James.
A cacophony of screams, running footsteps, slamming doors. And more hard, sizzling pops rattling the air. Erik rolled further under the console, kicking cables and equipment aside, pulling himself in. Another series of shots, closer now. Then the windows of the lighting booth exploded. Erik cried out as shards of glass rained down on the console and spilled onto the concrete floor. He wrapped his arms around his head, a bristling ball of fright through which pierced a single thought:
My mother doesn’t know where I am.
A lull then. Near absolute quiet except for the tinkle of falling glass. And a steady whooshing noise Erik gradually recognized as his own breathing. A faint lucidity crept around his brain. He clutched it, fought to put things back in order.
What happened? What just happened? What is happening?
He was on the floor of the lighting booth with broken glass all around him. Glass James shot out. James had a gun. James was in the theater with a gun. He came onstage and fired. He shot Will.
He shot Daisy.
What Erik did next would be held up by some as heroic. He would never understand why. He felt his actions were more suicidal than anything. Daisy was shot. She could be dead. And that pulled Erik out from under the console because if Daisy were dead, his life was over as well. He didn’t go out of the booth to stop James. He went out to see if he was going to die today.
He wasn’t a hero.
He was in love.
He crawled through the broken glass and went out of the booth.
Like a crab, Erik emerged into the aisle, crouched down low to the carpeted floor, up against the side of the booth. The silence roared in his ears. He wasn’t afraid. He breathed a little shakily through his mouth, but he felt oddly calm. A little floaty, even. He looked at the stage. Will was curled up on his side. Daisy was on her back, her arms splayed out.
James was down around the tenth row. The silence shattered as he squeezed off another round. A strange squeal of impact and a chunk of plaster fell from the decorative frieze around the stage. It hit the floor with a thud and a puff of dust and Daisy turned her head toward the sound.
She moved.
She was alive.
Erik felt a pure, relieved joy. Then he was terrified. The raw fear flooded his young body, seizing his limbs and guts, twisting around him like a thick steel cable. Death’s presence loomed over him, tall and terrible. His heart was thudding so hard against the wall of his chest, it had to be audible. And his chest barely had a wall to thud against, it felt wide open, with a cold, electric wind blowing straight through. He was a core of stunned terror.
Daisy was stirring now, pushing up on one elbow, turning her head to one side, then the other.
Don’t move, Erik thought. A fleeting image of her crossed wrists in the small of her back. In his mind he seized them, held them tight, held her down. His body hard on top of hers in the dark, shielding her. Don’t move. Lie down. Stay still.
She could still die. He had to get to her before she died. He had to be there if she died. He had to get past James.
In the aisle, facing the stage, James stood still, the gun at his side. Out of the corner of his eye, Erik saw something move. To his right, in one of the rows, a brown dome of a head, stealthily creeping along, a long-fingered hand on the tops of the seats.
Kees’s face rose. He looked to James, then looked back and saw Erik. He widened his eyes.
“Get down,” Erik mouthed. Kees’s head immediately sunk. The teacher obeying the student.
Obeying the alpha male.
Erik’s hand went into his pocket. His fingers closed around a flattened copper penny.
“You bring out the best in people,” David had told him. “Haven’t you ever noticed everyone calms down around you?”
I am the alpha male.