Dangerous Destiny: A Night Sky novella

by Suzanne Brockmann

  Meanwhile, Calvin was still trying to get my attention from behind April. He had this weird look on his face—like he pegged the entire confrontation as an awkward and vaguely aggressive exchange. But he was imagining a normal, high school altercation, with no weapons, no flying bullets, no body bags needed for the cleanup.

  Body bags, oh my god…I thought briefly of my mother, whose overprotectiveness could make me scream. I found myself regretting that I’d stomped out of the house that morning, grunting a noncommittal response to her shouted “I love you!”

  “Okay, it’s okay.” I tried to keep my voice calm to counter April’s crazy-talk, even as she rested her trembling hands on her guns. Don’t draw, don’t draw…“There’re a lot of things I don’t understand. I know that. I think we should sit down and talk.” I turned to Calvin. “Will you give us some privacy, please?”

  I glanced around the quad at the stoners who were lolling in the sun. One of the more reefered-looking boys tossed a hacky sack around between his feet. “Go inside,” I told Calvin. “And tell everyone to go with you. Please?”

  My voice squeaked with desperation, because he was looking from me to April and back, and the puzzlement on his face was mixed with a growing realization that something very bad was definitely up.

  “There’s nothing left to say,” April sobbed. “I’m so, so sorry!”

  I tried to play into that. Anyone who looked at her could surely see from her shaking shoulders that she was crying. “April needs some privacy,” I said, widening my eyes at Calvin.

  But now he was looking hard at me and I knew he hadn’t missed the fact that I was sweating bullets about as large as the ones that were inevitably stored in the magazines of April’s guns. And I had definitely become “one of us” if April’s “us” meant students whose hands were shaking. I was that scared.

  “Go,” I told Calvin again, and in a burst, I knew how to make him leave. “Leave us alone, stupid wheelchair boy. Get lost!” As far as insults went, that was not my most creative, but as April continued to sob, a flash of inspiration made me add, “Guess what, loser, I’ve just outgrown you, too! So, scram!”

  Calvin flinched as disbelief and then hurt flashed in his brown eyes. I tried to hold on to a properly asshole-ish glare of distain as I looked at him, but I felt my face twist, because I wanted to cry. I don’t mean it, I don’t mean it, but God I don’t want you to die too…

  With a jerky motion, his shoulders so tight they were almost up by his ears, Calvin shot me one last hard look as he flipped up the cover for his motorized controls and turned to leave. Or at least I thought he was leaving, but he faked me out. Instead of heading for the doors to the school, he turned his chair the other way, coming around the table so that he could see…

  “Jesus!” he barked. “April! What the fuh—”

  “Guns!” I shouted over him as loudly as humanly possible, channeling my inner opera singer, even as I took a lunging step forward, toward the girl. If I was going to knock her down it was now or never, because Calvin’s startled shout had jolted her out of her misery and she shrugged out of her long coat and yanked at one of the weapons. “Run! This girl has guns!”

  She was right-handed, I realized with the part of my brain that was acutely aware of every teeny last detail. The weapon was huge and heavy and her hands were shaking and she could barely lift it. But lift it she did, and before I could take a second step toward her, she steadied it with both hands, raising and aiming that long, deadly barrel right at my stomach, which stopped me cold.

  My gaze was locked on April, but I could see movement in my peripheral vision. All the wastoid stoner kids were scattering, scrambling to get to safety.

  April’s holsters and weapons were now in full view, for everyone to see. With her trench coat pooled at her feet, a puddle of khaki-colored material, she now looked like a little kid dressed up like the county sheriff for Halloween.

  But this wasn’t a costume party. This was real.

  And apparently, news traveled fast, because just as quickly as the stoners took off, so did the people inside the lunch room. In fewer than two or three heartbeats, I spotted a flurry of activity through the windows, the silhouettes of students inside running for the exit at the opposite end of the indoor cafeteria.

