“This is cowardly,” Fathom says.
My hand reaches up and clamps down on his mouth. He’s irritated but doesn’t pull away, and we stand in the dark, quiet and waiting. When I’m sure he understands he needs to be silent, I let him go. We wait in this tiny room without an inch to move left or right, so near that when he exhales I can feel it tickle my eyelashes. His body is boiling hot, a furnace. I can almost hear him crackle and pop. Or is that me? Because something is going on here, something that feels like a craving.
Boots stomp down the hall outside, and someone tries our door. I hear someone raging about the Lord’s Army and “a righteous war,” but other people are shouting too. It’s hard to tell if there is just one maniac or a whole legion.
Bang!
The sound is right outside, which causes me to jump and let out a little squeal, and this time it’s his hand on my mouth. I can smell the salty sea on him, an aroma I know from my mother’s hugs and the beach and yoga. Maybe it’s psychosomatic, but it calms me.
“I will not allow you to be harmed, Lyric Walker,” he whispers.
I stare up into his face, catching only the outline in all this dark, and I believe him.
A voice rings out through the halls, “The emergency is over. However, please remain in your classrooms for the time being. We will make another announcement when we are ready to proceed with dismissal. Teachers and staff, please stay near your interschool emergency phones to await updates and directions.”
He takes his hand from my lips, and I miss it. It was proof that I survived, and right now I need to feel alive. I reach out, wrapping my arms around his body, clinging to him like a drowning man clings to a life raft, so that I can remind myself that the dead do not feel. They don’t smell another person’s skin or hear the breath of someone leaning into you or feel the warm blood inside another’s veins.
“I know you think I’m disgusting,” I say. “But I really need this right now, so just don’t talk, okay?”
We stand there, still as pines. I feel alive and grateful, and it is only when I hear the doorknob jiggle that I let go of him.
Pale-faced parents wait and watch until they are reunited with their kids, and together they succumb to sobbing. There are reporters everywhere scurrying around the police, military, ambulances, the bomb squad. A few protestors triumphantly bellow how they told us something bad would happen, but most of the others seem shocked. I wonder if they feel any responsibility for this.
My father rushes to me and pulls me into a hug, wrapping me up like he will never let me go. His face is pale and tired. I have never seen him afraid. I hate it. I want that Easter Island head. I want my stony, unmovable dad. Then there are more arms. My mother is here.
“Are you okay?” she cries.
My father panics. “Summer, you can’t be here.”
“I can’t be anywhere else,” she says.
Bex’s dauntless smile has shattered. Shadow stands nearby, trembling and off-kilter. Their shoulders lean in to each other, forming a bridge between the two, a way to pool and share what courage they still possess. The connection is broken only when Shadow’s mother arrives. She’s a short, round Latino woman with thick glasses who drags the boy into a hug, nearly knocking him and Bex to the ground. His mother sobs, chattering a mile a minute in Spanish, while he tries to calm her. I don’t know more than twenty words in Spanish, which is disgraceful, since one of my best friends speaks it fluently and I am surrounded by people who use it every day, but I don’t really need to know what she’s saying to her son. She’s grateful.
“I’ll take everyone home,” my father promises.
Shadow tells this to his mother. Worry flashes across her face, and she shakes her head and waves us off.
“It’s really no trouble,” my father tries to explain. “It’s best if you go home with a cop. There might be other people out here bent on hurting kids.”
Shadow shakes his head. “We’re fine.”
“I really have to insist,” my dad presses.
“Dad, let it go,” I say.
Shadow takes his mother’s hand and walks away.
“She’s not a citizen,” Bex explains.
My father nods. “Yeah, okay.”
Tammy pushes through the crowd. Her hair is wet, and she’s wearing a pair of dirty shorts and a shirt that stretches across her belly.
“Are you okay?” she cries, trying to hug Bex. My friend’s arms are up, keeping her from a full embrace.
“I’m fine,” Bex says as she steps back.
“Who did this?” Tammy says.
My father scowls. “Someone inside the school opened a door and let a lunatic inside. We’re going through the tapes now, and we’ll be able to identify them soon. None of the children were hurt.”
“Did they catch the guy?”
“He’s dead.”
“Mom, I want to go with Lyric,” Bex says.
“I want you home. You belong with me,” Tammy cries.