by Lisa McMann
“By your description. And because of the spring break headline. Is there graffiti on the building in your vision?”
“No. They must have it cleaned off by the time this happens.” He rubs his eyes. “I can’t believe it. You figured it out. I never thought we’d get it.” He turns to me and pulls me into a hug, which feels superawkward here in my house, but I’m not complaining.
Still, the risk is large and I pull away. “Let’s get you out of here. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”
He nods and we’re snaking back down the steps when the door at the bottom rattles and opens.
Twenty-Eight
Thankfully, it’s Trey. He startles when he sees Sawyer in our house, but he recovers quickly and holds a hand up in warning. He turns to look behind him, and I can hear him talking to someone outside. Sawyer and I stand so still I don’t even think we’re breathing.
“Okay, good night, Tony,” Trey calls. He comes inside like nothing’s up, then presses his back against the door. “I’m going to murder you both,” he says.
Sawyer and I nod.
After a minute, Trey opens the door a crack and looks out. “Okay, get the hell out of here,” he says to Sawyer.
Without a word, Sawyer makes a break for it, and Trey scoots me up the stairs.
“What the—” he starts, and he’s so stunned he can’t even finish.
“I’ll show you,” I say. “Come on.”
He follows me and I show him everything. When he’s done watching it, he looks at me. “It’s not a high school.”
“Not a high school.”
“You figured it out by accidentally watching the news.”
I nod. “I do watch the news on occasion,” I say in my defense. “But I didn’t have much time back when I had a job.”
He laughs. “Oh, Jules . . . your job misses you.”
“Did Dad yell at you?”
“Of course. He also suggested that since I’m eighteen I might want to consider moving out and feeding my own mouth.”
“He—he did? He really said that?”
“Yes.”
My stomach twists. “Are you going to?”
“I—no, not this time. But if he doesn’t stop, I might.”
This scares the hell out of me. “But where would you go?”
He looks at me. “Aw. Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.” He punches me in the arm. “Do you think I’d leave you and Rowan here? Come on. Not until I go to college in the fall. And even then, I might have to commute.” He pinches and rubs his fingers together. “Money. Though now I’m starting to rethink things again. I need to decide soon.”
He goes into his room, and all I can do is think, Don’t leave me here with them!
• • •
Later, Rowan comes in, and I can hear Mom moving around the kitchen. I’m not quite sure what will happen next, but Trey and Ro and I are all planning on going to the coffee shop to meet Sawyer like this morning. The three of us sit around my bedroom, talking quietly. And it occurs to me that the reason we’re so close is that the weirdness gene maybe skipped a generation, and we all get along because it’s the only way to survive.
Rowan tells us about her trip and gives us all of her flight information, Charlie’s address, his phone number, and his parents’ numbers too. And even though I feel kind of odd about letting her go and not telling Mom, I feel very good about where she is going to be now that I’ve seen Charlie and his mom and their non-hoardy, non-tense house. And besides, I couldn’t possibly stop her from going.
We hear Dad lumbering around and I make Trey stay in our room even though he’s falling asleep. I don’t want to face Dad. But he doesn’t come in. We hear their bedroom door close like it’s the door to a crypt, and we know he’s down for the count. Whether it’s just for the night or for a few days, no one ever knows. But we think this latest problem will put him in the sack until Rowan leaves.
And then Mom knocks.
She looks at us all—Rowan on her bed, Trey on the foot of mine, and me on the floor in between, and she gets this melancholy look on her face. I think she’s going to say something, or yell at me, or tell me what my new punishment is, but all she does is stand there looking at us, like she didn’t realize we were all so grown up. She massages her weary eyes. And then she says, “I am so glad you have each other.”
“Aww, Mommy,” Rowan says, and gets up off her bed to hug her.
Trey says, “You have us too, Mom.”
And I just watch her grow old before my eyes, and I smile at her and hope she knows I love her.
If she has a punishment for me, she doesn’t issue it.
