Time Bomb(21)

“Where is the art room?” her mother asked. When Cas didn’t answer right away, her mother shouted, “Cassandra? Are you there? Where is the art room?”

“The third floor.”

“Oh, my God. Oh, Cas. There was a bomb. They said on the news someone put bombs in the school and is setting them off.”

A bomb. A bomb exploded.

“It’s going to be all right, honey,” her mother sobbed. “Honest. I’m coming. I’m coming and I’m going to get you out of there and it’s going to be all right.”

All right? This was about as far from all right as she could get. And it wasn’t going to be all right. When was her mother going to understand that? Cas shoved a piece of tile out of her path to the door with her free hand but couldn’t budge the next board. She needed both hands.

“Mom—”

“I’ll call your father. He’ll know what to do. Your father always knows what to do.”

“Mom.”

“The firefighters are on their way. The news said first responders are coming from all over. It sounds like there is some sort of issue about whether they can enter the building, but they train for this—”

“Mom—”

“Don’t panic and be careful. You’ll get out. Look for a door or a window or—”

“Mom!” she yelled. Finally her mother went silent. “Listen to me. I have to use both hands to move the stuff that’s blocking the door so I can get out. So I have to hang up now.”

“No. Cas. No. Just put the phone down so I can hear what’s happening. Please. I have to hear that you’re okay. You can’t hang up on me, because I have to know. I don’t think I could handle not knowing.”

Horns honked on her mother’s side of the call. Her mother yelled at some other driver to stay in their lane. Oh, God. Her mother was going to crash her car if she stayed on the line, and Cas was going to go nuts if she had to keep listening to her mother tell her it was going to be okay. It wasn’t going to be okay!

Her mother’s panic was making all of this worse. Cas looked down at the gun in her hand as her mother yammered about firefighters and police officers and some friend of Dad’s who worked in the mayor’s office. And Cas started to giggle through her tears. Nothing about this was funny, but it was. Because there was smoke and her ankle throbbed and she was trapped on the third floor of a bombed building and whatever phone call Dad made to the mayor’s office wasn’t going to help.

“Mom. I have to save my battery, and you have to drive home. Tell everyone . . .” she took a deep breath as the fire alarm suddenly stopped screaming. The smell of smoke was stronger. Sweat was dripping down her leg. So was blood. She pictured her little sister and the kitten she made Cas admire a dozen times, and the bubble of amusement popped. “Tell everyone I love them. Okay?”

Before her mother could respond, Cas hung up.





12:10 p.m.





Tad





— Chapter 21 —


TAD’S FOOT CONNECTED with something soft. He looked down, choked back a scream, and stumbled back against the lockers.

A person.

Holy hell.

He’d been slamming the door against a person. One who wasn’t moving.

Bile burned the back of his throat. He gagged as he made himself kneel.

“Hey.” He shook the guy’s shoulder. When the man didn’t move, Tad took a deep breath and rolled him over.

Eyes stared blankly. Blood coated the floor. Mr. Rizzo, the biology teacher. He had a piece of splintered wood sticking out of his stomach and blood leaking all over the place.

Nausea bubbled and pushed upward as Tad forced himself to take the teacher’s pulse. Nothing. Tad’s skin crawled, and he scrambled backwards. His stomach cramped. Tad doubled over and threw up. He shook as his stomach emptied and emptied again, until there was nothing more to come out.

Slowly, he pushed himself up to his feet, his legs shaking. Sweat dripped down his forehead. Goddamn, he wanted out of here. He started to take a step away, then looked back down at Mr. Rizzo. He knew he couldn’t hear him, but still Tad said, “I’m sorry, man. Someone will come back and find you. I promise.” For a second, Tad stared at the dead teacher he’d hit with the door. Then he turned to look down the hall.

Everything was trashed. The ceiling was collapsed in places to his right. There were art desks and paint cabinets and crap that must have fallen from the floor above that were blocking the staircase entrance to his left, and water was dripping everywhere. Lockers were opened and debris lined the hallway to the left, but from this end, it looked in better shape down there than here. Time to move.

Racing down the hall, Tad slipped on the wet tile and almost crashed to the floor. Slow and steady wins the race, he told himself as he spotted the entrance to the stairwell. It wasn’t blocked.

Tad kicked something that went flying into the wall with an echoing crash as he ran toward the stairs. He had to get down to the first floor. The front atrium entrance was mostly glass and was probably completely demolished. But there were other exits and a ton of windows to escape from if he could just get down—

“Hello?”

Tad stopped and held his breath. There was dripping and the sound of something buzzing and—