And then I see her getting off the bus.
It’s the girl. The girl with the gun.
Thirty-Six
Her black hat is pulled down over her eyes, and she looks like a guy. She’s alone. I think. She’s wearing dark-wash jeans and a black jacket, and she’s gripping a little backpack so hard her knuckles are white. And on the backpack is a button with a picture of a rainbow with a line through it. My heart thunks around in my chest and I almost can’t breathe. So it is the GSA they’re after? I’m so confused.
The bus driver inches forward and cranes his neck at me. I shake my head and wave him off. And after a second, I follow the girl. I let her get a few dozen feet ahead of me and inch my phone from my pocket. I dial Sawyer’s number, but nothing happens. No signal. I try him again, and then I look at the phone battery. It’s not dead. But there’s a little notice in the corner in the tiniest print that says “minutes used: 250.”
“Shit,” I mutter. And then it really hits me. My prepaid minutes are used up. I have no phone. No wonder neither of the boys has called me.
I have no phone.
I look up to make sure the girl is still in sight. At the corner where we’d turn to go to U of C, she stops and waits for traffic. I pretend to look in a shopwindow, and then when the light changes I begin to follow again. And I don’t know what I’m going to do. I don’t know what she’s going to do. For all I know, she’s just doing one more stakeout of the campus in preparation for next week. But the way she’s gripping that little bag tells me otherwise.
Thankfully the rain keeps her from looking around. She scurries along, head down, and when we cross a street, she’s joined by the blond guy who she was with the other day. They barely say two words to each other, and then they walk together but not very closely. And I realize this is really it.
My hand finds my phone again and I try a few more times in case I’m wrong and the minutes haven’t expired, but it’s futile. My phone is useless. I want to run ahead, try to find Sawyer, but I don’t want them to see me, and I don’t want to lose track of them. I follow the two into the quad as the rain stops, the only drops now coming from the trees.
“Where are you?” I mutter. The quad is huge, and there are a lot of buildings. And the campus is alive again with students running through the rain, transporting their suitcases, bags, and backpacks back to their dorms. I want to go toward the hall we determined was the music building, but the two people in black go to the opposite corner of the quad toward the Hitchcock Hall dorm. I strain my eyes looking for Sawyer, but I don’t see him anywhere.
My chest is tight. I hear a distant church bell chiming the hour as we near Hitchcock Hall. Eight bells. The two in black stop at the side of the big wooden door and stare at something as people dash in and out of the building. The guy looks panicked for a moment, but the girl shakes her head slightly and says something. I stay by the road, trying to look like I’m waiting for someone, trying to hide that I’m praying my brains out to whoever will listen that Sawyer is okay.
The two stand there whispering for a minute, and then they come back toward me. I freeze, and then I pull a notebook from my backpack and rip a page out. I fumble for a pen and keep my head down as they pass by me, pretending to write things down. And then I walk as fast as I can to the Hitchcock door to see what they were looking at.
It’s the Gay-Straight Alliance flyer. But the green room meeting place is crossed out and instead it says, “moved to Goodspeed 4th Fl!!”
The blood pulses in my ears. That’s the music building. And suddenly everything I can remember from Sawyer’s vision is coming together and making sense. It’s all happening right now, and Sawyer doesn’t know. I look at the torn sheet of notebook paper in my hand, write, “Call 911—Goodspeed 4th Fl!” and take off after the shooters at full speed, shoving my paper into the hands of a surprised student as he enters the dorm.
I race across the quad to Goodspeed, splashing through puddles, soaking wet, watching the shooters enter the music hall. When I reach the door I dash up the stairs to the fourth floor, trying to look casual, as others move through the short hallways, some carrying backpacks or musical instrument cases. And I don’t even care about the massive deaths right now. All I can think of is that I need to find Sawyer and get him out of here. We’re not ready. We can’t do this. We need to bail. Just call the cops, get the hell out of the way, and hope for the best.
A few students wander the fourth floor, some of them peering at closed office doors or into classrooms, and I’m guessing they are looking for the same room I am. And then I spy the cute guy with the glasses who handed us the flyer yesterday. He’s down the hallway, standing in front of an open door, frowning at his watch. “Come on, people,” he says.
He takes a look at my wet clothes and hair. “Now that’s dedication,” he says with a grin. “Hey—I remember you. Your boyfriend is inside.”
My eyes bug out. “I—he—what?”
His kind eyes crinkle. “Oops. Did I get that wrong? I thought you were holding hands the other day. I’m sorry.”
“No, I mean . . . never mind. Thanks.” I push past him into the room and look around, spying the two shooters immediately at the front table. Sitting at the table behind them is Sawyer, whose normally olive complexion is alabaster now. He stares at me. I walk in like I don’t know him and go to the window.
A minute later, he’s next to me. “What happened?” he whispers.