• • •
Friday morning rolls around quickly. It’s the last day of school before spring break, and I half expect Dad to be standing outside our room, waiting to catch us going to school early, but he’s not there. We three leave by six and sit at the same table we sat at yesterday, but Sawyer doesn’t come. After a while I call him, wondering if he slept through his alarm, but he doesn’t answer.
We hang out, unable to do anything without computers or smartphones, and finally we just go to school, not sure what’s going on.
Sawyer is not by my locker. He’s not in school. There’s no sign of him. And I’m worried. By lunch, I’ve tried calling him three times, and he doesn’t answer.
“I’m freaking out a little,” I say in fifth hour with Trey. “We should have gone to look for him at lunch.”
“Where the hell would we look?”
“We could at least see if his car is home.”
Trey shrugs. “He’s probably got the flu or something.”
“He looked fine last night.”
“Maybe he’s skipping. Heading over to University of Chicago to see what he can find out.”
“Why wouldn’t he answer the phone, then?”
“That . . . I don’t know. Okay. We’ll drive by after.”
The warming trend has continued throughout the day, and there are dirty puddles filling potholes everywhere. I try Sawyer’s phone once more after school as Trey abandons a ride from his doucheball friend Carter again and the three of us climb into the meatball truck. And this time Sawyer answers.
“Hey,” he says.
I pause and hop back outside the truck so I can have some privacy. “Hey, are you okay?”
His voice is quiet. “So, remember back when my dad called your dad after you stopped by our restaurant?”
My eyes fly open. I look at Trey and Rowan, who are peering out the windshield at me. “Yeah.”
“I’m guessing you don’t know that your dad returned the favor last night.”
I bow my head and press it against the truck. “Oh, God.”
“The proprietors were not amused.”
“What happened? Where are you?”
“I’m pulling into the school parking lot now. You got room in that ball truck for one more?”
“Hell yes,” I say. “We’ll make room. We’re going to drop Rowan off and head to the university. Trey and I told Dad about the food truck festival this weekend, so he wants us to—” Sawyer pulls up next to us and parks the car, and I just end the call rather than standing there next to him wasting phone minutes. He opens the door, gets out, and slowly turns to face me.
His left eye is swollen, black and purple.
He eases out of the car like he’s in pain.
Trey and Rowan burst out of the truck when they see him, and all I can do is stare. “Holy shit.”
“Nice, right?”
I go to him. And nobody has to ask what happened.
“Your grandfather didn’t seem to care about hiding it this time,” I say.
Sawyer shifts his gaze like he doesn’t want to talk about it. “It wasn’t my grandfather. Let’s just get out of here.”
Twenty-Nine
We leave his car in the school parking lot—it’s safer in case his parents go looking for him, he says. And we drop Rowan off. She knows she�
��s got to stay the model obedient child for a few more days, so she doesn’t even pout about it.
Trey drives and we go straight to the University of Chicago. We find the building we need, park the balls in a nearly empty parking lot, and wander the grounds until we find a whole huge section with mostly old buildings—Trey says it’s the main quadrangle.
Sawyer walks slower than usual, so we let him take the lead. He talks us through the vision—as much of it as he can.
“I only see one gunman in the outdoor scene—the short, slight one. I don’t know where the other guy is. He’s bigger and blond. Maybe he’s there next to the smaller one and I just don’t see him because he’s not in the shot, I’m not sure. So if this is the right sidewalk,” he says, pointing to the one we’re on, “he walks in this direction, I think.”
“Do you know which building it happens in? Can you tell?” I try to sound easygoing. Sawyer doesn’t need anybody else harassing him, especially me.
“I don’t know.”
Trey points. “Look, there’s some graffiti. Those two guys are trying to remove it from the stone.”
Sawyer and I follow his finger. “I’ll go talk to them,” Sawyer says.
Trey and I exchange a look and stay back as Sawyer approaches the two painters in front of an old, ivy-covered building. He talks to the guys for a minute and returns to us.
