“Better than ending yours.” We walked down the dark hallway and up a flight of stairs, looking for a windowless room where we could hide out in peace. We passed through the pitch-black main hallway, running our hands along a wall of lockers to guide us. We turned left at a small dark corridor, and John pushed open the first door on the right. He flipped on the lights to an office that must have belonged to the guidance counselor. “Now, how’s this?” It was equipped with a long sofa, bean bag chairs, and a mini fridge—all the things that guidance counselors deem necessary to get kids to spill their guts.
I was beyond tired and starving. I headed for the fridge and found four juice boxes, a bottle of water, and a banana. I helped myself to all of it. Hell, we’d already committed major vandalism—why not add a little petty theft?
“I’m too tired to eat.” John was taking the back cushions off the sofa to make more room.
“Where am I going to sleep? I can’t lie down on a bean bag . . .” I was chugging juice boxes at this point and wiped my mouth with the back of my arm.
He lay down and patted the spot next to him. “There’s plenty of room for both of us. Just imagine we have our air mattresses pushed together.” These sound like mixed signals, right? But I’d been burned by false hope before, and frankly I was feeling a little too tired, scared, and hungry to pucker up, anyway.
I lay down, back to him, spoon style, and said, “This is fine.”
“Good.” He put his arm around me, not romantically but protectively, like he was afraid I might roll off the couch in my sleep. So I let myself fall asleep in his arms, heart rate normal and unaware of whether my breath stank or not. There was no romance forthcoming. There’s such power in letting something go.
There’s nothing worse than getting woken up abruptly from a really good dream. Especially if you wake up in the arms of the world’s dreamiest FBI agent with a gun in your face. I wish I were kidding.
I never heard them come in. I opened my eyes and couldn’t figure out what I was looking at. It was metal and dark, and by the time I focused, I saw three men standing behind the one with the gun. I could feel John’s arm tighten around me.
None of these guys looked like terrorists, which must be why I had a hard time getting my head around what was happening. They looked like a bunch of guys you’d see at the supermarket or at a movie. Their expressions weren’t particularly menacing; they weren’t wearing
THINK GREEN
T-shirts or carrying reusable bags. I could be wrong, but I think one of them might have been in a pair of Seven jeans.
The guy in charge had a long face and goatee and was speaking to John. “I’m not going to kill anyone in here. We’re taking you outside. Leave your stuff.”
John didn’t move but held me even tighter. “She knows nothing. Take the diaper bag—that’s what you need.”
The guy to his left didn’t seem to understand. “Why would we want the bag?” It was becoming obvious that the diaper bag theory was a figment of my imagination; they knew nothing about it. I’d set us out on a wild-goose chase to retrieve a bag full of nothing and was going to return home in a body bag full of me. Nice going, brainiac.
John let the diaper bag discussion go. “She can’t hurt you; she can’t identify anyone. I saw him. Let her go, and you can take me.”
Longface said, “Get up.” John stood up and put his arm securely around my waist. They frisked us both and took his gun, my last hope.
Longface reached out and took my face in his hands. He ran his fingers from my hairline, past my cheeks, and down to my neck. He rested his hands on my shoulders heavily and stared into my eyes with a hatred that I’d never seen before. And with as much hate, he smiled. I want to say that my blood ran cold with terror, but it was more like my blood stopped running at all. I was stone. All I could feel was the weight of John’s hand still around my waist.
The boss finally spoke. “No, I think we’ll do this my way. We’re going to take you outside and kill you. And the girl, we’ll take her with us. Won’t that be fun?” He was smiling at me still, stroking my face. My mind raced through all the hideous things that were going to happen to me, and then settled on the hand on my waist. He was still here, I told myself. Who was I kidding?
Another one of the henchman approached John and placed a gun to his forehead. He grabbed him by the arm and dragged him away from me, toward the door. John looked back at me with a stare, as if he were trying to tell me something.
They marched us out of the office, barefoot, back down the long dark hallway. I walked behind Longface and in front of two others. John was to my right, followed by the guy who now had a gun to his back. It was dark in the hallway, but not so dark that I couldn’t see John next to me staring straight ahead. I wondered how long until we got to where they would shoot him. I wondered how long they would keep me before they killed me too. I wondered what the rest of my life would have been like. Silently, I started to cry.