  The silence that followed was eerie in a weird, time-frozen moment as April and I stared at each other. It felt as if we were completely alone—not just here in the quad, but as if we were the last two humans on the planet—as I waited for her to pull that trigger and shoot me dead.

  But she didn’t shoot, and she didn’t shoot, and I slowly drew a ragged breath in.

  I knew that there were protocols in place for a school-shooter situation. There had to be. Help was very likely on the way. Someone must have called the police by now.

  If I could just get April talking, keep her distracted…But my throat felt rusty and tight and my brain was jumping and racing from one absolutely wrong way to start this conversation to the next.

  Nice gun. Were you ten or eleven when you figured out the combination on your father’s lockbox?

  Open caskets are a tradition in my family, so do you mind not shooting me in the face?

  Aren’t you in my English Lit class?

  You said you were sorry—if you’re really sorry, just put the gun down and maybe I can help you…

  Yeah, that was the one to go with. But before I could clear the fear and dread from my throat and get my frozen mouth to move, April spoke. “That was good,” she said. “What you did. Clearing the quad. Thank you.”

  Wait, what…?

  “April, come on, just put the gun down,” Calvin said.

  Before I could ask why clearing the quad was good, I realized with a jolt of shock that not everyone out there had scattered. April and I weren’t completely alone. One kid hadn’t taken off and run for cover, despite my intentionally rude insults. It was, of course, my new friend in the wheelchair.

  Correction: My new stupid, idiotic, absolutely pea-brained friend in the wheelchair. Why hadn’t Calvin adios-ed like everyone else when he’d had the opportunity?

  Instead, he’d stayed and was intentionally inserting himself into this life-and-death drama.

  At the sound of his voice, April turned, aiming the gun at him, lowering the barrel toward the center of his mass in that chair.

  “Or at least let Skylar go,” he said to April, exactly at the same time that I said, “Calvin, get out of here!”

  With her gun pointed away from me, I was tempted to lunge at her, but Calvin was too close—there was no way she’d miss him if she pulled that trigger.

  April, meanwhile, was shaking her head, first answering Calvin with, “I can’t,” before telling me with the same tear-choked sorrow, “We need him to stay to make this work.” She turned again to Calvin. “But you have to back away. You’re too close.”

  Calvin was looking hard at me, but he moved his eyes to look at April, before looking back at me, then at April, then at me, then at April as he said, “I’m sorry, you want me to what?”

  He was obviously trying to signal me with that movement of his eyes, but I had no idea what he was saying.

  “Back away,” she repeated.

  He looked down at the coat around April’s feet and widened his eyes very slightly as he looked up at me.

  What was he suggesting? That we somehow try to trip her with her coat? Or maybe use it to stanch our wounds after she blew giant holes in both of us? I widened my eyes back at Calvin, who nodded at me, just the teeniest bit, and I suspected that he seriously wanted me to go for April while she had her gun aimed at him. I shook my head, the slight movement more like a twitch since April kept looking from Calvin to me and back again.

  “Come on, Ape,” he said as if that gun weren’t pointed at his chest. “You’re really going to shoot me?”

  Her face contorted and for one terrible second, I thought she would do it. But then she turned, swinging that barrel and pointing it
at my head. “I said back! Away! Do it! Now!”

  “Okay, okay! I’m backing away!” Calvin did just that, putting his motorized chair in reverse.

  “Keep going,” I told him, my voice shaking even as I held April’s tormented gaze. In the distance, I could hear the sound of sirens. The police were on their way, and I knew from the way that April shifted that she’d heard it, too.

  A new flood of tears filled her eyes, even as she squared her shoulders. “It won’t be much longer now,” she said, her voice back to a whisper. “They’re coming.”

  As she was speaking, Calvin had not kept going all the way into the safety of the school as I’d hoped he would. He’d stopped his chair a scant eight feet away from April, turning slightly so that he was directly facing her. As he turned his head to look over at me, trapped where I was in the corner, I could tell from the set of his mouth that he had no intention of leaving me.