“The vandals were some haters writing slurs at one of the college equal rights groups or something,” Sawyer says. “They didn’t really know.” He frowns, gazing over the grounds, and starts walking through the campus, lost in thought.
Trey and I follow, acting casual when security drives by in their carts. I look at the trees. Definitely budding, and with the warming trend happening, they’ll be growing quickly, changing daily.
Sawyer stops, closes his eyes, and massages his eyelids, deep in thought. He covers his ears, then looks up and all around. He walks a few paces up a path between a road and a building and looks all around again. He frowns and mutters something.
“What are you looking for?” I venture.
“The little stop sign. I haven’t seen it. It should be here . . . somewhere.” He rubs his temples. “The vision is in all the windows. Fucking gunshots won’t stop. I can’t even think.”
Trey and I start looking for the stop sign too.
“It should be there,” Sawyer says. “I guess I have the wrong building.” He emits a heavy sigh and runs a hand through his hair, gripping it in frustration. “But everything else is right. That building with the ivy,” he says, pointing to a gorgeous old building on one side of the quad near where we stand. “The redbud trees. The sidewalk. And suddenly now, believe it or not, the noise and everything stopped. I can’t seem to conjure up the vision at all—not in any windows or signs or anything.”
“It’s because you’re doing something right,” I murmur, hoping he can find some encouragement in it, but knowing how helpless he must feel.
Trey walks in the direction of where Sawyer pointed. “Maybe we’re just on the wrong side of the building,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ll run around to see if it looks the same from the other side.” He starts jogging down the path. I go over to Sawyer.
“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.
There’s a distant look in his eyes that’s not due to the punch he took to the face, but he focuses in on me and relaxes into a half smile for a moment. He reaches one arm around my neck and pulls me close, kisses the top of my head. “Just don’t leave me.”
As we stand there together, two girls and a guy all dressed in black pass by us silently, and I think it must be sad to be stuck at school during spring break. And then I think about me going to college someday, and wonder if I’ll ever want to go home. Only if Trey and Ro are there too.
Sawyer’s arm tightens on my shoulders and his whole body tenses. He puts his lips to my ear and whispers, “I think that’s them.”
I turn my head and look at their backs. One girl has dark brown hair in a ponytail. The other has short blond hair, a pixie cut. The guy has blond hair too. He’s wearing a black knit cap. My heart races, but I’m confused. “I thought you said there were two guys?” I say in a soft voice.
“Come on,” he says, and we start to follow leisurely behind them. “I thought they were guys, but I never see their faces and they’re wearing black. The guy I see with the gun in the classroom is slight and short. It’s that girl, the one with the ponytail.”
I bite my lip. Has Sawyer started losing it?
“In the vision she’s wearing a knit cap and her jacket collar is up. I’m guessing her hair is tucked into the cap. That’s her, I’m sure of it.”
“But, Sawyer,” I say, “school shooters are never girls.”
“Don’t be sexist,” he says, and I actually hear a little bit of the old, nonstressed Sawyer teasing in his voice, and I know he’s sure we just stumbled on a big clue. But he turns serious again as we follow, trying not to look like we’re trailing them.
Trey is standing at a crossroads, looking at the ground. The three in black pass him, and the girl with the ponytail gives him a long stare, long enough for Sawyer and me to get a good look at her profile before they continue walking.
“I’m going to follow them,” Sawyer says. “I’ll meet you back here.”
I almost protest, but then I notice the expression on Trey’s face. I nod instead. “Be careful.” And he continues on without me. I make a beeline to where Trey is standing.
I squint as I approach. “What’s wrong?” When I’m close enough to whisper, I tell him, “Sawyer thinks those people are the shooters.”
“No way.” Trey looks startled and cranes his neck to get a better glimpse. I look down at the ground next to where he’s standing. And there’s the stop sign that’s missing, lying in the grass, a fresh black dirt hole near the base of it. But it’s no longer a stop sign. Underneath the word “STOP” is another word in black spray paint.
