Page 94 of Ugly Duckling
I switched to the crime scene photo of all eleven bodies covered in white sheets.
“This is the reality of life right now. We have some really sick individuals in our world right now, and they don’t have consciences. They maim the most innocent, and don’t. Freaking. Care.”
The entire audience, even the cop who’d come to do crowd control, was weeping silently.
I wasn’t crying.
I had no tears left to cry.
Just a permanent ache in my heart that was always there. Always pulsing and reminding me of what I’d lost.
“You may think it’ll never happen to you. To your kids,” I said softly. “But it does. It happened to mine. It could happen to yours. And that’s why I created this company. I wanted to make it to where no other parent had to go through what I did go—and am still going through.”
“I, uh, I…”
I looked over at the opposing school board member and said, “I’ll do everything I can to make this as affordable as I can for y’all.”
He nodded. “I don’t think we need to vote anymore. When can you start?”
There wasn’t a smile on my face as I headed out the door ten minutes later with my laptop tucked underneath my arm.
I rubbed at the aching spot on my chest and closed my eyes as I moved, wondering if the pain would ever ease.
Or would it always feel like this?
My phone rang, and I pulled it out of my pocket and answered it. “Gunner Penn.”
“Um, Mr. Penn?” a worried sounding voice asked.
I immediately stopped walking. “This is he.”
“This is a nurse at Dallas Memorial. I’m calling because we have a patient by the name of Sutton Sway here…”
It took me eight hours to get home.
It should’ve taken me nine.
I’d driven like a bat out of hell and luck was on my side, because I hadn’t seen a single police officer the entire way.
There was a different ache in my heart as I all but ran into the hospital.
A security guard buzzed me in and told me what room.
I was skidding around a corner when I heard it.
“…sure she’s okay?”
“She’s more than okay,” the doctor said right when I rounded the corner to a curtained-off room in the middle of the emergency room.
“Good.” An older woman looked so relieved at the news. “Oh god.”
My gaze went from the man to the woman before I said, “Mr. and Mrs. Sway?”
Both of Sutton’s parents turned toward the opening in the curtain, but it was Mrs. Sway who was bustling toward me with her arms outstretched long moments later.
“Oh, Gunner,” she said quietly. “I’m so glad that you’re here.”
I hugged her back, my gaze going to the empty bed before I said, “Where is she? Is she okay?”
