Page 126 of Tasting Fire
“Did she have anyone with her?” he asked.
“Another woman,” the teacher said. “But it sounded like they were arguing. Suddenly, Mrs. Southerland hit Kevin in the head with her gun. The way he dropped to the floor, I thought…”
Another SWAT operator eased open the door and said, “We need a medic. One of ours was knocked in the head with a cast iron skillet in the cooking lab. Those kids went on the attack, not realizing we were the good guys.”
“I’ll take it,” Jackson said.
Cash nodded and continued to assess his patient. Good news was that he hadn’t been shot, but the goose egg on his temple was proof that Mrs. Southerland was serious about killing people.
They could be looking at a possible brain bleed. He said into his radio, “White male in classroom 165 is alive and breathing, but he needs a neuro assessment ASAP. Requesting immediate transport.”
Not knowing where Emmy was, or if she was even alive, was killing Cash. He wanted to jump up and run down the hallway calling out her name. But his job—and his professional ethics—required that he stay right here for now. He waved the SWAT operator back out the door. “I’ll stay with him until transport arrives, unless something more critical comes up.”
Mrs. Southerland dragged Emmy into another classroom farther down the hallway. Unfortunately, the students and teacher in this one weren’t as well sheltered as those in the science lab. Not that shelter had done Kevin much good.
This group was huddled in a corner behind the teacher’s desk. On the right edge of the group, the teacher stood and faced Mrs. Southerland. “Karen, what in God’s name are you doing?”
Mrs. Southerland’s face screwed up with a bitterness and hatred that triggered an even colder fear inside Emmy’s body. Somehow, this woman had decided that everyone around her needed to be punished for their transgressions against her. “Thinning the herd.”
“Stop while you can, Karen,” the woman pleaded. “Turn around and leave—”
“Or what?” Mrs. Southerland yelled, small droplets of saliva gathering at the corners of the mouth. “I’ll get locked up in some cell or worse, a loony bin? I don’t think so. I’m the only person in this whole damn school who has a lick of sense. Trying to help these ungrateful little shits better themselves, but do they want any part of my plans? No, they do not. Idiots, all of you!” By the final word, Mrs. Southerland’s voice hit a glass-shattering pitch.
“They’re just kids—” The teacher tried again.
“Shut up or I’ll do to you what I did to Glen Healey,” Mrs. Southerland told the teacher.
The teacher shot Emmy an appalled look, and Emmy shook her head with the messageyou don’t want to know.
“So Emmy”—Mrs. Southerland turned in a circle, her arms flying out from her sides—“who do you think we should kill in this room?”
“Are you part of this?” the teacher demanded of Emmy.
“Not like you think.”
“Oh, she’s not just a part of it,” Mrs. Southerland said. “She’s the entire reason for it.”
“Don’t antagonize her anymore,” Emmy told the teacher. “Go back to your students.”
Mrs. Southerland waved her gun with a carelessness that made Emmy’s belly feel like a quivering cup of pudding. “How about CeeCee over there? She’s one of those who’s decided that staying close to her boyfriend is more important than a good education. If she’s lucky, she’ll actually get a crappy job before she gets herself knocked up. That’s one thing I can say for you, Emmy, you avoided popping a bun in your oven. Even though I’m sure Cash would’ve been happy to help.”
Emmy refused to think about the conversation she and Cash had shared in his greenhouse. She would get out of this and live to talk buns and ovens with him another day.
She positioned herself between Mrs. Southerland and the others in the room. “You don’t want CeeCee. You want me. If you leave these innocent kids alone, I’ll go with you. We can walk outside, get in your car, whatever you want.”
“You’d willingly walk to your own death?”
She’d told Cash she wasn’t leaving. That nothing and no one would pull them apart. But to save this many people, damn right she would walk out of this school with a crazy woman. Because what Mrs. Southerland didn’t seem to realize was that the SWAT team was already in the building. Emmy had heard the shuffle of feet in the hallway. Which meant the TMT would be able to advance right behind them.
And that meant almost everyone could make it out alive. The band director couldn’t be saved, but Kevin Waller still had a chance. Emmy had spotted a pulse in the boy’s throat.
If she could lure Mrs. Southerland away from all these vulnerable people, Cash and the others would take care of them.
So if she had to risk herself to save everyone else in this school by walking out of here with Karen Southerland, she would do it. “Absolutely. We can go out the doors near the gym. The ones that open toward the trees behind the school. It’s either them or me,” she said to Mrs. Southerland. “And I’m worth a hundred of these students to you.”
