HELPLESS, TAD WATCHED Rashid kneeling on the desk, looming above Kaitlin and breathing hard. Sweating. As if he’d been on the field, running wind sprints. But instead of dashing up and down a field, Rashid had saved a life.
He hadn’t freaked out. He’d just taken charge and done what needed to be done.
The guy had saved a life after Tad had basically accused him of causing the bombing.
All because of a shaved beard and the 911 call Rashid lied about.
“. . . communication with authorities has threatened additional explosions if demands aren’t met. Meanwhile, police dogs and a bomb robot are currently sweeping the areas around the entrance points for explosive devices while firefighters continue to battle the blaze on the east and south sides of the school. Of the three firefighters caught in the fourth explosion, two are in critical but stable condition while the other—”
“Thanks.” Z put a hand on Rashid’s shoulder. “I owe you.”
Rashid shook his head and tried to step away from Z, but Z held on to his shoulder as Rashid insisted, “You owe me nothing. I only did what anyone would do.”
“I couldn’t do what you did.” Frankie stepped in between Rashid and Z. “You’re a serious hero, man. Where did you learn to do that? Because it didn’t look anything like what they do on TV.”
“My father.” Rashid reached for a bottle of water and poured a little on a paper towel. He wiped his face with it as he looked past Frankie to where Kaitlin was breathing—not strong, but breathing. “My father is a doctor.”
“Well, that explains it.” Frankie slapped Rashid on the arm and added, “It’s good we have someone who knows what to do if something bad happens.”
Tad rolled his eyes and laughed. Leave it to Frankie to make people laugh even when there was nothing to laugh about. The bad just kept getting worse. Frankie not talking to him. The explosions. The fire. Being trapped in here with everyone hoping they didn’t die. And if it weren’t for Rashid spotting the bomb in the locker and telling Tad to run in the other direction, Tad might not be around to experience the bad at all.
“. . . seven students are known to be trapped on the second floor. Of those, one is the daughter of Senator Sanford, who was in his office working on gaining additional support for his Safety Through Education bill when he learned of today’s events. The senator, his wife, and several of his staff members are currently holding vigil outside with members of the other families who have loved ones trapped inside the school.”
Frankie walked toward Diana. “Do you think the senator will be able to light a fire under them and get people in here to save us?”
“He’ll try to make people pay attention.” Diana looked away, toward the corner of the room.
“Is that the best you can do?” Z asked. “Your father is going to try?”
“What do you want me to say?” Diana shot back. “Yes. If the FBI and police insist on keeping the firefighters back, he’ll talk to reporters and put pressure on them that way. The media has power. They don’t just report news. The issues they select to put on the air shape how people think. Perception is everything in this world. And now that the news stations have our names, they’ll be flashing photographs of all of us and talking to our families to add the human element to the story. The media will make people care. And when people care, action is actually taken.”
“Which is good,” Frankie said.
Tad coughed and glanced down. Wisps of smoke were coming under the door. They all had to get out of here soon.
“Is it good for us, or for her father and his career?” Z asked. “He’s the one who’s talking to the cameras right now, acting all humane and probably telling everyone that if his law was passed, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen. Pretty great deal for him. Don’t you think, Princess? If you died, you’d probably guarantee his election to the White House.”
“Screw you,” Diana spat.
“Screw me? Why don’t you—”
“Hey, everyone,” Tad interrupted. “It’s time to get a grip. Yes, this sucks, and I think we can all agree that Diana’s father’s law sucks too, but we need to focus. Until they let the firefighters come in, we’re on our own. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not be in this place if another bomb goes off. So maybe we should try to figure out how to escape instead of pointing fingers and screaming at each other.”
Although how they were going to do that with the things Tad was looking at was beyond him. There were several eight-foot extension cords like the one in his hands, along with a small stepladder, several sizes of PVC pipes, twine, some small rolls of wire, a box of Bunsen burners, another box with rags, and a whole lot of other long sticks, glass tubes, laminated posters, and various odds and ends.
“Tad’s right,” Rashid said quietly. “Kaitlin needs a doctor. We have to find a way to build a stretcher or something that can lower her to the ground.”
“We could break apart one of these tables,” Z said, getting down on his hands and knees and looking underneath one of the black high-top desks.
