Time Bomb(63)

Frankie winced, knowing that if Diana was in trouble, she wouldn’t be the only one who could hear Tad yelling and the two of them approaching.

The cloud of dark smoke grew denser as they ran down the hall, which was streaked with soot and slick with water. With each step, Frankie waited to see Z appear or to hear Diana scream, but there was only smoke and debris and the sound of their footsteps as they raced through the hall that was pulsing with heat. Frankie rounded the corner right behind Tad, and another shot made him jump. He lost his footing, slipped, and crashed to the floor.

Oh, God. He yelped as something punched into his thigh.

“Frankie!” Tad called.

Pain flashed white in front of his eyes and up through his leg.

He bit his lip as he reached down and grabbed hold of the thin, metal spike protruding from his leg. “I’m okay.” Not even close, but he could handle it. He had to handle it.

Tad yelled, “Stay down!”

Not if he could help it. Frankie tightened his grip on the metal bar as someone down the hall shouted, “Stop!”

Z.

Frankie’s ears rang. Someone screamed. Frankie squinted into the haze.

“Get back,” he heard Diana call out.

“What are you doing?” Z yelled. “Are you crazy? Don’t do it.”

There was the crack of another shot. Someone screamed, and through the smoke, Frankie saw a shadow crumple to the ground.

Tad?

Diana?

Frankie tightened his grip, closed his eyes, and counted—one, two, three. Pull.

Pain swelled. Blood pulsed, and he gritted his teeth as the metal bar slid free. Tossing it to the side, he put a hand wet with blood onto the wall and got to his feet.

“Stay away from me!” Diana screamed.

“What are you doing?” Tad yelled back.

The world swirled, then steadied as Frankie balanced his weight on his good leg and peered through the thickening smoke. Sweat ran down his check. He spotted Tad standing beyond the entrance to what used to be the stairwell. He coughed, clenched his jaw against the agony in his leg, and limped forward, trying to see Diana and Z in the haze.

“You don’t need to do this.” Tad held his hands out and slowly crouched down near a classroom doorway. That’s when Frankie saw Z lying on the floor and Diana standing across the hall from the two of them, a red backpack dangling from one hand as she stood still as a statue.

“What’s going on?” Frankie asked.

Something crashed somewhere behind him. He started to glance over his shoulder when Diana swung her attention to him, and that’s when he saw it.

Diana was the one with the gun.





2:01 p.m.





Diana





— Chapter 44 —


“STAY BACK, FRANKIE,” Diana ordered. Her heart pounded in her ears. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to go. Nothing had gone the way it was supposed to go, and now she had no choice but to finish what she had started. It was the only way.

Still, she moved her feet and then the gun so that it was pointed at the football captain and all-around hero of the school. He didn’t look anything like the guy she had once kissed as he limped a step toward her. The torn, dirty shorts. Hair coated in dust and debris and plastered down with sweat. Blood streaking down his leg.

Not so perfect now. Neither was she.

Smoke and dust billowed behind him.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something move, and she swung the gun back toward Tad, who had inched toward her. “Don’t make me shoot you,” she said. Not until she got closer. She’d never fired a gun before today. She’d almost dropped it when she had fired the first time. She could still feel the jolt. Still hear the shot. She’d missed on the second, but she hadn’t missed the next time. Z was still alive, though.

Nothing was going as planned.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Z shouted. “Why the hell do you have a gun?”

“She thinks you’re one of the bombers,” Frankie said from behind her, and she angled so she could look back and forth among all three boys facing her, even as she wanted to scream.

They still didn’t see her. They still didn’t have a clue. They saw only what everyone saw, because it was all they wanted her to be—the popular girl from a wealthy, influential family. The one who smiled and followed the rules because that was the only thing her father needed from her.

But she needed more. She wanted to be more than that. And she’d figured out a way to do just that. Only now it was all falling apart. And even as she stood here in front of Tad and Frankie and Z, finally showing people that she wasn’t the perfect girl and that she was capable of doing more, they still didn’t see her.

Something cracked and crashed to the ground. The others jumped. Diana laughed. She couldn’t help it. She had a gun, for God’s sake. She had known why the first responders weren’t coming into the building before anyone else. She understood why the bomb was set off when the firefighters came in and why someone would want to wait to set off another. “Don’t you get it?” she asked. “It’s me. I helped build the bombs. I brought them into the school. I’m the one behind all this.”

It felt so good to finally say it. God, it was wonderful to tell someone other than Tim what she was capable of.