guitar tight against my side, I let the door gently rest against the jamb and tiptoed back to the wall behind the door. Under my breath, I said, “Over here.” Raj and Allie stepped in next to me, and we stood with our backs to the wall. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the door might be just wide enough to hide all three of us behind it, as long as it didn’t hit us when the guard came through. The worst part of waiting here was not knowing what was going on out there. At least the music room window would’ve been a chance to see what was going on outside. The floodlights. The front schoolyard was dark when we turned onto Grayson Street; the security guard must’ve switched on the lights when he arrived. I’m so stupid.
The footsteps sharpened as the guard pushed open the stairwell door, swinging it so wide it almost touched our noses. He stepped in, holding the door with his foot, and swept his flashlight up the stairs. I tensed and held my breath. The beam dropped to the wall six feet from us and a cold sweat prickled my back.
The door creaked as it closed, and the stairwell fell into darkness. Outside, the footsteps started again, this time getting quieter. I drew a slow breath.
Buzz.
In the dead silence of the stairwell, the noise from my phone was louder than a low-flying helicopter. The screen lit up with a message from Gordie.
BE QUIET. SOMEONES IN THE BUILDING.
The footsteps stopped. Every muscle in my body tightened. The clopping of shoes on lino started again, growing louder. The door opened and the stairwell lit up with bright light, and a deep voice spoke. “I know you’re in there. Come out where I can see you.”
A squeak came from Raj’s throat.
Before I had time to think, Allie stepped out from behind the door. “I’m sorry. I was just studying… for an exam.”
The bad thing about hindsight is how it hits you all at once with an exact measure of how stupid you are. I never should’ve let Allie come with us, but now that I had, I wasn’t going to let anything bad happen to her. I slipped the guitar strap off my shoulder and balanced on the balls of my feet, ready to do whatever it took.
“You shouldn’t be here,” The voice continued. “Not at three in the morning. Who are you with?”
“Nobody. I’m alone.”
The voice groaned. “How did you get in?”
“I stayed after school… in the library.”
“In the dark?” The guard asked.
She hesitated. “I'm using the light from my phone.”
“Why are you in the stairs?”
“I just needed to stretch my legs, I've had my face in a biology book for hours. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get back to my study.”
“I can’t let you do that. Nobody’s allowed in the building after hours – that’s a rule. I’ll have to radio this in, and we’ll need your parents to come pick you up.”
Buzz.
My phone lit up with another Gordie message.
DONT MAKE ANY NOISE. HE COULD BE ANYWHERE
Raj shoved my arm.
The guard raised his voice. “Come out where I can see you.”
The reason our plans always failed was becoming clearer – we only ever thought as far as everything going to plan, but never what we’d do if the plan went to hell. Our only chance now was for Raj to get the guitar out alone while I stayed with Allie. I handed the guitar to Raj and stepped into the glare of the guard’s oversized flashlight. A radio and a holstered handgun hung from his belt. Allie screwed her eyes up tight against the bright light. With a flick of his wrist, he aimed the beam at my face, instantly blinding me.
I shielded my eyes with my forearm. “We were just leaving.” This could only go one of two ways, and if it went the wrong way, things were about to get wild.
The guard lowered the beam to the floor and chuckled. “Oh, I see what’s going on here.” He rested his free hand on his hip. “Young love, eh? Those were the days. I was young once too, you know?” He chuckled again.
Allie glanced at me. “Oh… yeah, right.” Smiling shyly, she hugged my arm. The heat from her body made me warmer than I’d felt all evening.
With a distant look in his eyes, the guard shook his head and smiled. “When I was your age, we had to be home by nine or there’d be trouble. How times have changed.”
I lowered my head sheepishly.
Keeping the flashlight aimed at the floor, he folded his arms across his chest. “But look, kids, its past 3am and you shouldn’t be here. I won’t report you this time, but don’t come back here at night, you hear? You can get in serious trouble.”
He waved for us to follow and started down the hall. It was up to Raj now. With Allie still hugging my arm, we walked with him toward the front of the building.
Back inside the stairwell behind us, a shoe scuffed the concrete. The guard stopped.
I tensed. Not now. We were too close to mess this up.
