Watching tearful reunion after tearful reunion, Cooper’s hope began to fade. Despair settled in his stomach, while a swirling storm of dread fogged his brain.
Cooper texted Riley a hundred times and called him just as many, but his phone went straight to voicemail. He’d heard enough to know that the shooting started in the cafeteria and spread out from there. The police captured one shooter and were looking for a second, which meant the kids still in the building were either barricaded in rooms or unable to leave for various reasons.
Izzy sat nearby attempting to comfort a distraught mother, who appeared to be all alone without a support group. Cooper stopped pacing and sank wearily into the empty seat next to Izzy. He pushed his fingers through his hair and buried his face in his hands.
The news reported that a second shooter had gotten into a shootout with the SWAT team and been killed. Cooper breathed a sigh of relief. The danger was over, now the damage could be assessed. The news cameras showed kids running from the building, others being taken out on stretchers.
But he still didn’t see Riley.
His mouth filled with saliva and clogged his throat. He was pretty sure he was going to throw up. If it hadn’t been for Izzy’s quiet strength, he’d have lost it worse than any of the parents in the room.
She put her arm around him and pulled him close. “Cooper, he’ll be fine. I know it.”
He couldn’t begin to count how many times she’d said those words in the past hour. “I don’t know how I’d handle this without you,” he admitted.
“You don’t have to. You have me.” She touched his cheek with her finger, a gentle, caring touch that meant as much to him as all their hot, steamy nights together.
He looked at her through blurry eyes burning with unshed tears. “For how long, Izzy?”
“Cooper, this isn’t the place to discuss this.”
“I want you back, honey. I want you with me forever—you and Riley.”
She kissed his cheek, as if indulging him. She couldn’t possibly know how true his words had become, how the two of them had managed to weasel their way into his heart and entwine themselves around his soul until he knew he couldn’t survive without them.
Right now, he needed to deal with the present.
The future would come later.
When the shooters left the cafeteria in search of more victims, several students barricaded the doors so the shooters couldn’t come back in.
As soon as they were out of immediate danger, Riley pulled Gina into his lap. A big hole in her chest pumped blood all over him, mingling with the blood from where the bullet had grazed his arm. Weird but he didn’t feel a damn thing after the initial stab of pain.
He ripped off his jersey and held it over Gina’s wound, putting pressure on it in an attempt to stop the bleeding. There was so much blood—sticky, thick blood—and the strong smell of iron and gunpowder filled the air. He didn’t know if help would come in time. Each beat of her heart became more and more feeble.
All around him were groans and cries for help. A teacher bent down to assess Riley and Gina. “Are you okay?” he asked Riley.
“Yeah,” Riley said, his voice a gravelly whisper.
“Good, keep pressure on her wound,” the teacher said grimly. “That’s all we can do right now, but helps coming.” Despite his positive words, his voice gave away his desperation. The teacher hurried off to the next victim.
Riley talked to Gina, told her about anything and everything, willing her with his voice to hang in there. He didn’t know if she could hear him, but he kept talking anyway. At least it made him feel like he was doing something.
Riley heard a crash and was certain the shooters had returned. He ducked, pulling Gina close and squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the inevitable. He stayed absolutely still, hoping they wouldn’t waste bullets on kids they thought were already dead.
“Son, can you walk?” A hand touched his arm. Riley startled and glanced up to see a fully uniformed SWAT officer kneeling beside him.
“Uh huh.” Riley nodded. “But she can’t.”
The officer gestured to another man. “Take him out of here with the rest. We need medics over here stat.”
Riley resisted, not wanting to leave Gina, but he was herded from the room with several other crying and wailing kids and hustled outside into the dreary Seattle day. A fine mist coated everything as Riley was helped into an ambulance with a few other non-critically injured classmates and driven away.
He stared out the window holding a towel over his arm. They passed several news vehicles, while sirens wailed. Then it hit him as the shock wore off. He started shaking, and one of paramedics draped a blanket over his shoulders. He was damn lucky to be breathing right now. Several of his classmates, possibly friends and teammates, weren’t so fortunate.
Riley had to call Uncle Coop. He’d be worried sick. Wouldn’t he? Well, Izzy would be for sure.
He reached in the breast pocket of his letterman’s jacket for his phone and pulled out a mangled mess. Holy shit. The bullet that had grazed his arm must have hit his chest first, or he’d been shot twice. Either way, his phone had stopped the bullet. He stared at the phone and struggled to process the full extent of what’d happened to him.
One or two inches had stood between him and life or death.
His world spun around him as the shock of how close he’d come to dying sank in.
Riley gripped his head in his hands and lost his breakfast.
Izzy held Cooper’s hand, as they watched the one TV in the large room, waiting for word on the survivors or the victims—any kind of word—because knowing beat the shit out of this horrible dread that filled them both.