Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake #4)(11)

“What happened?” I ask him. I feel better now. Yes, my son has been beaten up. Yes, it makes me want to rip the skin off the two boys down the hall. But he’s conscious, he’s alive, he’s talking. “I’m not angry, Connor.”

“You’re going to be.”

That sounds . . . ominous. “Your teacher said there was a fight?”

He turns and looks right at me this time. I see something awful in his swollen eyes. “Not really a fight,” he says. “It was my fault. It was just—the noise. There were gunshots, Mom. And screaming.”

I go cold. “There was a shooting at your school?”

He’s already shaking his head and wincing at the pain that must cause. “No, there wasn’t. It was . . . they played a recording of gunshots and screaming. Over the speakers. To make it more real.”

“They what?” I’m stunned. At first I’m appalled, physically flinching with revulsion that they would do that to kids. Then I get angry, so angry it eats into my bones and sets my marrow on fire. I was uncomfortable enough with the active shooter events without the mental trauma he’s describing. It’s bad enough they have to be drilled in how to react to danger, but I understand that, given the world around them. But terrifying them deliberately? Some very misguided jackass probably thought it would toughen them up. It won’t. They’re not volunteers in an army. They’re not someone like me who’s chosen to run toward danger. They’re just kids, traumatized kids trying not to live their lives in terror.

I hug my son. I hug him so fiercely. He’s trembling.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I just—I don’t know what happened. I just couldn’t let them touch me.”

Of course he couldn’t. My son is tough, but he’s also cracked by his father’s crimes and the terror constantly stalking us. Multiple times he’s been in danger of being killed. All that trauma hasn’t made him immune; it can’t, not at his age. But it has made him violently self-protective, and that means that anyone who comes at him in those circumstances will be seen and treated as a serious threat.

Even classmates.

I can’t fix this. It’s going to take even more time and even more therapy and most definitely more patience, making him aware of exactly what’s going on inside his very complicated head. My son is hardwired by his parentage and trauma to survive. Finding ways to moderate those instincts is going to be a long, difficult process.

I just hold his hand and watch him fight tears and hate myself in an ever-increasing spiral. I should have seen this coming. He’s been acting more and more off around days when these active shooter drills—six a year, now—are scheduled. It was my job to understand, but I completely misread the signs.

I remember telling him, with so much confidence, that I knew how he felt. I didn’t. I don’t. At his age, I was a sheltered, protected little girl for whom danger was an abstract concept, and the idea of being killed nothing but fiction. I can’t really understand what this is like for him; handling it as an adult is far different from handling it at thirteen. I should have known that.

My self-loathing is interrupted by a woman’s harsh voice. “There’s that little bastard.”

I turn to look, and in the doorway there’s a rail-thin woman with frizzy, dark hair and big blue eyes that look baleful with anger. She’s pointing at my son. I stand up, instinctively shielding him.

There’s a big man beside her. He’s older, grayer, with a boxer’s flattened nose. Heavy but powerful. He lowers his head and glares at me. I glare right back, switching it between the two of them. “What do you want?” I say, though I already know.

“That little shit broke my son’s jaw!” the mom says. “They have to wire his mouth shut! Your damn kid went crazy, and my son was just trying to help. You’re going to pay for my kid’s medical, bitch!”

I want to get in her face but that isn’t going to help. And she’s right. “Okay,” I say, and wince at what paying for medical care is going to cost. “I’ll do that. But this wasn’t Connor’s fault—”

“No, it’s your fault he’s so crazy. You and his murderer father! That bad apple ain’t gone far from the tree.”

My first impulse is to attack. I’m not very much different from my son in the way I’ve fractured inside under the stress. But I’ve got more experience. I can stop myself. I keep my voice calm as I say, “It might be my fault, but it isn’t my son’s. Don’t blame him.”

“Bitch, I’ll blame whoever I want, and I’ll sue you for everything you got! Henry was just trying to get your kid to do what the teacher said!”

She probably will sue, I think. There’s real rage in her heart. But the name of her son strikes a note with me. “Henry,” I repeat. I know that name. “Henry Charterhouse? The school’s worst bully. How many kids has he punched out at school?”

The accusation hits home, I can tell; the mom looks at the dad, then rallies up her bravado again for another charge. “Hank gets into scraps. Boys being boys. But your son hit him with a goddamn metal stapler!”

“My son’s got bruises and black eyes,” I snap. “And I’m pretty sure I can call a long string of school administrators to tell us exactly who the problem kids in Norton Junior High are in a court of law. That what you want?”