graduating class dwindle down to nothing. This year, even the valedictorian didn’t want to go farther than Asheville for college. They have no ambition. That should disgust you as much as it does me.”

  So far, they’d been marching down the hallway, passing doors. But now, Mrs. Southerland pivoted off the path and pulled a keyring from her bag.

  Let them have barricaded themselves inside.

  The key Mrs. Southerland was using must have been a master because with a twist of her wrist, she unlocked and shoved open the door. “Inside, Ms. Smarty Pants,” she said to Emmy.

  Emmy was relieved to see they’d entered a science lab, and it looked as if the teacher had been smart enough to herd all the students to the back of the room behind two lab tables.

  “Kevin Waller,” Mrs. Southerland called out in a singsong-y voice as if she were taking roll.

  “Kevin, stay put,” someone said from behind the lab tables.

  “If he doesn’t come out, I’m climbing over the top of those tables and shooting every one of you like fish in a barrel.”

  The young man who stood up and walked out from behind the barrier carried himself so much like Cash used to that the breath stalled out in Emmy’s lungs.

  Mrs. Southerland motioned him forward with her gun. “Closer.”

  The boy swallowed, a seesaw of his Adam’s apple, but he strode forward as if he were the one calling a huddle.

  When he got close enough, Mrs. Southerland dragged her gun down from his Bieber-like haircut to his ear. From his ear to his cheek. And from his cheek to the chin covered with patchy red-blond scruff. “Oh, Kevin,” she sighed. “All the girls love him. Remind you of anyone, Emmy?”

  “If you mean—”

  “He’s a quarterback, too,” she rolled right over Emmy’s words.

  “Why don’t we go somewhere and talk about why you’re so mad at me—”

  “And where do you think he’s going to college?”

  Realizing she wouldn’t sway the woman, Emmy didn’t spare her a glance, just kept her gaze on Kevin. Stay calm and keep your attention on me. “Kevin, why don’t you tell me?”

  “Haywood County Tech.”

  “Community college,” Mrs. Southerland spat out. “I work hard to get him into a good school, and he chooses a place where a lobotomized monkey could be admitted. He could’ve been in the running for Division II at the least, but did he want to do what he’d need to do in order to get admitted, much less a scholarship? No, he did not.”

  “My parents own a small business here in town,” he said to Emmy, straightening the shoulders that promised to be massive one day. “I want to stay and help them. Besides, community college is cheaper. Maybe I’ll make it to UNC when I’m a junior.”

  “That’s totally understandable,” Emmy said. “I would even call it admirable.”

  “Admirable? Imbecilic is more like it.” With a swing of her gun, Mrs. Southerland struck Kevin in the temple.

  His eyes rolled, and although Emmy tried to catch him, he outweighed her and they both went down.

  She extricated herself and leaned over him to check the injury. A blow to the side of the head could be just as deadly as a bullet. Could cause an epidural hematoma.

  “No need to play doctor.” Mrs. Southerland got a handful of Emmy’s braid and yanked her up. “I practiced that little move. He’s dead.”

  * * *

  The SWAT operato
rs had quickly done a threat assessment on the band hall and cleared it, so Cash and Stan Jackson entered the high-ceilinged room even though they’d been told the one casualty inside was actually a fatality.

  And Cash couldn’t even think the words casualty and fatality without his heart clenching with worry about Emmy.

  She’s smart and she’s trained. She can handle this.

  Yeah, that didn’t make him feel a damn bit better.

  Cash knelt by the band director, a man who’d probably kissed his wife this morning before leaving for his safe teaching job. He wasn’t breathing and there wasn’t much of an airway left. “No need to check ABCs.”

  “Fuck me,” Jackson sighed. “At least he was the only one.”

  Cash snatched a nearby band uniform hanging over a chair and used the jacket to cover what was left of the teacher’s face before heading for the doors. Just in case one of the kids returned.

  Cash’s radio crackled. “White male down in room 165. Tac medic up.”

