Page 109 of Charlie
I ignored her and moved forward.
“At least be careful,” she called after me.
It was dark and when I reached the building, I heard gun shots from inside. Adrenaline gave me tunnel vision and all I could see was the pipe that would take me up to Nathan and River’s window. The bass from the loud music they were playing inside was like the soundtrack to a movie I didn’t want to be in. I crawled up as fast as I could, ignoring the many scratches I got on the way because the pipe was so close to the wall that it didn’t leave much room for my hands.
Looking through the window, I saw Maximum sitting on the floor while Nathan and River stood to the side of the door with white sheets in their hands.
When I knocked on the glass, River dropped her sheet and ran to the window. “It’s Charles.”
I didn’t get a chance to ask her questions before she started talking. “We don’t know where the others are. Lumi ran down to save her mother, and Liv ran after her. We tried to stop Atlas from going because he was acting strange, but he wouldn’t listen to us.”
Climbing through the window, I scanned the room again, and noticed that furniture had been pushed in front of the two doors. “What’s with the sheets?” I asked Nathan, who stood holding the edges of the fabric.
“I couldn’t find any weapons to defend us, but if someone storms in here, I’m going to make a surprise attack and throw a sheet over their heads so they can’t see. And then we’ll run.”
“Is he all right?” I nodded to Maximum, who looked to be in his own bubble as he sat surrounded by Star Wars toys.
“No, he’s being weird. River and I didn’t want him to go downstairs, so I told him he could touch everything tonight.” Nathan was panting from talking fast and breathing with fear. “Liv said Conor is making people kill themselves downstairs and we hear sirens. You have to stop them, Charles.”
“Did you hear the shots being fired?”
“Yes, at first we thought it was fireworks.”
“How many rounds of shots have you heard?”
“A lot.”
“Two? Three?”
River and Nathan looked at each other. “More like five.”
“Shit.” I knew from listening to Liv’s phone that five people were killing themselves at a time. With Liv, there were thirty-four people living here, and five rounds of shooting could mean that twenty-five group members were already dead.
“Stay here. I’m going down.”
River nodded and the kids helped me push the table to the side that they had used to block the door.
“Lock the door after me,” I ordered before I ran down the hallway. The music got louder the closer I came, and when I was by the staircase I walked down far enough that I could spy on the group and get a sense of what was going on. If I was to save Liv and the others, I needed a plan.
Think Charles, think!
But my mind was paralyzed from the sight of my friends sitting in a long line between each other’s legs. Each was tilted backward or to the side with a bullet hole in their head.
My hand grabbed for the bannister of the staircase as my head spun and I felt like vomiting. The loud music was still playing as I stared at all the dead bodies in a line so long that it went out of the living room and into the foyer towards the main entrance. It was unfathomable.
“No, Mom, don’t do it.” Lumi was pulling at her mom, who was moving to the front of the line.
Conor had a gun in his hand but held up his free hand and spoke over the music in a placating tone, “It’s okay, Lumi, you can join your mom and the two of you can go together.”
It was as if I saw him for the first time. How had I not seen what a sadistic puppet master he was? His eyes were crazed as he handed a gun to Ciara and picked up another one to give to Atlas. “See, Atlas and Ciara will go together with you, your mom, and Liv. I’ll bring Maximum, River, and Nathan and then we’ll all be together again.”
When he pushed a gun at Liv, she stepped back. “No, I don’t want to kill myself and nor should any of the others.”
Lumi kept pulling at her mom, who got back up from the floor with a careless giggle. “It’s okay, darling. We’ll be fine. It’s a new beginning. We can trust Conor.”
Lumi’s eyes were wet from tears as she pleaded with her mom. “No, we’ll die. There’s nothing waiting for us. Don’t do it.”
“You don’t want to go?” Aisha raised a hand and dried away one of Lumi’s tears in a clumsy way. She was so drugged that she spoke in a slurred way and had a hard time balancing on her feet. “Don’t cry, sweetheart. There’s nothing to be scared of but if you don’t want to go, I’ll stay here with you.”
