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A gunshot rings out.
One solitary gunshot.
Pandemonium erupts as the students are still being evacuated through the front and side doors. Never in my life did I expect to see students running as low to the ground as they can, with their hands held up to show they aren’t armed.
My breath hitches, and I have to put my hands on my knees. I know where the shot came from. Knew it as soon as I heard there was an incident that it had to be Avery. It just has to be. She’ll do anything to protect Lucas. She snuck into his room in the middle of the night and helped him change the sheets on his bed when he had an accident. I’d heard her promise him more than once that she would make sure I didn’t find out.
She loves him, and I love her even more for it. I know the rules, the protocols that keep me from running into that building blindly. I strive to follow them, but the thought of losing Avery supersedes all of that.
“Look.” Casey grabs my shoulder and hauls me up. “Isn’t that the little girl Lucas has a crush on?”
Wildly, I turn to where he is pointing to see Ciara and the rest of her class crawling from behind the building.
“Officer Carter!” Ciara screams as soon as she sees me. “Lucas went back for Miss James!”
When she points behind the building, I take off without waiting for anyone else. I grab my off-duty weapon from the holster on my hip while I run, faster than I’ve ever thought possible. I get to Ciara’s side to see that she has tears in her eyes, and all of the rest of the students are following her lead.
They stop, waiting until I take a breath before anyone says anything.
“It’s Mrs. Zucker, Officer Matthews,” another student in the class says. “She has a gun in our classroom.”
Ciara’s breath hitches, but that doesn’t stop her from taking control. “We got out through the window. Lucas went back in to get Miss James, though.”
Fear overwhelms the momentary pride I feel for Lucas refusing to leave someone behind or in danger. I refuse to lose him, to lose either of them. But I have a job to do. So, with a grim expression, I point to Chief Townsend and speak to the entire class.
“Hands over your heads, guys. Go straight to him and tell him everything you know.”
Ciara spears me with fierce eyes. “You promised to keep him safe.”
With those haunting words, I leave Ciara and the others to head in the direction of Avery’s classroom. Inside the building it isn’t an issue, but I have to stick my head up against every single window to check the outside.
My phone starts to vibrate at the same time that I come upon the first open window, so I ignore it in favor of looking inside, and I fucking lose it.
Avery is on the floor, lying in a puddle of blood, and Lucas has his hands pressed against her abdomen.
Her eyes are closed, and in the second it takes me to react, I hear Lucas speaking slow and steady to her.
“You have to hold on, Miss James. You have to hold on for us.”
I’m through the window in the next instant, with Lucas staring at me with dead eyes.
“She’s not talking anymore, Carter.” His voice hitches. “If I move my hands, the blood just keeps pouring out. I can’t let go. I can’t let her go.”
I grab him by the shoulders and move him over, replacing my hands with his and grimace at the warm sticky sensation of Avery’s blood coating my fingers.
“Close the door, Lucas. They don’t know where Karen is.” I don’t call her his mother, because she lost that title long before trying to gun down her son. No. Karen is nothing to him. Not anymore. “And grab my phone from my pocket. It keeps ringing, no doubt it’s the Chief. Answer him and tell him where we are and that Miss James needs a medic on this side of the building.”
Lucas silently does what I order. First, he closes the door without sticking his head out into the hall. Then he reaches toward me with bloody hands extended. I motion to my side, where my phone hangs in the carrier on my belt. In the next moment Lucas has it in hand and answers the phone to Chief Townsend hollering.
“Where the hell are you, Matthews?”
“We’re in Miss James’ classroom,” Lucas speaks steadily, even though the shake in his voice is a result of the whole body tremors I can see overtaking him. His teeth start to chatter as the adrenaline in his body starts to fade away. “She’s bleeding and it’s really bad. Carter says to tell you we need a medic on this side of the building. The door’s locked, and my mom is in the school somewhere.”
He keeps spilling out information while Chief Townsend orders people around in the background.
“I’m going to climb out the window,” Lucas tells him without my prompting. “So they know where to go. Plus, I… I think I’m gonna throw up.”
He drops the phone next to me, the call still connected. I watch Lucas sprint to the window, just in time to throw up on the other side.
