The Weight of Blood (81)

No . . .

She fell to Kenny’s side and held his hand, aching for the safety of his warmth.

“Kenny?” she whispered. He didn’t move. Trembling, she hovered over him, unsure of what to do. Her threads unspooled and tangled around them. She cupped his cheek, his skin wet with blood. Eyes full of tears, she pressed two rattling fingers to the inside of his wrist.

She could not find a pulse.

A nerve twitched behind Maddy’s eyes, sharp and stinging. Her scalp prickled. Raw power pooled in her palms, heavy like an iron. She stopped hearing at that point. Something else took over, and the world went quiet.

“Call 911,” Mrs. Morgan shouted, trying to break through the crowd. “Someone call 911!”

Two students held her back. “Don’t! Or they’ll shoot us!”

The officers looked at one another, flummoxed and speechless.

“For Christ’s sake, do something!” Mrs. Morgan cried, measuring their collective confusion.

“You saw him. He attacked an officer,” Ross spat back.

“He didn’t hit you. He just tripped,” someone sobbed. “You didn’t have to beat him like that!”

“We all saw you! We saw you!”

“He . . . he was resisting,” Ross insisted, then turned to his team. “We need a medic.”

A panicked Deputy Chip West scowled at Ross then raced over to his cruiser. He attempted to radio for help but received nothing but static.

“Hang on, I got a first aid kit,” another officer said, rushing to his vehicle.

“Hey, is your walkie working? I can’t reach base.”

A few feet away, Debbie Locke’s hearing aid squealed. She yanked it out with a whimper, then slowly realized she could still hear the piercing noise without it.

She searched for the source, only to see the faces of her classmates, just as confused. The noise rang, like an elongated sound of TV zapping off.

“Do you hear that?” someone mumbled.

“Yeah, what is that?”

The sound sharpened, pressing down. Every student jerked with a yelp. They covered their ears, falling to their knees, screaming in agony. Mrs. Morgan glanced around, baffled.

The police officers stood, hands readied on their weapons, uneasy and on high alert.

“What are they doing?”

The kids lay on the ground, writhing and wriggling on their backs and bellies, a screaming heap of worms.

“What the hell are they doing?”

“I don’t know,” Sawyer muttered, confused.

“Is this some kind of joke?”

The noise pressed down harder. Rashad vomited. Debbie fainted. Kali tried desperately to push through, crawling toward her unconscious brother.

Officer Heath Marder, the youngest on the force, leaned to the side, palming his ear. “Ahhh. What’s that noise?”

Deputy West glanced at Sawyer, dumbfounded. “You hear anything?”

Sawyer shook his head. “No.”

Ross huffed, rolling his eyes. “Are you shitting me? They’re making all this up! We didn’t lay a hand on these assholes.”

But something was killing them. Or someone.

Maddy shakily rose to her feet, her vision blurring. A kaleidoscope of images blinded her—firehoses, spitting, beatings, marches, swinging bodies, Whites Only signs, blood on the concrete . . .

“What the . . .” Officer Channing gasped. “Holy shit!”

Mrs. Morgan shrieked, pointing up.

Behind them, the police cruisers lifted off the ground, slowly hovering, floating higher and higher in the air.

Deputy West spun around to see if anyone was seeing this. But the crowd remained bellowing on the ground—all except Maddy.

She stood beside Kenny, fingers splayed, his blood dripping from her palms. Maddy raised her hands higher, and the cars rose higher. In the Barn parking lot, more cars rose, the sky a traffic jam.

The officers’ faces tilted upward, watching the cars levitate above them, too stunned to reach for their weapons.

Time stood still. And in one quick movement, Maddy swung her hands down and the cars dropped, crushing all those below. Blood sprayed like exploding soda cans. A car burst upon impact, pieces flying in all directions, knocking Mrs. Morgan and a few others over. Kids screamed and scrambled. Maddy turned her gaze to the country club gates, the music inside thumping through her veins. She glanced down at Kenny one last time.

Heat and flames ballooned as kids attempted to crawl to safety. Officer Sawyer stumbled to his feet, tripping over Officer Ross’s severed head. The crowd was so shocked by what they were witnessing, so distracted by their will to live, that by the time anyone looked up, Maddy had opened the gates and walked inside.

As the nightstick cracked down upon his son’s skull, Kendrick Scott Senior was preparing for bed. He had a consistent nighttime routine—shower, teeth, pajamas, iron work clothes, then thirty minutes of reading before lights out. Routines gave him a sense of control. Purpose. Belonging. He had just plugged his work phone into the charger when it buzzed on the counter. He held back his annoyance with a deep, steady breath. Even when he was by himself, he never wanted to seem ungrateful for his position of authority. Without his well-earned salary, his family wouldn’t be able to afford the life they’d become accustomed to.

“Yes,” he answered, clipped and no nonsense. Whatever his crew was bothering him about past ten o’clock, it had better be good.