Chapter Twenty Kami
Chapter Twenty
Kami
There was only one thing I could do, and that was to get the hell out of there, fast, leaving behind two people I loved like crazy. But I had to save my brother.
I thought about jumping back down into the kitchen, but one look in Cam’s terrified blue eyes was enough to realize Thiago was right. I had to get my brother out of here. It was my duty to save him. And when I was done, I’d pray that I hadn’t just seen Thiago Di Bianco alive for the last time.
We crawled for a while along the rooftop because I suddenly got scared, imagining there might be a sniper outside.
I couldn’t help but look through one or two of the skylights as we passed them, seeing rooms where fear had spread into every nook and cranny.
The bell rang for the end of first period, making every hair on my body stand on end.
Only forty-five minutes had passed? I felt like we’d been shut inside that living hell all day…
I shuddered. How many kids would never hear that sound again? How many would never again sigh with relief, ready for a break, in search of their friends for some chitchat in the halls? How many people would never again open their lockers to take out their books for the final classes of the day?
These questions were so painful, I didn’t know how I’d ever get over it.
“Kami, look!” Cameron shouted, even though I’d told him to be quiet.
He pointed at the helicopter on its way toward us, and I felt a wave of relief.
I wish I could lie and say I was happy, but all I could think about was the Di Bianco brothers.
Who would save them? Who would bring them out alive?
I would have gladly sacrificed myself—I knew that was what Julian wanted—but all he’d ever done was lie, so why would he agree to let them go now?
I hated him, and I knew he would never let them out alive.
We waved, blinded by the light of the sun, until the shadow of the helicopter was right over us. They must have been waiting for someone to find a way out.
“Over here!” my brother shouted. “Over here!”
Cam squeezed me tight; I could feel his little heart like a hummingbird in his chest, and his joy was almost contagious. The helicopter hovered low over the roof, and a cop lowered a ladder and climbed down.
“Are you all right?” he shouted. “Is there anyone else with you?” He had to yell over the roar of the spinning blades. I shook my head, and I saw the disappointment on his face. He grabbed my brother in his arms and motioned for me to follow him.
We climbed up into the chopper. Cam’s eyes were like saucers as they handed us helmets and earphones and we rose into the air. The school was below us now, the nightmare behind us.
As the policeman looked at me, I started shouting: “What took you so long? Why didn’t you do something?” The sorrow, the guilt, the grief, all of that was gone for now, and what I felt was pure rage.
The cop didn’t answer, but he looked angry, too. We landed on the football field, and he announced, “I need you to come along. You need to talk to the police chief.” From his eyes, I could tell they needed my help. “Anything you can tell us would be useful,” he added.
He guided me onto the road that led to the parking lot, where we saw vans, journalists, desperate family members, people crying, hugging, begging for someone to do something.
There were ambulances, tents, police cars everywhere, a SWAT team with machine guns.
All this, and they couldn’t stop three armed teenagers?
I noticed there were lots of students outside hugging their parents and in tears. I was glad so many had been able to escape. They’d survived! That’s when I realized this was Julian’s revenge aimed at a specific group—me, my friends, and the two loves of my life.
“Over here,” the policeman said.
Cam looked up at me and tried to wriggle free, but there was no way I was letting go of his hand.
People saw us and rushed forward, parents and press included.
“Are there survivors?”
“Is Emily alive? Emily Davidson, is she alive?”
“Have you seen Harry? My son, Harry?”
“How did you get out?”
They were scaring my brother, who held on to me tight as the cop guided us into the tent.
It was all so fast. I was surrounded by police now, and I wanted to run, not talk. And what was I going to tell them?
“What’s your name? Are you wounded?” a woman in a suit asked me, approaching us calmly with a smile on her face.
My brother answered for us. “I’m Cameron, and this is my sister, Kami.”
The woman smiled at him, but then looked at me with worry. “Cameron, do you mind if your sister and I talk while my friend takes you to the ambulance to look you over?”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“I know. You’re a brave little boy. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Cam, wait for me in the ambulance,” I said. “I’ll be there in just a second.”
“I want Mom,” he cried.
The cop who had rescued us from the roof stepped forward and kneeled down. “Come with me, Cam, and we’ll get your mom on the phone, sound good?”
My brother looked at me, I nodded, and the cop took his hand and led him away. I wanted to run after him; I couldn’t lose sight of him again, but I knew they needed me to tell them everything I knew about the situation.
