Page 122 of Tasting Fire
Maybe if she could edge out of Mrs. Southerland’s line of sight, she might be able to get behind her and…
“Sweetheart, don’t even think about it. You may have done well on the SAT, but I’m far smarter and better prepared,” Mrs. Southerland said cheerfully and gestured to the door with the barrel of her gun. “Now, get inside.”
Emmy tried just opening the door a crack and poking her head in to warn those inside, but Mrs. Southerland pushed her from behind and she stumbled into the room.
“Everyone get down,” Emmy shouted. “Hide if you can.”
Of course, the kids—many of them with braces-filled mouths—just stood there staring at her with who-the-fuck-are-you stares. Then a girl squealed. “OMG. There’s a gun. Like, get down.”
Most of the students dove for cover as did the middle-aged band director, but one boy, his trumpet under his arm, stayed in plain sight and held up his phone to video the event. For crap’s sake, he was probably Snapchatting the whole thing.
Next time Emmy stepped inside this high school, she wouldn’t be coming for career day. She’d be facilitating an active shooter drill.
She made frantic shooing motions at the boy. When he peeked up over the phone, she pantomimed the universal thumb to ear pinky to mouth gesture and mouthed911.
“Everyone drop your phones and push them to the middle of the room,” Mrs. Southerland said and pointed at the trumpet boy. “You first, fatty.” Then she turned to Emmy and asked, “Which one?”
“Which one, what?”
“Which one should I kill?”
“How about none of them?”
Mrs. Southerland laughed, and it was the kind of sound that electrified hair and weakened the bladder. “Oh no, that is not the plan. And I know how much you like to stay on plan, Emmy McKay.”
“My plan doesn’t include anyone in this room dying.”
“Good thing we’re going by mine, then.” Mrs. Southerland’s attention swung to the left where the band director had been belly-crawling his way to what looked like an office. He looked up and froze. “He’ll have to do.”
One second he was simply a middle-aged man who was losing his hair. The next, he was losing one side of his head.
Emmy didn’t have to hold two fingers to his pulse to know he was dead. Her stomach pitched at the horror of it.
She’d like to believe someone had heard the gunshot, but this room was designed to keep in sound.
“Pick them up,” Mrs. Southerland yelled at Emmy over the sound of students calling out and crying.
“What?”
“The phones.” She gestured erratically with the gun. “Pick them up and lock them all in the office. And don’t make any heroic SWAT moves because I’ll have this gun pointed at a student’s head the whole time.”
Emmy walked slowly—anything to buy more time—to the center of the room, bent over, and scooped phones up in her arms. She deliberately let two fall to the floor with a clatter to cover the noise of her kicking one back to the video boy.
Please be paying attention, kid.
The boy caught the phone and slid it under his chest with a barely perceptible nod.
Okay, good. She’d accomplished something. How the boy would call the police without Mrs. Southerland hearing, she didn’t know.
Please be smart, kid.
“Stop dilly-dallying,” Mrs. Southerland said. “Get those phones in the office now.”
“It’s hard to keep a hold on all of them. If you’ll let me grab a backpack—”
“Use the pockets of your lab jacket.”
Why hadn’t she thought of that? Probably because she was trying to fumble the phones.