At the end of the hallway, we came to a set of double doors. The two guys behind me held them open for us and led us onto a walkway to what must have been a more modern addition to the school. It was a brick path lined with glass walls on either side that let the daylight stream in. The light burned my eyes at first, and I wondered what time it was. Looking down, I could see a track in the distance on one side and a baseball field on the other.
Out of nowhere I heard an explosive crash. My first thought was that I’d been shot, but I felt nothing but panic. The glass wall to my left had shattered and was raining tiny shards onto the grass below. While the glass was still falling, I was attacked from the back and propelled out the now-broken window. I landed behind a hedge with John flat on top of me and blood pouring from my arm. Without speaking, John pulled me to my feet and led me around the length of the hedge toward the back of the school. They had to be ten seconds behind us if they were going to jump, eighty seconds if they were going to take the stairs. John had one hand firmly around my good arm and a tiny gun that he must have had hidden (I don’t even want to ask where, eeew!) in the other.
We raced silently around the perimeter of the school, our backs to the building. There was a house to the left of the school with a low fence that we could easily hop. I motioned to the plastic playhouse in the yard, a favorite childhood hiding place that might really come in handy now. John shook his head and mouthed:
Too dangerous.
Of course, John was still expecting a shootout and was trying to keep me away from innocent bystanders.
We backed around to the far side of the school and came to a fenced-in garden courtyard. I peered through the iron bars and could see a huge vegetable garden in its center, with rows of plants marked with handmade signs indicating what was growing there. Kale, spinach, Swiss chard. All the stuff middle school students like to eat. John tried the gate, but it was locked. Barbed wire topped the fence, presumably to keep kale-crazed kids from ravaging the garden, but now prohibiting us from climbing over to safety. As I walked along the fence, my right foot slipped into a hole and I fell to the ground. John motioned to me to
shhh.
(My hero. Not.) As I got up, I examined the muddy hole that I’d fallen into. A large hedgehog or raccoon must have dug under the fence for a snack. With a few more kicks of my bare foot, I carved out a space large enough to climb through. I motioned to John from the inside of the garden to climb under too. He dug it a little deeper and slid under. We repaired the hole with dirt from the tomato plants and silently walked to the only walled side of the garden. A large tarp lay on the ground next to the gardening equipment. We lay down and quickly pulled it up over us. We were either completely hidden or completely trapped, depending on how you look at it.
The silence was broken by the sound of steps on the wood chips surrounding the track. They were approaching the back of the school, moving toward the garden. John and I were completely still, pressed against the ground. My clothes were soaked from my muddy trip under the gate, and I was freezing. The stench that surrounded me suggested that the tarp over my face had been previously used either to transport fertilizer or as toilet paper. It was the least of my problems as I pressed my eyes shut and waited for the sound of gunfire. The footsteps were close now, and I heard the rattle of the iron gate. John reached a few inches over and grabbed my hand. We lay there like that for hours—okay, maybe a minute—until we heard their footsteps retreat back to the track.
We did not speak. After about ten minutes, John pulled me close to him and held me close. “It’s okay,” he whispered. I took this as my permission to start to sob. I had been minutes away from being tortured by terrorists; John had been that close to death. He was brushing my hair from my face. “It’s okay now. Shhh. Let’s just lay here for a few more minutes. Shhh. Where are you hurt?”
I stopped crying and used my good arm to wipe up my puddle of a face. After what he’d just done for me, I didn’t need to torture John with my tears. “I think I landed on a sprinkler head or a rock or something. My arm is cut, same arm I landed on when you threw me out of the cab. What’s with you and tossing me into harm’s way? Some bodyguard.”
He laughed and hugged me again. “Let’s wait here for a little bit, just to be sure they are gone. Then we’ll get out of here and get somewhere safe. I’ll take care of your arm.”
As safe as this? I couldn’t wait to see Plan B. “Where are we going now?”