“You need to go in,” I said, staring the woman in the eyes. “Now.”
She tried to get me to sit down, but I refused. “What are you waiting for?” I screamed at the whole group, who were all staring at me, dumbfounded.
“We’ve been told there are hostages. If we go in now, we’ll put more lives at risk. Our protocol—”
“Fuck your protocol! They’ll kill everyone! My classmates, my best friend—people are getting shot!”
My voice cracked, and I stumbled. My legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.
“It’s going to be all right,” the woman said, trying to calm me down.
“You don’t understand!” I screamed. “They don’t care about anyone! They’ll kill every person in there if you don’t go in now!”
“How many shooters are there?”
“Three,” I answered.
By the shocked look on her face, I could tell they had literally no idea what was going on inside. “Tell Montgomery what she just said,” she ordered one of her colleagues. Then, addressing me, she went on, “I need you to tell me everything. Everything you’ve seen, everything you know.”
And I did. I told her Julian was behind this, and he’d implicated his sister.
That Jules had a website where other deranged psychos like him could connect.
I told her what had happened a few weeks ago, how we’d figured out he was pretending to be someone completely different, how he was obsessed with me, how they’d found his room full of photos and videos of me and my stuff, and how no one had done anything.
I told her he had disappeared, and then we’d seen him the night of the basketball game.
I told her about his announcement over the intercom from the principal’s office, addressing the students and reading out the list of people he wanted dead.
I gave her details of things I’d seen with my own eyes, boys and girls who’d been shot at the hands of those bastards.
I said they had tricked my little brother into locking the doors to the gym and cafeteria and how Thiago had broken a skylight to set us free.
I told her my best friend was likely dead. I told her I was the one he wanted.
The captain listened to everything I had to say, without interrupting. I added, “If you don’t go in now, there won’t be anybody left to save.”
The woman stared me in the eyes for a few seconds, then turned to her team and said, “To hell with protocol. We’re going in.”
And that was when the insanity began. Everyone was in motion, while the woman got into an argument with a big-bellied man in a suit jacket. I tried to hear what they were saying.
“You can’t—” he told her.
Before he finished the phrase, she said, “The hell I can’t.” Then she hurried back over and asked, “Where exactly did you say your friends were?”
With all the hope I could muster, I told her, “They’re in the principal’s office. Julian’s there, too, I’m sure of it. He has Taylor with him. He’s waiting for me to show up.”
She nodded, and I heard commotion outside the police tent. It was my mother and Ms. Di Bianco struggling to get in.
“Mom!” I shouted.
I ran to her the way I used to when I was a little girl, when she’d wait for me outside daycare and the sight of her would fill me with joy because I knew it was time for us to go home for my after-school snack.
She hugged me, and I buried my head in her arms, and I cried—finally letting out the tears the way I’d needed to all day.
“Kamila, where’s your brother?” she asked, terrified. “Where is Cameron?”
“He’s fine. The medics wanted to check him over, but he’s OK. He doesn’t have a scratch on him.”
She was relieved, and from the way she was holding me, I could tell she’d just had a brush with the worst fear of her life. She had looked directly into hell, and at the last minute, she’d been released from it.
“My little girl,” she said. “It’s gonna be OK.”
“Kamila, where are my boys? Where are they?” cried Ms. Di Bianco.
Eyes full of tears, I confessed: “They’re inside. Thiago got my brother and me out, but he wouldn’t come with us, he said he had to find Taylor.”
“Oh God,” she moaned, covering her mouth to muffle her sobs.
I looked over at the captain, who had been watching the scene in silence. She was looking at Ms. Di Bianco, and once she had our attention, she spoke: “Ma’am, I promise you, I’ll do everything possible to get your boys out of there alive.”
And unlikely as it seems, I believed her.
I had to.
My mother hugged me tight, and just as we started out to find Cam, a cop sprinted inside the tent.
“Someone else has escaped through the roof, Captain,” he told the woman who had just promised me the impossible.
Nervous, but with a glimmer of hope, I watched as Mrs. Di Bianco asked desperately, “Do you know who it is?”
“No, ma’am, we’ll find out soon enough.”
I wanted to run out and discover for myself that Thiago had made it out safely, that he’d managed to come after us.
But instead, I looked to the tent door and prayed in silence.
Please God, let it be him.
Please.