  I felt a rush of simultaneous despair and gratitude.

  “They’ll do it for me,” April continued as Calvin began to gesture, silently signaling me. He pointed at me, and then at the table that was between April and me, and then made a scooping gesture with his hand, like a fish diving into water. “For us. I’m sorry, but it’s the only way.”

  Calvin wanted me to duck for cover under that table while he, what? Charged April in his wheelchair?

  I shook my head no—at Calvin and April, too. “There’s got to be another way,” I told them both. It was amazing how calm my voice sounded considering I felt like I was going to throw up. “There’s always another way.”

  As I watched, Calvin moved closer, almost imperceptibly, a few inches at a time. He made the diving fish gesture again, and as I shook my head, he held out both hands, all fingers showing, and he started what was clearly a countdown, first tucking in his thumb, and then his thumb and his pinky. Ten, nine, eight…I instantly knew that he was telling me to get under that table when he reached zero, and I shook my head again, hard. No way was I letting him do that.

  April, once again, thought I was shaking my head at her.

  “There’s not,” she said. “If there was any hope, any at all, I wouldn’t be here. But there is no hope. Not for me and not for you. I’ve seen the future, and it’s awful!”

  Okay, whoa. She’s seen what? But crazy-talk was better than using bullets to communicate. “Tell me more,” I urged her. “What have you seen?”

  Behind her, Calvin had gone back to gesturing like an over-caffeinated mime, only now he’d added to his fish-diving and finger-countdown signals, including a finger jabbed at his chest, and then two wiggling fingers, then a rolling motion with both hands, like the international signal for crazy…I had no idea what he was saying. I resisted the urge to start laughing hysterically. Was this the Florida version of the “Itsy Bitsy Spider”?

  And where the hell were the effing police?

  The sirens were louder now, and there were more of them. April was rocking slightly as she stood there, her gun now aimed at the center of my chest. “It’s gonna be over soon,” she told me again—or maybe she was talking to herself. “It’s gonna be over soon…over soon…over soon…”

  Meanwhile, behind her Calvin was jabbing his finger at me, then at the table, then doing the fish-dive motion with his hand, then jabbing his own chest and…

  The two fingers were a little man walking, not a spider, which was probably what tripped me up. The little walking-finger-man was Calvin’s signal that he was going to rush April, and the two-handed rolling motion meant he was going to rush her in his chair, and this time when I shook my head no at him, he nodded vehemently yes.

  Another pointed finger—down at April’s trench coat, which was lying around her feet like a thick, solid puddle. He made the diving motion again, and this time I understood. He didn’t want me to dive under the table just to cower for cover. He wanted me to dive under the table and use April’s coat to trip her, while he came at her from behind, in his chair.

  Together, the two of us would knock the gun she was holding out of her hands, and keeping her from drawing the one that was still in her holster.

  And this time, when Calvin met my eyes again, I nodded. It was as good a plan as any, and since April seemed kind of out of it, now was the time to strike.

  He started the ten finger countdown. Ten, nine…

  I could hear the police vehicles as they squealed to a stop in front of the school.

  Finally.

  But I had a strong feeling that April planned on doing something terrible before they got to her. Before they got to us.

  Sure enough, April stopped rocking and muttering and lifted her head to look directly into my eyes. “It’s time,” she said.

  Two more of Calvin’s fingers folded. Eight, seven…

  “This is it, Sky. I’m sorry,” April said as she used her left hand to draw the second gun, and I knew we were in trouble.

  But then, to my utter shock, instead of killing me and turning to kill Calvin, she handed me the first gun she’d been holding. Butt-first. My brain stuttered—what the hell?—even as my hand closed around the weapon’s handle.

  “No!” I heard Calvin shout from across the quad as he abandoned his countdown before he got to five and came rushing toward us. “Skylar, drop that thing! Now!”

  The world exploded.