He lifted the tarp a little to let some air in. “You’ll see when we get there; it’s hard to explain.”
At this point I owed my life to John, so there was nothing I could do but trust that he was going to do everything he could to keep me safe. I was probably in shock but knew enough to take full advantage of the fact that he was still holding me and stroking my hair. I looked up at him, and we were nose to nose. “Would you really have gone with them in my place?”
“Yes. My first choice was to get us both out of there. But if someone was going to die, it was going to be me.” He looked away, as if embarrassed by his own chivalry. “I mean, it’s my job.”
“Right. Well, thanks.” I turned away from him and lay on my back. I was stiff on the cold, hard brick, listening for footsteps, and wishing I was wearing socks . . . when it hit me. “What about our stuff?”
“What, our FBI-issued toothbrushes? And that sinister diaper bag that no one seems to want?”
“I was thinking more about my boots.” I looked over at him hopefully, willing him to agree to go back into the school without making me explain why I loved those boots so much.
He laughed at me. “What if we just try to live through the rest of the day, and then I’ll buy you a new pair of boots?”
“Thanks but no thanks. They can’t be replaced.”
“What? Do they have special powers or something?”
“Maybe. Plus, we should get the diaper bag. It may mean nothing, but I’d like to have a closer look at those numbers.”
He ran his hands along his pockets. “I actually think I left my phone in there too. Okay, I’ll go, but I’m leaving you right here. They could have gone back into the building. I can’t risk having you with me.”
But I can’t stand being away from you. Oh, thank God I didn’t say it out loud. “Never mind, it’s not worth it. We can get to your next safe spot without shoes. And maybe we can call the school on Monday to get the diaper bag and your phone back.”
“That might require a little more explaining than I want to do. I’ll go. Promise me you won’t move. Promise.”
“Promise.”
He pulled his arm out from under me and hesitated like he was going to say something. “What?” I asked.
“Nothing. I’ll be right back. Now, seriously, don’t move. If I go in there for your boots and come back to find your feet gone, I’m going to be pissed.”
I smiled at his attempt at levity. “Okay, thanks.” He got up and disappeared behind the kale. It was maybe ten in the morning from the way the light looked. I pulled the tarp up over my head and willed time to speed up. I imagined his every step. He’s gone back under the fence; he’s walked the perimeter of the school; he’s climbed through the broken window. He’s gone down the hall and up the stairs; he’s grabbed the bags; he’s making his way back out. Gunshot. I heard a muffled shot—I was sure of it. It was just one, but it was enough.
I was too panicked to cry. I was lying in John’s arms ten minutes before, ready to get up and go to a safe place, but I’d sent him back in for my boots. And some papers. They were probably coming for me now, and I didn’t even care. I’d just killed him, after everything he’d risked for me. I just lay there like stone in total disbelief, even as I heard the footsteps. Even as they got closer, I didn’t really care. I just stared up at the dark tarp over me and waited for the next gunshot.
The tarp was pulled off of me, all in one motion. I squinted against the sunlight and saw him smiling, holding our bags in one hand and my boots in the other. “What’s wrong with you?”
I sat up and pulled my knees to my forehead. “Are you kidding me? What was that gunshot?”
He knelt down next to me. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t think about you hearing that. I just didn’t want to climb back out the broken window, so I shot the lock on the gym door.”
“Oh.” I reached for my boots but winced at the pain of straightening my bloody arm.
“Let me help you with those.” He took my left boot and started to help me put it on, Prince Charming style, when my phone slid out of the boot onto the tarp. We both stared at it lying there, guilty like a dirty magazine or a bloody knife. He picked it up, shaking his head. “Who’s Olive Grossman and why is she asking if Danny would look good in a white tux? You told me you didn’t have a phone.”
“Olive’s taking Danny to the Senior Prom?!”
“This isn’t
Gossip Girl,
Farrah. This phone could be what nearly got us killed. Ever heard of the Find My iPhone app? It can track your phone to within a three-yard radius.” He was pacing and furiously trying to spring my SIM card out with the tip of his pen. “Jonas Furnis could easily have someone working at AT&T. Or Verizon. Or wherever. You lied to me.”