Time Bomb(52)

He didn’t. “Wet a paper towel for each of us.” Tad reached for the water bottle next to Kaitlin as Rashid added, “You guys should close the door behind us to keep the smoke out until we come back.”

“Ready?” Tad asked, handing one of the wet paper towels to Rashid.

“As ready as I’m going to be,” Rashid answered, wrapping the edge of his shirt around the handle on the door, turning it, and pushing it open. “Let’s go.”

They stumbled through the smoke and debris of the hallway to Mr. Lott’s classroom. Despite breathing through the paper towel, Tad tasted char and smoke. Mr. Rizzo still lay on the floor. Unmoving. Tad pressed the wet paper towel tighter to his mouth to keep from throwing up as he stepped over the body and slipped into the room.

“Who was the friend you were going to meet today?” Rashid questioned as he hurried toward the boxes in the corner of the room.

“Does it matter?” Tad asked.

Rashid looked at him for several long seconds through the haze of dark gray smoke. Finally he said, “No, it doesn’t. Not to me.”





1:18 p.m.





Frankie





— Chapter 39 —


FRANKIE LET OUT a breath of relief the minute Tad and Rashid went out the door. He’d dodged the bullet this time. Hearing Tad’s voice when he was coming down from the third floor had unsettled him, but when he got through the doorway and saw him in those clothes . . . Tad had changed clothes to meet with him. And he was pretty sure he knew why.

During one of their midnight calls, they both had the same movie on at their houses. It was some movie about a geeky girl and a popular guy, and the girl changed her look in order to get the guy’s attention. Tad turned the movie off and said people should just accept each other for who they were. Frankie had laughed and said something like sometimes the only way people took something seriously is if you forced them to.

Clearly Tad wanted to be taken seriously, and if they got out of here, Frankie would have to come up with something to tell him to make him back off.

He liked Tad. He did, but he couldn’t be what Tad wanted. The conversations they had were great. They had a lot in common. It was no wonder they clicked.

It was just one kiss.

He should never have done it. He stepped over a line that no one in his family or his friends would ever understand. Even he didn’t get why he’d crossed that line. He wasn’t interested in guys. That wasn’t who he was supposed to be. He was supposed to date girls like Diana. If he hadn’t bailed on her, he would never have seen Tad on the Fourth of July. This was Tad’s problem. Not his.

He shook his head and held up the two rolls of twine he’d found in one of the drawers. “I know this stuff isn’t strong enough on its own, but we might be able to make it work if we braid it together into something stronger. What do you think, Diana?”

She glanced over at him and blinked. “What?”

“What do you think about using the twine to create a stronger rope?”

“Why are you asking her?” Z laughed. “Does she look like the Girl Scout type?”

“No, but I’m betting by her bracelet that she knows how to braid things,” Frankie said. Diana looked down at her wrist as if surprised that he’d noticed the bracelet. “Am I right?”

“You can’t really expect us to go out that window on a rope made of braided twine like we’re deranged superheroes.” Cas looked up at him. Her face was sweaty and streaked with dirt and under it all her skin looked pasty. But her voice was sharp when she said, “There’s no way I can do that.”

“You survived a bunch of explosions, a fire, and climbing down through a collapsed floor.” He looked her dead in the eyes, the way he did to his receiver as he was calling a Hail Mary play when the team was losing. “I’m thinking you can do just about anything if you want to.”

“I’m guessing she doesn’t want to,” Diana said, crossing to the middle of the room. “But I do. I didn’t come to this school today to die.”

“I don’t think any of us came here thinking we’d end up dead,” Frankie said.

“Are you sure about that?” Diana glanced down at Cas, who looked down at the floor.

“What are you—”

The door burst open, and a coughing Rashid and Tad hurried inside through a cloud of smoke. Tad dumped the stuff he was carrying on the ground, turned, and slammed the door behind him. Kaitlin whimpered as Rashid shoved a bunch of the paper towels back under the door.

“Did you find any rope?” Z demanded.

“Sorry, man.” Tad turned from the door. “No rope.”

Damn.

“But we found something we think we can turn into a stretcher. There was a canopy someone must have—”

“Without rope, what’s the point?” Z ran a hand through his hair. “We don’t have time to wait around for Princess here to braid a bunch of twine together that we don’t know will be long enough or strong enough or . . .” He looked around, then up at the ceiling. “What about the wires in the ceiling? It’s not like they’re being used for electricity right now.”

“I tried pulling out electrical wires earlier,” Tad said. “They’re strong enough to hold just about anything, but impossible to yank out of the ceiling or the walls. Trust me, I tried.”