Chapter 42
WESTON
Moon Ridge Elementary’s gym is packed. It seems like most of the town is here looking at the tri-fold boards that line the rows of tables.
The bleachers are pulled out to give grandparents and little siblings somewhere to sit.
The scents of coffee and cupcake frosting drift in from the cafeteria.
Hyped on sugar and pride, kids bounce between projects and family members.
It almost feels normal.
There’s a fair chance tonight won’t go bad, but we’re ready either way.
We’ve walked the school multiple times over the past few days, mapping the doors, access points, the interior and exterior.
We’ve rehearsed where to stand, how we’ll handle crowd surges, and what we’ll do if smoke cuts the building in half.
Buck planned for this night like he was laying out a battlefield, and we’re ready to fight.
I smile at parents who walk by and pretend I’m not counting heads, tracking doors, and cataloging unfamiliar faces.
Buck’s near the main set of gym doors, dressed in slacks and a button-down that doesn’t hide the radio clipped at his waistband or the watchfulness in his eyes. Elena’s standing near T.J.’s display, smiling as he explains something about his volcano to Mae Whitaker and Ed Winslow.
My chest lightens for half a second as I take in the pink of Elena’s cheeks and the way her hair falls over her shoulders. She wore it loose tonight, and it reminds me of how she’s looked in more intimate moments.
Her laughter carries across the gym, and I’m smiling to myself when my radio crackles in my pocket. Calder’s voice, sharp and urgent, comes through. “Buck, movement east side—”
My whole body goes tight. I turn my head toward the door as Buck does the same thing from across the gym.
Then there’s a loud bang that turns everyone’s heads. It’s deeper and more contained than a gunshot, like a hard punch inside the walls. A second later, the fire alarm screams to life, and someone in the hallway shouts.
A hard, black push of smoke starts pouring in through the doors that lead to the cafeteria.
“Move!” My voice cuts over the alarm. “This way! Everybody out!” I gesture broadly to the gym doors that open directly outside.
Buck is doing the same on his end. “Leave everything! Parents, take your kids and move!”
The crowd jolts from confusion into panic, as adults grab for children, table legs scrape, and displays crash to the floor.
I get to Elena as the crowd begins to surge. She has T.J.’s hand in hers, but the look on her face tells me she’s not ready to abandon her principal role and wants to take responsibility for getting everyone out safely.
“Elena, outside—now.” I put a hand on T.J.’s shoulder and steer them toward the exit while scanning over their heads.
The crowd compresses toward the exterior doors. Some families have made it out, but too many people are still inside.
When a woman goes by, running in the wrong direction, I stop her, but she struggles, her eyes wide and frantic. “My daughter’s in the bathroom!”
“Which one?”
“By the cafeteria.”
Damn it. “Go outside,” I tell her. “We’ll get her.”
I urge both Elena and the woman toward the doors, and they start to argue with me, but I don’t give them room for it. “Go.”
Something in my face must make the point, because Elena nods once and directs both T.J. and the distraught mother toward the exit.
I pivot and run for the hall, where heat hits me before I reach it.
The corridor between the gym and cafeteria is charged with smoke.
One section of the wall is burning hard and low, flames licking up from the baseboard while thick black smoke banks down far too fast. Somebody tossed something nasty into the choke point and let panic do the rest.
Beyond the cafeteria doors, a refreshment table has been knocked over, cupcakes and spilled punch making a slick mess of the floor. Above me, the alarm pulses red through the haze.
There were far fewer people out here than in the gym, and it looks like most may have used the other exit down the hall past the restrooms, but a few people are still here, frantic and confused.
A gunshot cracks from outside, close and unmistakable.
Kozlov isn’t just burning the place, he’s using the evacuation.
“Calder?” I bark into the radio.
His response comes right away. “Two outside on the east side. One down. Second moving.”
Buck’s voice cuts in. “West, you get the civilians out and triage. I’m going after the shooters.”