  The cafeteria windows shattered, and I realized that the police had arrived and had opened fire at the girls, plural, who were holding deadly weapons, and one of those girls was me. I threw the gun down and it skittered across the bricks as I dived beneath the table to grab for April’s ankles, even as Calvin ran into her, hard. Her other weapon went flying out of her hands.

  She was screaming, “No! No! No!” as Calvin launched himself up and out of his chair and on top of her. I tackled her from my end, too, shouting, “She’s unarmed! The shooter is unarmed! We’re all unarmed! We’re safe! We’re safe!”

  April was sobbing—she clearly didn’t feel safe. “No!” she kept sobbing. “No!”

  “Hands in the air!” a metallic voice shouted—one of the police officers had a megaphone. “Hands where we can see them!”

  I was on top of both Calvin and April, and I took one of her hands and pulled it out into view with both of mine even as Calvin did the same.

  “The shooter is unarmed! We are all unarmed!” Calvin and I were both still shouting a variation on the same theme, and although broken glass continued to fall out of the window frames, no other shots were fired. Come to think of it, I hadn’t heard any shots—just the sound of breaking glass.

  “Don’t move! Nobody move!” the man with the megaphone shouted, and beneath me, I could feel Calvin’s relief.

  “Nobody’s moving,” he shouted back. “We’re unarmed and unhurt!”

  I turned my head, and in that brief instant, I was face to face with April. Her eyes were open and as she gazed up at me, she whispered, “Was that you? The exploding windows? The broken glass?”

  I stared at her, stupefied. “What?”

  “It might’ve been me,” she whispered, and before I could ask her how on earth she could’ve broken all those windows without firing either of her guns while being tackled by both Calvin and me, she added, “Kill me, Skylar. Kill me now! Please!”

  She meant it. My heart stuttered and nearly stopped as I looked into her odd-colored eyes and realized she meant it.

  I didn’t say anything. What possible response could I give to “Kill me now”?

  And then I couldn’t say anything, because the police were on top of us, pulling me and Calvin off of April, and containing her as, again, she started to cry.

  The sound of all those booted feet crunching across the broken window glass seemed as loud and grating as fingernails on a chalkboard.

  “Are you okay?” Calvin asked me as a team of body armor–clad police officers carried both of us and his wheelchair into the safety of the deserted school.

  “I’m good,” I managed to say. There
were sparkling beads of glass in my hair, but they were rounded, not sharp. “Are you?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’m great.” He let out a sound that was part laugh and part howl—the sound of a person who had just avoided getting shot by a crazy girl in his high school quad.

  Kill me, Skylar. Kill me now! Please!

  Unlike April, we were both very glad we’d survived.

  Chapter Six

  There is an inevitable and awkward silence that follows a near-death experience and the immediate high emotions that follow. And I’m pretty sure that the awkward-ometer gets cranked up even higher when you’ve shared that near-death experience with an almost complete stranger you’d only just met earlier that very same day.

  I mean, it’s kind of tough to return to small talk about the weather, for example, after being held at gunpoint.

  Would you rather be shot and killed by a crazy girl, or by the police who are attempting to save you from the crazy girl—or who might even have mistaken you for the crazy girl, considering for several moments there you held one of her guns in your hand?

  Not as fun a question as the one about flatulence and basketball players with the runs.

  Twenty minutes after the police herded away a suddenly spooky-calm and vacant April and plopped her into the back of a squad car—and after both Calvin and I were briefly questioned by the police and inspected by the school nurse who determined we weren’t suffering from any life-threatening injuries, and after we both texted our moms with a preemptive I’m OK—the chaos began to die down.

  Many of the students who’d been lunching inside the cafeteria before April went berserk were already long gone, having driven themselves as far away from the madness as quickly as possible. Other students’ parents were coming to pick them up.

  My own mother was in Orlando on some sort of business trip. Cell service was down so we exchanged a flurry of frantic texts where she ordered me to Shelter in place!!! (Shooter contained, I’m safe) and Stay @ school, I’m coming to get U!!! (From Orlando? In, like, 2 hours…?) GPS says 105 mins!!!