The guard whipped around and aimed his flashlight at the stairwell door. “Get out where I can see you.”
A faint rustle came from behind the door, and the guard unsnapped his holster and put his hand on the grip of his gun. The stairwell door opened, and Raj stepped out, one arm across his eyes and his other hand in his pocket. No guitar.
The guard re-snapped his holster and moved his hand back to his radio. His eyes flicked to Allie and then to Raj. “What the hell’s going on here?”
Raj stammered, “We were just–”
“That’s it. I’m calling this in.” He lifted the radio from his belt and it squawked as he brought it to his mouth. Before the guard could speak, Raj darted back into the stairwell and reappeared clutching the guitar in both hands. I doubted even he knew how he was going to get out of this. The guard lowered his radio, squinting in confusion. “Hey!”
Raj hugged the guitar tight against his chest and sprinted in the opposite direction down the hall toward the rear door. I clasped Allie’s hand tight in mine, and we raced after him. Heavy shoes clip-clopped behind us, frantically following.
Thirty feet from the outside door, Raj swayed and staggered as he ran, gasping for breath. The guitar slipped an inch through his arms and he caught it by its neck.
“Drop it!” I shouted.
Allie and I caught up to him. He tightened his grip on the guitar and let out a desperate half grunt, half whimper as we overtook him. Together, the three of us crossed the distance to the door, and I wrenched it open. Allie leapt outside, and Raj and I followed.
Close behind, a huffing voice boomed from the hall. “Stop!”
We sprinted down the path, treading awkwardly on uneven concrete in near darkness. Allie launched herself onto the gate’s crossbar, flung herself over the top, and dropped to the sidewalk. Like a penguin attempting parkour, I hooked my foot onto the crossbar and heaved myself up. Raj fed the guitar through the bars to Allie and lifted his foot onto the gate. I watched from above as a hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed the scruff of Raj’s jacket.
“Gotcha!” The guard dragged him off the gate onto the ground and pinned him with his knees as he lifted his radio.
Allie shouted through the gate, “Get off him!”
Letting Raj take the heat for break and enter wasn’t something I was going to just let happen. Overdosing on adrenaline, I let go of the bars and dropped back into the schoolyard next to them. Raj thrashed and kicked, but he was no match for the enormous brute on top of him. The radio squawked as I crouched next to the guard and gently unsnapped his holster strap. He squeezed the radio handset, and I pulled the heavy handgun from his holster.
He leapt to his feet and whipped around, the creases in his brow deepening.
For a moment, I was as shocked as he was. I stepped back and aimed at his chest. Without taking my eyes off him, I spoke to Raj. “Get up. Go!”
Raj scrambled onto the gate. I kept the gun on the guard, my hands shaking and my eyes locked with his, waiting for Raj’s shoes to hit the sidewalk on the other side.
Inching toward me, the guard held out his
palm. “Give it to me, son. You’ll hurt yourself.”
One clumsy backwards step after another, I edged toward the gate, a trembling finger resting on the trigger. “Careful… I’m accident prone.” I passed the gun through the bars to Raj. He gripped it with both hands and kept his aim on the guard.
With my hands on icy metal, I climbed the gate, dragged myself over the top, and slipped down the other side. The guard shook his head and sucked air through his nostrils, noisy and deep like he was too pissed off to speak.
I took the gun from Raj, and he bolted down the sidewalk in the direction of the car. Allie followed, clutching the guitar by its neck. I ran a few steps after them and then stopped and turned back to the guard. Maybe I should have kept going, but this would all be pointless if the police turned up at my house about a stolen guitar. “I’m really sorry, but someone’s trying to kill us. We don’t have a choice.”
The guard moved closer to the gate and squinted one eye. “You… what?”
“We need cash to get us out of trouble. We’ll make it up to the school. I promise.”
He scanned the sidewalk behind me. “Why do you need money?”
“We just… without it we don’t stand a chance.”
The guard’s expression softened slightly, the glint of the streetlight in his eyes revealing a look of curious concern. “Who's threatening you?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
He curled his fingers around the bars of the gate. “You know, when I was young, the Los Zetas did a drive by on my buddy Jamal. Killed him dead. He didn’t even see it coming.”
Killer of Giants Page 23
