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“I already tried the first time you passed out. No signal.”
Layne wanted to be brave. She wanted to be optimistic.
But she started crying anyway.
Nick’s hand went over hers. “Gabriel will find us. He’ll get us out.”
“How?” she choked. “How do you know?”
“Because he always does.”
Fighting through the crowds of students took a while. They packed the hallways, backed by teachers who did not want to let Gabriel run toward the library. He had to shove his way past them. Chris had chemistry this period, so he’d be on the opposite side of the school and he wouldn’t even know about Layne and Nick meeting in the library. He would have evacuated with everyone else.
Layne and Nick might have evacuated, too. Gabriel could be bolting for the library needlessly.
And the fire was calling him, full of fury and danger. He could smell smoke in the air.
By the time he rounded the corner to the Language Arts wing, the alarms went silent, only the warning lights still strobing. The halls were deserted, thick with smoke.
Come play.
He got low to the ground, putting a hand against the painted cinder block of the hallway. Two more turns and he’d find the library entrance.
But one more turn revealed bodies in the hallway.
Two girls, their faces red. Young, probably freshmen. He didn’t recognize either of them. He hurried to the closest and put his cheek close to her mouth.
She was breathing, but barely. He needed to get her out of the smoke.
He jerked her into his arms and ran.
The front entrance to the school was the closest way out, but the halls were still dense with smoke. His sneakers squeaked against the floor as he bolted around turns, trying to stay as low as he could.
Just as he made the final turn into the front atrium, he almost ran smack into a group of firemen.
“Here!” he cried, shoving the girl at one of them. “There are more!”
And before they could stop him, he was running again.
He almost left the second girl. The firemen were coming, and they couldn’t miss her in the middle of the hallway.
But this school was practically a maze. If they were trying to avoid the smoke, they might take a different route to the library and miss her altogether.
Before he even had it all reasoned out, the second girl was in his arms, and he was running for the front again.
This time the firemen tried to stop him. He heard shouts and felt a hand grab for the sleeve of his hoodie, but he ducked and bolted back into the smoke, running again for the library entrance.
He made it all the way to the hallway running parallel to the library before he found more bodies. The hall was so choked with smoke that he practically tripped over the first one. Two girls and a guy. He recognized the guy, Randy Sorenson. He played starting center for the football team.
He also outweighed Gabriel by a good fifty pounds.
Gabriel grabbed one of the girls first. She wasn’t breathing at all.
The smoke was so thick that he had to drag her. He made it down two hallways before finding firemen.
Good. He dropped her and ran back, yelling behind him, “Down this way! There are two more!”
When he heard them behind him, he passed Randy and the other girl and dove through the smoke into the library.