  “If they’re in 165, they’ve made good progress,” Jackson said.

  Yeah, but no one had mentioned Emmy and if they’d found her safe, someone would be on the radio spreading the news.

  One of the SWAT operators met them outside to escort them to room 165. They all ran down the hall, but kept a close eye out for any movement. Any threat.

  Inside the room, most of the students were crouched behind lab tables, but the teacher and two students were hunkered on the floor near a kid wearing a Steele Ridge High letter jacket with football-shaped patches on the sleeve.

  Cash had one a helluva lot like it hanging in his closet. One of the few things he hadn’t given Emmy back in the day. “Move back, please.”

  They scattered like ants.

  “Airway’s clear,” Cash said. “It’s shallow, but he’s breathing.”

  “Oh, thank God,” the teacher said in a watery voice. “We thought she…”

  “She who?” Cash demanded.

  “Karen Southerland.”

  Cash’s body suddenly felt cold and numb. Mrs. Southerland was terrorizing the high school.

  That was where he’d seen those shoes. The day he’d mowed her lawn, she’d propped her feet on the porch rail and…

  “Did she have anyone with her?” he asked.

  “Another woman,” the teacher said. “But it sounded like they were arguing. Suddenly, Mrs. Southerland hit Kevin in the head with her gun. The way he dropped to the floor, I thought…”

  Another SWAT operator eased open the door and said, “We need a medic. One of ours was knocked in the head with a cast iron skillet in the cooking lab. Those kids went on the attack, not realizing we were the good guys.”

  “I’ll take it,” Jackson said.

  Cash nodded and continued to assess his patient. Good news was that he hadn’t been shot, but the goose egg on his temple was proof that Mrs. Southerland was serious about killing people.

  They could be looking at a possible brain bleed. He said into his radio, “White male in classroom 165 is alive and breathing, but he needs a neuro assessment ASAP. Requesting immediate transport.”

  Not knowing where Emmy was, or if she was even alive, was killing Cash. He wanted to jump up and run down the hallway calling out her name. But his job—and his professional ethics—required that he stay right here for now. He waved the SWAT operator back out the door. “I’ll stay with him until transport arrives, unless something more critical comes up.”

  * * *

  Mrs. Southerland dragged Emmy into another classroom farther down the hallway. Unfortunately, the students and teacher in this one weren’t as well sheltered as those in the science lab. Not that shelter had done Kevin much good.

  This group was huddled in a corner behind the teacher’s desk. On the right edge of the group, the teacher stood and faced Mrs. Southerland. “Karen, what in God’s name are you doing?”

  Mrs. Southerland’s face screwed up with a bitterness and hatred that triggered an even colder fear inside Emmy’s body. Somehow, this woman had decided that everyone around her needed to be punished for their transgressions against her. “Thinning the herd.”

  “Stop while you can, Karen,” the woman pleaded. “Turn around and leave—”

  “Or what?” Mrs. Southerland yelled, small droplets of saliva gathering at the corners of the mouth. “I’ll get locked up in some cell or worse, a loony bin? I don’t think so. I’m the only person in this whole damn school who has a lick of sense. Trying to help these ungrateful little shits better themselves, but do they want any part of my plans? No, they do not. Idiots, all of you!” By the final word, Mrs. Southerland’s voice hit a glass-shattering pitch.

  “They’re just kids—” The teacher tried again.

  “Shut up or I’ll do to you what I did to Glen Healey,” Mrs. Southerland told the teacher.

  The teacher shot Emmy an appalled look, and Emmy shook her head with the message you don’t want to know.

  “So Emmy”—Mrs. Southerland turned in a circle, her arms flying out from her sides—“who do you think we should kill in this room?”

  “Are you part of this?” the teacher demanded of Emmy.

  “Not like you think.”

  “Oh, she’s not just a part of it,” Mrs. Southerland said. “She’s the entire reason for it.”

  “Don’t antagonize her anymore,” Emmy told the teacher. “Go back to your students.”