“ ‘Stop fags,’ ” I say, reading it, and the anger wells up inside me. I press my lips together and blink back the gritty tears that spring to my eyes. “Wow, the haters are so clever these days.”
“Aren’t they?” Trey murmurs. “At least we found the stop sign.” He tries to shrug off the slur but I know better. I know it hurts him. Then he points to a little blue flag stuck in the ground next to the hole. “Looks like it’s flagged to be replaced. I’m sure they’ll have it up before school starts again.”
“Well, that’ll satisfy the evidence in the vision. I think that means the crime scene is somewhere near this building. We’ll have to ask Sawyer.” Trey and I both look at the sprawling structure, several stories high, with spires and gargoyles adorning it and green ivy creeping up its walls. Trey takes pictures with his phone. I count windows, trying to figure out how many rooms are in there, but it’s impossible to tell.
Trey shakes his head a little and looks at me, then looks back at the enormous buildings around us. “Somehow this seems just a little harder than stopping a snowplow,” he says.
Thirty
Sawyer comes back after a few minutes. We show him the stop sign and the structure Trey and I guess to be the gorgeous, ivy-colored building in Sawyer’s vision where the shooting will take place. Sawyer cocks his head and looks at it through narrowed eyes, taking in the turrets and spires. He glances beyond it, and then he turns to peer along the stretch of buildings the other way. “I don’t know. I think it’s this one,” he says, pointing to Cobb Hall, but he doesn’t sound very sure.
“What happened to the shooters?” I ask, making sure nobody else is in earshot.
“They went to the parking lot, got in a car, and took off. I got the car info and license number. Not that it’ll do us any good.”
“Don’t you think we should call the police?” Trey asks. “I think we have to. Isn’t it the law or something?”
“Come on, Trey,” I say. “We went through this last time. They’re going to ask how we know
. And then what?”
He’s quiet for a second. “Why can’t we leave an anonymous tip?”
I think about that. “Okay, that’s not a bad idea. Is there a way to do that?”
He shrugs. “Easy enough to find out with Sawyer’s phone.”
Sawyer is already looking it up. “Yeah, there’s an anonymous text line called TXT2TIP. It doesn’t give the cops your number.”
“So . . . we just say we think somebody has plans to shoot down a bunch of students sometime in the near future?” I think about it for a minute. “I suppose it would be better than nothing.”
“Yeah, I guess.” Sawyer looks up. “You think I should do it?”
We look at each other and nod. “We need all the help we can get,” Trey says. “It would make me feel a lot better about everything.”
“Me too,” Sawyer says. “Okay, here goes nothing. I sure hope this isn’t a trick.” His fingers fly over the screen. He stops, reads what he has, and shows it to us.
“That looks good,” I say. Trey nods in agreement.
Sawyer takes a breath and lets it out. He presses send. And now the police know there might be a shooting in the near future near Cobb Hall.
There’s not much else we can do. We try to peer into windows on the first floor, but none of the ones we can see into look anything like what Sawyer described. We try the doors to the building all the way around, but they’re locked.
“You know,” I say after we come full circle around the buildings, “we might not want to be seen here. We look kind of suspicious since there aren’t very many students. Especially with the graffiti stuff that was happening, and now that the police have our tip . . . I mean, they could be on their way over. Maybe we should get out of here.”
Absently, Sawyer touches his puffy eye. “Yeah, that’s cool, but how are we going to monitor things to figure out timing? The buds on the trees are near where they’re supposed to be. The ivy is . . . well, it’s hard to tell if it’s the same as in the vision. I don’t think ivy changes much from day to day. The new stop sign will be up soon, I’m sure. But maybe there are other stop signs. And the vision doesn’t actually show the shooters walking into the building by the stop sign—they’re just walking near it. So I don’t know.” He looks around and we all start heading toward the meatball truck. “How are we supposed to know when it’s going to happen?”
