Page 125 of Tasting Fire
“And where do you think he’s going to college?”
Realizing she wouldn’t sway the woman, Emmy didn’t spare her a glance, just kept her gaze on Kevin.Stay calm and keep your attention on me.“Kevin, why don’t you tell me?”
“Haywood County Tech.”
“Community college,” Mrs. Southerland spat out. “I work hard to get him into a good school, and he chooses a place where a lobotomized monkey could be admitted. He could’ve been in the running for Division II at the least, but did he want to do what he’d need to do in order to get admitted, much less a scholarship? No, he did not.”
“My parents own a small business here in town,” he said to Emmy, straightening the shoulders that promised to be massive one day. “I want to stay and help them. Besides, community college is cheaper. Maybe I’ll make it to UNC when I’m a junior.”
“That’s totally understandable,” Emmy said. “I would even call it admirable.”
“Admirable? Imbecilic is more like it.” With a swing of her gun, Mrs. Southerland struck Kevin in the temple.
His eyes rolled, and although Emmy tried to catch him, he outweighed her and they both went down.
She extricated herself and leaned over him to check the injury. A blow to the side of the head could be just as deadly as a bullet. Could cause an epidural hematoma.
“No need to play doctor.” Mrs. Southerland got a handful of Emmy’s braid and yanked her up. “I practiced that little move. He’s dead.”
The SWAT operators had quickly done a threat assessment on the band hall and cleared it, so Cash and Stan Jackson entered the high-ceilinged room even though they’d been told the one casualty inside was actually a fatality.
And Cash couldn’t even think the words casualty and fatality without his heart clenching with worry about Emmy.
She’s smart and she’s trained. She can handle this.
Yeah, that didn’t make him feel a damn bit better.
Cash knelt by the band director, a man who’d probably kissed his wife this morning before leaving for his safe teaching job. He wasn’t breathing and there wasn’t much of an airway left. “No need to check ABCs.”
“Fuck me,” Jackson sighed. “At least he was the only one.”
Cash snatched a nearby band uniform hanging over a chair and used the jacket to cover what was left of the teacher’s face before heading for the doors. Just in case one of the kids returned.
Cash’s radio crackled. “White male down in room 165. Tac medic up.”
“If they’re in 165, they’ve made good progress,” Jackson said.
Yeah, but no one had mentioned Emmy and if they’d found her safe, someone would be on the radio spreading the news.
One of the SWAT operators met them outside to escort them to room 165. They all ran down the hall, but kept a close eye out for any movement. Any threat.
Inside the room, most of the students were crouched behind lab tables, but the teacher and two students were hunkered on the floor near a kid wearing a Steele Ridge High letter jacket with football-shaped patches on the sleeve.
Cash had one a helluva lot like it hanging in his closet. One of the few things he hadn’t given Emmy back in the day. “Move back, please.”
They scattered like ants.
“Airway’s clear,” Cash said. “It’s shallow, but he’s breathing.”
“Oh, thank God,” the teacher said in a watery voice. “We thought she…”
“She who?” Cash demanded.
“Karen Southerland.”
Cash’s body suddenly felt cold and numb. Mrs. Southerland was terrorizing the high school.
That was where he’d seen those shoes. The day he’d mowed her lawn, she’d propped her feet on the porch rail and…
