Time Bomb(36)

If she’d gotten the identification card today, it was the last photograph ever taken of her. Her family would want to see her last smile.

Rashid waited for Tad to say something horrible. When he didn’t, Rashid slid the card back next to the photograph he planned on keeping for himself no matter what happened.

“Now where are you going?” Tad shouted as Rashid pushed past him out of the bathroom and back into the hall.

Turning, he looked Tad dead in the eye and said, “I’m going to look for a way out of the school. While I do that, feel free to check the bathroom for the bombs you seem to think I am setting. I’m sure that’ll be a good use of your time and will keep you far away from me. And who knows? Maybe part of the ceiling will fall in and kill me. That would no doubt make you very happy.”

Then, without looking back, Rashid strode down the hall to his right, around the wreckage, looking for a path that would get him as far away from Tad and his hate as possible. He was grateful to Tad for helping him get out of the bathroom he’d been trapped in. If not for Tad, he could have died exactly like Mrs. Barnes and Angelica had. But he was done letting the idiotic football player kick him over and over as if he were a dog. He wasn’t a dog or a Moo-slim or any of the other names he’d been called by Tad and his friends over the years. He was just Rashid Farsoun, and all he’d ever wanted was a chance to live his life like everyone else did.

Carefully, he pushed aside wires with part of what he was assuming used to be a door frame so he could get closer to the collapsed staircase. Maybe the damage wasn’t as bad as it looked from afar.

Fluorescent lights dangled from the ceiling. Water poured out of an exposed pipe on the far end of the hallway. There were broken beams and smashed ceiling tiles, but aside from the smoke that seemed to be drifting from the missing tiles in the ceiling, the damage here wasn’t as bad as it was behind him.

At least not yet.

Rashid checked his phone. Still no signal.

Putting the phone back in his pocket, he continued down the hall. The smoke grew thicker and the temperature was getting warmer.





12:34 p.m.





Tad





— Chapter 31 —


“HEY,” TAD CALLED as Rashid walked down the hazy hall. But Rashid didn’t stop or look back.

Damn it all to hell. He should have just kept his mouth shut. But seeing more people dead had freaked him out. He hadn’t meant . . . he didn’t really think . . . He saw Rashid disappear around the corner and hurried after him.

“Hey. Wait up. I’m sorry. Okay? I didn’t really think that you were planting a bomb.” He just couldn’t get the lie about the 911 call out of his head. And Rashid was hiding something.

“Really?” Rashid yelled without looking back. “Then what did you think I was doing in there? I’m pretty sure whatever you were thinking was terrible. But you want me to believe you’re really a nice guy.”

“I deserve that.” He did. And worse. “Just wait up, okay?” He was breathless as he reached Rashid, who had stopped and turned. Waiting for whatever it was he had to say.

Only what could he say?

Damn. He shoved a locker shut. Metal slammed against metal, making Rashid jerk, but he never took his eyes off Tad. Waiting for answers.

“Look,” Tad blurted. “There was a friend I was supposed to meet today. And I’m not sure if he’s still trapped in here.” Friend. Not exactly the truth, but it was close enough. “I’ve been thinking about him ever since the first explosion, and then we found someone and they weren’t alive, and it made me think . . .” Tad jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at the wet floor as the hollowness he’d felt when Rashid had announced the people inside the bathroom were dead returned. All the anger and frustration that had brought him here today had vanished in an instant when he thought Frankie might be one of them. He’d wanted Frankie to pay for hurting him, but now he wasn’t so sure what he wanted. Just as he wasn’t sure what Rashid wanted from him. He’d screwed up, but he wasn’t the kind of person Rashid thought he was.

Tad could feel Rashid’s eyes still on him. “I’m not . . .” He shrugged and kept his own eyes lowered. “I know my friends say a lot of things, but I never do. I’m not like them.”

“Really? So you automatically assumed I had something to do with the bombing, but you aren’t racist like they are? Fine. You can keep telling yourself that.” Rashid shook his head and started walking again.

“I’m not a racist!” he yelled at Rashid’s back. “Hey.” He hurried after him. “You know I’m half black.” Tad’s footsteps were right behind Rashid.

“Wow. I never noticed.” Rashid’s laugh was bitter as he stepped over a fallen board. “You think that means you’re not a racist? Then why did you automatically assume I’m hiding something terrible because I didn’t want to tell you who I called when I thought I was going to die?” Rashid stopped next to an open doorway.

“It’s not because I’m a racist, and it isn’t my fault my friends say crap things sometimes.” Tad stopped walking. “You don’t know anything about me, so don’t pretend you know me.”

Sweat trickled down his back. The hallway was growing hotter. The smoke was thicker, making it harder to breathe.