Time Bomb(62)

“People do all sorts of crazy things when they don’t like something about themselves. Cas was going to kill herself. Rashid shaved off his beard. I wanted you to have to admit that what we had mattered. That all our talks and that kiss mattered.”

Frankie glanced down the hall. “It was a mistake. I made a mistake.”

Tad froze. Hurt flared in his deep brown eyes. “Good to know that’s what I am to you. A mistake.”

No. “That’s not what I meant.”

“I don’t think you know what you meant, and it doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does. But you have to understand—”

“Understand what? That we’re alike when we wear the same uniform and play on the same field, but beyond that, you want to be different from me? Trust me, I get it. I would have gotten it had you picked up the phone and given me the respect to tell me instead of just wishing I’d stay in the corner you shoved me into.”

“That wasn’t what I was doing.” Wasn’t it, though? Wasn’t that exactly what he’d wanted? To make it all seem as if it never happened? To make himself believe it?

“Sure. Then why did you look like you were going to flip out when I showed up outside the field house? Everyone else went to the lake—captain’s orders—but you were here. Why?”

“Well, it wasn’t because I wanted to blow up the school. I was welcoming the freshman team and adding a few decorative touches around the school that I knew I could get away with. You wouldn’t understand. You’re—”

“Not important?” Tad shot back.

“Not me.” Tad was just a guy on the field who didn’t say much or get in anyone’s way. Frankie won games and was a leader. He was perfect, even when he went out of his way to show everyone that he wasn’t. His parents and Coach and everyone else would never learn, because they didn’t want to learn. They didn’t want him to be anything other than what they needed. Tad got to be whatever the hell he wanted, and still Tad thought he was trapped. Tad didn’t know what trapped was. Or how hard it was to want to be the hero, even when you wanted nothing more than to crash and burn and break free.

“You’re right.” Tad nodded. “I’m not you, because I actually give a crap about other people, and right now I have to find Diana before she gets shot.”

“Shot?” Frankie asked as Tad turned his back on him and headed down the hall in the direction they’d come from. “What the hell does that mean?”

A smoking beam fell from above. The floor beneath him shuddered when it smashed to the tile.

Tad stumbled. Frankie grabbed on to a splintered door frame and looked down at the ground that was still again. But if the building was too unstable to stand from all the bombs and the fire, how long until something else collapsed?

“Why would Diana get shot?” he asked.

Tad turned back. “There’s a gun.”

Everything stopped. “A gun? Why would there be a gun?”

“Cas brought it to the school.”

To kill herself.

Despite what she’d said, Frankie hadn’t really believed her when she’d admitted that she wanted to die. He hadn’t wanted to believe her. He’d talked to her right before she went upstairs. He would have seen. He should have seen.

“The gun is loaded, and we think Z could have taken it. He told Cas he understood wanting to die.”

Oh, hell. Hell! Frankie looked down the hall and tried to decide which play to call. He always knew. He never doubted. He called the shot. He ran the ball or put it in the air. No second-guessing. Second-guessing was for losers. Only right now, he wasn’t sure what winning looked like.

Sweat trickled down Frankie’s back. Something crackled from the stairwell. People were coming to save them, but if Z had a gun and knew where another bomb was, the rescue workers weren’t going to make it in time.

“We have to find Z,” Frankie said. “Maybe we can talk him out of whatever it is he’s planning to do next.” It was a long shot, but at this point it was a shot, and sometimes you had to make the Hail Mary play.

“Are you crazy?” Tad asked. “If he wants to blow the rest of this place up, we aren’t going to be able to stop him. We have to—”

The air cracked.

A gunshot.

“Diana!” Frankie yelled, and bolted down the hall in the direction that Z had gone. He heard Cas’s and Rashid’s voices as he reached the room they were in. He grabbed the door frame and saw them carrying Kaitlin to the window on the stretcher they made.

Rashid spotted them and said, “The firefighters are setting up an inflatable cushion.”

“Tad, you should stay and help them,” Frankie said. “I’ll go after Z and Diana.”

Tad shook his head. “I’m not letting you go alone.”

“Cas and I can do it,” Rashid said, looking down at whatever was happening below. “Make sure no one else gets hurt.”

Frankie would try.

As Rashid yelled for Cas to fasten the ropes to the legs of a desk, Frankie turned and bolted down the hall. Tad raced next to him. They reached the corner together.

Smoke. Far down the hallway. It was thicker. Black. Coming toward them.

Another crack.

“Diana!” Tad yelled.