Another shot rings in the distance along with the sound of broken glass, and I swallow the urge to charge in that direction.
People first. Always.
I pull my shirt collar over my nose, round up the people in the cafeteria, and direct them down the hall toward the doors.
In the restroom, two girls are huddled together, and a third is on the floor by the sinks, coughing and crying.
“It’s okay.” I drop low and reach out to her. “I’ve got you. Everybody with me.”
One of the girls launches at me. I scoop the one on the floor up under my arm and get the others moving with my free hand, steering them out as we stay crouched beneath the thickest layer of smoke.
By the time I get them outside, the parking lot has turned into a scene from hell, with clusters of parents clinging to their terrified kids, fire trucks and police cruisers, and an ambulance pulling in as a disorderly line of cars rushes to pull out.
The alarm is still screaming, smoke is still pumping from the school’s roofline, and there’s blood on the asphalt ten yards from the side of the building.
Not much, but enough, and I hope like hell it’s Kozlov’s or one of his men.
I pass the girls off to a teacher I know and drop to my knees beside a little boy who’s sitting on the curb with his father. The child has a nasty laceration across his forehead and a dazed, unfocused look.
“What’s your name, buddy?”
“Eli.”
“Okay, Eli. I’m Weston. Stay with me.”
I move automatically, checking his pupils, airway, and bleeding as I ask questions. Shifting into EMT mode gives my head something to do besides picture Elena and T.J. in this mess.
I get Eli stabilized, then move to a mother with smoke inhalation, and a woman with a broken ankle. I start building a triage line farther out near the edge of the lot, where the smoke is blowing past instead of over us. Through everything, my eyes keep going back to the school.
When I finally spot Elena, her face streaked with soot, relief hits me so hard my knees nearly go weak.
But T.J. isn’t with her.
I race over, heart pounding. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know!” The terrified edge to her voice hits me hard, straight in the chest. “We heard some first graders might be in the back hall, and I was going—”
I don’t hear the rest. I’m already moving.
The back hall Buck marked on our walkthrough runs past the edge of the gym and down a narrower corridor near the maintenance and custodial rooms.
I hit the side entrance and shove inside. The smoke is thinner here, but the building is hotter. Water is hissing down from the sprinklers in uneven sheets, and somewhere in the distance, metal creaks and glass breaks in a fast cascade.
“T.J.!”
No answer.
I continue further in, and then I hear his voice. “Stay low! Hold onto each other!”
Jesus. I round the corner and see him, soot-streaked, brave as hell, shepherding four tiny kids toward the exit, one of them clinging to his sleeve.
He looks up when he sees me, and the wild flash in his eyes is so painfully Tyler’s, my aching chest nearly splits open.
“The front way’s bad,” he says. “This one goes out behind the dumpster.”
One of the little boys is sobbing so hard he’s hiccupping. Another’s eyes are alarmingly wide.
“You’re all doing a great job,” I tell them. “You’re almost there. Everybody keep holding on.”
T.J. lifts his chin. “I told them to stay low because smoke goes up.”
“You told them right.” I gather the scaredest-looking kid into my arms and keep pace with T.J. to the door, then usher the group outside.
Out in the night air, T.J. barks out a thick cough, and I grip the back of his neck and look him over fast. “You hurt?”
He shakes his head, then sways.
“Gonna get you checked out.” I move the group toward the lot, where a couple of frantic parents rush over and claim their kids. Before the rest of us make it to one of the rescue vehicles, a burst of gunfire pops from the far edge of the school grounds.
Kozlov and his people are still out there.
Buck’s voice comes across the radio, cutting through the chaos. “Movement inside the gym. One of them’s inside.”
My blood turns to ice. This needs to end now.
I steer T.J. toward a cluster of teachers gathering children near the ambulance and catch one of them by the arm. “Keep him here. Do not let him move.”
Then I turn and run back into the school.