The Speed of Light: A Novel(60)

His eyes are hurt now, and somewhere deep down I want to comfort him, but I fight it.

“I was thinking we could watch The Phantom Menace,” he says. I wrinkle my nose, and he quickly continues. “Okay, we can skip to The Force Awakens, if you don’t want to watch those episodes—”

“Connor,” I say, cutting him off. “It’s late, and I’m tired.” The truth, but not the whole truth. Without meeting his gaze, I step out into the darkness, the rush of the cool night breeze tickling my face, and walk to the back of the truck. Connor meets me there, eases open the back, and reaches underneath the truck-bed cover for the extra-large beach bag I packed for the day. “I got it.” My voice is sharper than I intended, and he stiffens.

The bag is heavy—I’m a chronic overpacker, dammit—and it takes effort to lug it out and onto my shoulder.

I look up at him, and he’s eyeing me. “I can carry that up for you, you know.”

I raise my chin, my insides churning with ugly words. Fixer. Burden. “I can do it myself.”

He blinks, nods, then leans over to give me a quick kiss. I don’t stop him, but I don’t return it. “Okay then.” His voice is flat. “I’ll call you tomorrow, I guess.”

I don’t say anything, don’t turn to wave as I walk inside. Instead I drag my exhausted body up to my apartment, straight into bed, and try to drown out the sound of his mother’s voice in my head, try to quell the doubts swimming through my mind, the knot of fear lodged in my gut.

I try to pretend everything is going to turn out okay.





PART NINE

REALIZATION





Monday, December 6, 10:14 a.m.

Everything will be okay. It has to be. I’m willing myself to believe this even as I listen to the footsteps of the shooter approaching the closet.

Another footstep, then another. My heart beats in my ears—it’s fight-or-flight time, and I blink around the darkness until I see a small plastic tray on a shelf that contains extra office supplies.

“Hayley,” I whisper, pointing, and she sees it and grabs the large pair of scissors on top. Then we both wait here in our hiding place, cramped and covered in blood, fearful eyes on the door.

The footsteps stop and I hold my breath. Suddenly the door bangs against the bookshelf again, and a second set of footsteps scuffs in. Hope surges within me—someone else is here, maybe to save us. But there’s no commotion, only the sound of two voices now, speaking softly to each other.

My stomach drops. They’re not here to help. They’re working with the shooter.

This person’s sound is different, though, their feet clomping around the room rather than taking measured footsteps like their counterpart—one voice murmuring at a near-frantic pace, the other clipped and contained. Their voices get louder, and I lean forward, straining to hear. It’s two men.

Then the calmer of the two voices rises, and the hairs on my arms prickle.

“I had to start sooner than expected because you didn’t secure upstairs like you were supposed to.”

My eyes meet Hayley’s in the darkness, and I wonder if she feels it, too—the icy shiver of recognition and dread.

Because it’s her boss out there. Chet is the shooter.

The picture solidifies in my mind now, a puzzle coming together. The smug little man who craved control, whose calm facade hid a monster all this time. An entitled, violent monster.

“Did you really think we were just going to scare them?” Chet asks now, his voice even louder, crueler. The clomping pacing stops, but the other voice stays low, and I can’t hear their response. Chet screams again. “You weren’t even going to fire the gun, were you? I swear to God, if I hadn’t come up there, they would’ve overpowered you and it would all be over. Pathetic.”

His words slice through the air like razor blades, and the room falls silent, the air heavy with a terrible expectancy.

At last the other shooter speaks up, and it’s as if his words steal my breath, pierce right through me.

Because I recognize the second voice, too.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

July 12, five months before

The next week is a whirlwind for Connor—I recognize that and play the dutiful girlfriend as he rushes to pack, to beg out of work by promising to take extra shifts when he returns. I smile and wish him luck when he leaves for his week of orientation in the Twin Cities, but the echoes of fear and doubt still reverberate within me from our strained argument after his family gathering on the Fourth—and from the words his mother said that I can’t get out of my mind.

“So he’s gone all week?” Nikki asks as we walk together down the long hallway toward the Student Union for the—finally scheduled—active shooter training session.

I nod. “It’s required, plus it’s an incredible opportunity for the professor to introduce him to some contacts.”

She scrunches her face. “Why did you say that so weird? Like, your voice got all high and fakey.”

“What do you mean?” I squeak.

She smirks and I bristle. I haven’t told her about any of the tension between Connor and me yet—the slideshow, his mom’s “fixer” comment, the way I brushed him off when we got back. I’m putting off telling Nikki about it because I know what she’ll say: talk to Connor. And she’d be right—we need to talk about a lot—and I’m approaching my promised deadline of discussing my illness, the future, our future.