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When the fire alarms went off, Gabriel’s pencil streaked across the paper. Students were suddenly flooding the hallways, laughing and roughhousing and carrying on, shouting over the alarms.
He looked at Ms. Anderson. “A drill?”
She was already slinging her purse over her shoulder, a grade book in her hands. “There wasn’t one scheduled, but they don’t always tell us.” She sounded exasperated. She took the test and put it on her desk, even though he’d only finished the third question. “Come on.”
He shouldered his backpack and headed for the hallway. His nerves were already shot, and the pulsing alarms weren’t helping.
But as soon as he hit the hallway, he felt it.
Come play.
He stopped short in the middle of the flow of students. They were all heading right, toward the stairs at the end of the hallway that would lead outside. The fire was somewhere to his left and that left a lot of school to search. He’d have to fight a sea of students to find the source.
He saw Ronald Coello, a guy he’d played soccer with, heading his way.
“Hey, Coello,” he called. “What’s going on?”
Drawing attention to himself was a mistake. Ronald stopped and stared at him. So did everyone else in the general vicinity.
Another guy from soccer, Jonathan Carroll, gave him an unfriendly up-and-down and got in his face. “The school’s on fire, dickhead. You know something about it?”
Gabriel was ready to shove him back, but Ms. Anderson put a hand up in front of his face and in front of Jonathan’s, too.
“We’re evacuating, gentlemen. Keep moving.”
Ronald and Jonathan kept moving.
“You, too, Mr. Merrick.”
He hesitated. His element was calling him.
But his brain was warning him. If the school was on fire, being caught anywhere near it would be bad.
Then someone from behind him snorted and said, “Leave it to Merrick to find a way to set the library on fire.”
The library.
Layne.
And Nick.
He shoved a hand into his bag for his phone which wasn’t there, of course.
“Mr. Merrick,” said Ms. Anderson. “We need to move.”
He moved all right bolting left, fighting the surge of students, ignoring his teacher’s protesting calls behind him.
CHAPTER 40
Layne and Nick were trapped.
They’d been able to crawl to the “Cozy Corner,” an alcove the librarians had set up for casual reading. It was really just an old storage area, five feet high and four feet deep, and there was only enough room to sit on beanbag chairs. The back wall was painted cinder block with inch-wide openings that vented into the computer lab.
Which was deserted, of course, the door at the opposite side of the room closed. The library was at the dead center of the school. Any students would be heading away.
All the bookcases were engulfed in flames, completely blocking escape. The heat was intense. The carpet crawled with fire barely inches from where they crouched against the wall. She couldn’t hear students screaming anymore and wondered if anyone even knew they were stuck here.
The fire alarms, however, were deafening.