  Mrs. Southerland waved her gun with a carelessness that made Emmy’s belly feel like a quivering cup of pudding. “How about CeeCee over there? She’s one of those who’s decided that staying close to her boyfriend is more important than a good education. If she’s lucky, she’ll actually get a crappy job before she gets herself knocked up. That’s one thing I can say for you, Emmy, you avoided popping a bun in your oven. Even though I’m sure Cash would’ve been happy to help.”

  Emmy refused to think about the conversation she and Cash had shared in his greenhouse. She would get out of this and live to talk buns and ovens with him another day.

  She positioned herself between Mrs. Southerland and the others in the room. “You don’t want CeeCee. You want me. If you leave these innocent kids alone, I’ll go with you. We can walk outside, get in your car, whatever you want.”

  “You’d willingly walk to your own death?”

  She’d told Cash she wasn’t leaving. That nothing and no one would pull them apart. But to save this many people, damn right she would walk out of this school with a crazy woman. Because what Mrs. Southerland didn’t seem to realize was that the SWAT team was already in the building. Emmy had heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway. Which meant the TMT would be able to advance right behind them.

  And that meant almost everyone could make it out alive. The band director couldn’t be saved, but Kevin Waller still had a chance. Emmy had spotted a pulse in the boy’s throat.

  If she could lure Mrs. Southerland away from all these vulnerable people, Cash and the others would take care of them.

  So if she had to risk herself to save everyone else in this school by walking out of here with Karen Southerland, she would do it. “Absolutely. We can go out the doors near the gym. The ones that open toward the trees behind the school. It’s either them or me,” she said to Mrs. Southerland. “And I’m worth a hundred of these students to you.”

  32

  Cash eased open the classroom door and peeked out to check for the transport medics. What he caught sight of instead was Mrs. Southerland and Emmy hurrying in the direction of the gym. A glint of metal in Mrs. Southerland’s hand flashed in the fluorescent lighting.

  The gun.

  Oh, hell. They were arrowing toward an exterior door. If the woman forced Emmy off school property, it was likely a death sentence.

  Cash spoke into his radio. “Kingston checking in. Suspect and one hostage are en route toward the exterior door on the southwest side of the building.”

  “Affirmative. Jenkins and Taylor, move to intersect.
”

  Cash patched himself through to the approaching medics, gave them a quick rundown on the kid’s condition. Then he made a decision that would probably cost him his job. His professional future.

  But not his dreams.

  He told the teacher, “I’ve done everything I can for this student. Transport medics are less than sixty seconds out, and they’ll get him to the hospital.” Then he slipped out of the classroom and ran toward the door Emmy had disappeared through.

  Cash burst outside, the heavy metal exterior door swinging wide. He caught it before it crashed against the brick building and spotted Emmy and Mrs. Southerland walking into a barrier of evergreen trees. The school district had planted them a few years ago because the man who owned all the acreage behind it was known for his so-called collecting.

  Hoarding was more like it.

  Cash took several long breaths and compelled his heart rate to steady. This would demand all the detachment he could pull together. He had to take down a woman who’d apparently lost all grip on right and wrong. Cash slipped through the tree line, but remained in the shadows of the cedars and pines.

  Up ahead, Mrs. Southerland and Emmy made their way into wild shrubs and weeds taller than either of their heads. No telling what else was in that jungle.

  Even at that distance, he heard Emmy say, “The farther we go, the better. This property intersects with the highway. Once you’re done with me, it’ll make your escape easier.”

  Even though her calm getaway instructions made Cash’s chest tight, he knew she was doing the right thing, keeping Mrs. Southerland engaged and busy for as long as possible.

  How could everyone in town have missed this? Missed the signs of Karen Southerland becoming unhinged?

  How could he have missed it?

  Now it might cost Emmy her life.

  You deal with life-and-death shit every day. For some reason, Way’s matter-of-fact advice always came to Cash during times like this. You can handle this.