Time Bomb(60)

“What about Frankie?” Tad asked, stepping toward her.

Cas went still. “What about him?”

“He got the coach to cancel practice. The rest of the team is at the lake, far away from all of this. Kind of convenient, don’t you think?”

“You think Frankie set the bombs?” Cas asked. “No way.”

“Why?” Rashid asked her, even though the answer was obvious. Frankie wasn’t Muslim like he was or different because he was half black and gay like Tad. But Rashid knew from experience that Frankie wasn’t the perfect guy he claimed to be. He’d seen him high-five his friends after they called Rashid or other kids names.

“Frankie saved me,” Cas explained. “When I was trapped in the art room, Frankie got me out. I would have died in the fire if he hadn’t helped get me out. He wouldn’t do this. He heard me playing clarinet and stopped to talk to me.”

Rashid frowned. “When? After the explosion?”

“No,” she said. “Before. I was in the music wing. I just wanted to play one last time before—”

“Before you killed yourself?” Diana finished for her.

Rashid held his breath as Cas looked down at the floor and nodded.

“You were going to kill yourself here at school?” Rashid asked, wiping his forehead.

“And maybe you didn’t want to die alone?” Diana said. “That would make sense. It would explain why you’d come here instead of going somewhere private. You wanted to belong, and once you died in the explosion, everyone would talk about you as part of a group.” Diana hadn’t moved from her spot near the doorway, making it clear to Rashid that she didn’t trust any of them enough to stand near them.

“What?” Cas took a step back, pressing herself against the desk behind her. “No. That doesn’t make any sense.”

Only, as much as Rashid didn’t want to jump to any conclusions, it sort of did. “Suicide bombers in Palestine almost always target other people when they die. The more bodies, the more important the story.”

Cas shook her head. “No,” she insisted. “That’s not what happened.”

“Then why do it here?” Tad demanded. “Tell us.”

“Why?” Cas looked up at the ceiling and bit her lip. “Because this is the place that makes me feel the worst about myself. I was worried I wouldn’t go through with it if I tried to do it anywhere else. I figured if I got nervous or started to have second thoughts, I could just look around and remember why I didn’t want to live anymore. And . . .”

“And what?” Rashid asked.

“And maybe I was hoping . . .” She shook her head. “It’s stupid, but even though I wanted to end it all, I was waiting for something to happen.”

“Like what?”

She sighed. “I don’t know exactly. Something that would convince me things weren’t all bad. That if I just waited for a few more days or weeks or even months, my life would get better. Frankie walking into my practice room and talking to me almost made me change my mind. If he’d come back again or if I’d talked to someone else, I might have taken my clarinet back and left. But the only other person I saw was Diana. I could tell you saw me, but you pretended you didn’t and looked the other way.”

“You can’t blame me for you wanting to kill yourself,” Diana snapped.

“She’s not.” Rashid wasn’t sure that was accurate, but they didn’t need more fighting. Not now, when Frankie and Z were out in the wreckage somewhere and one of them might be the bomber. And maybe trying to finish what he started . . . “We need to get out of here,” he said. “Tad, help me get Kaitlin on the stretcher.”

Tad grabbed one of the makeshift ropes and pulled on it. “These don’t seem strong enough. They could break, and she’ll drop to the cement. She’d die.”

“She’ll die if she stays here. The fire department has to have something they can put below so none of us hit the concrete. It’s risky, but if Frankie or Z set off the next bomb—”

“The bomber isn’t Frankie!” Cas yelled.

“It could be either of them. You saw Frankie downstairs in the music wing.” Rashid turned to Cas. “Why would he be there? And did anyone see Z or Frankie anywhere else in the building before the explosions started?”

Cas shook her head.

Tad frowned. “I think I saw Kaitlin and Z through the window in the media center when I passed by, and the last time I saw Frankie was near the field house. Diana, did you . . . Diana?” Tad yelled, and Rashid turned toward the door where Diana had been standing.

“Where did she go?” Rashid hurried to the door and stepped out into the corridor. Tad was right behind him. Side by side, they looked down the hall filled with broken beams and tiles and soot and destruction. But no Frankie or Z or Diana. She was gone.

“Guys!” Cas called from inside the room. Rashid ran back inside and looked at Kaitlin, expecting to see that she had stopped breathing, but her chest was still rising and falling.

“What’s wrong?” he asked Cas, who was standing next to a table near the windows, staring into an unzipped blue bag. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head and looked up at him as Tad walked into the doorway. “I took a gun out of my grandfather’s house and brought it with me to school today. I was going to use it to shoot myself.”