“That might work,” Tad said, walking over to examine the table with Z. The chemistry desks had withstood a bunch of explosions, and they were still standing. As far as Tad was concerned, they couldn’t get much sturdier than that.
“Help me flip this over,” Z said, scrambling to his feet. “If we can break off the legs, we can use the top as a stretcher.”
Tad grabbed one end as Z grabbed the other and grunted as they tipped the thing over.
“The table won’t work,” Rashid said.
“Why the hell not?” Z glared at him. “A stretcher has to be sturdy, and this is as sturdy as it comes.”
“It’ll never get through the window.” Rashid didn’t raise his voice in response to Z’s anger as he explained, “And even if it could get through with Kaitlin on it, we don’t have ropes strong enough to lower it to the ground.”
“He’s right,” Frankie said. He was standing next to Cas with his hand on her shoulder. “We’ll just have to come up with another plan.”
“. . . looks like the blaze to the south of the building is coming under control . . .”
“We’ll figure something out,” Rashid told Z. “I promise.”
Z went back to the center of the room to rummage through the stuff with Tad. Frankie and Cas joined them as Rashid hurried back toward Kaitlin. Sympathy stormed in his eyes as he felt for a pulse and tried to get her to drink.
They also needed rope, but at this point Tad didn’t see how anything they’d found could be used to make a stretcher. The PVC pipes were obviously the strongest material they had, but as Cas and Frankie tried to come up with a way to use them with other things like the wire or balsa wood, Z was quick to point out the flaws. There was no way to attach them that would hold Kaitlin’s weight.
Frustrated, Tad walked over to stand next to Rashid. “There’s not enough here we can use.”
Rashid nodded. “If we think it’s safe, we could try Mr. Lott’s room. The Robotics Club stores all sorts of things in there.”
“That might be a good idea.” It was. Once again, Rashid was smart and helpful. It made Tad feel worse about everything that had happened earlier. “I’m really sorry about before.” Tad shoved his hands in his pockets and looked over at Rashid. “I mean it,” Tad continued. “I know I was off, and I should have asked you about the phone call instead of just making assumptions. I was scared and I was stupid, and I would totally understand if you don’t forgive me. Hell, I don’t know if I’d forgive me.”
“I called my sister,” Rashid said quietly.
“Huh?”
“The call I made.” Rashid sighed. “I thought I was going to die, and I wanted to talk to my sister so she wouldn’t make the same mistakes I have.”
And Tad thought he couldn’t have felt any worse about how he’d behaved.
Rashid frowned. “Is Diana right?” he asked softly. “Will they really show our pictures on television?”
Tad let out the breath he had been holding in. It wasn’t forgiveness, but it was a start.
“Yeah.” He wiped his forehead on his shoulder. “We’re probably all over the Internet. When we get out of here, we’ll be famous. They’ll want to interview Diana because of her father, but everyone is going to want to talk to us, too.” And they’d want to know why he was in the school in the first place instead of partying with the football team.
He looked over at Frankie. Tad wasn’t sure what he would say if he was asked. It would serve Frankie right if he told the truth. Maybe—
“That means everyone will see my face,” Rashid said, pulling Tad’s attention back to him. “First they’ll see all of the pictures, and then they’ll see only me.”
Wait. What? No. “They’re going to show all of our pictures. They’ll see all of us.”
“No,” Rashid snapped. “They won’t.” His eyes were hollow. Fear colored every word as he pointed toward the window. “You know they won’t. You just said it yourself. You know what it feels like to be judged by what you look like and instead of who you are, and you still did it. Everyone out there will do it too.”
Tad wanted to tell Rashid that it wouldn’t go that way. That Tad had been stupid, and no one else would be. But there was no point in lying.
Bombs. Terrorism. Muslim. Three things that always seemed to go together.
“The entire world is going to see my picture, and they’ll judge me just like you did. They’ll judge my family.”
Frankie pushed himself up off the floor. “But you’re not the one who bombed this place.”
“No. I’m not,” Rashid said, looking out the window.
Tad searched for something to say . . . anything. But he had nothing. Just a dull ache.
“The governor has put out a statement asking everyone to pray for the safety of those inside the building as well as the first responders who are fighting the blaze, along with the three who were . . .”
Rashid looked back at them all and let out a bitter laugh.
“What?”
“Do you think the governor or anyone outside will pray for me to get out safely?” He lowered his gaze to meet Tad’s eyes. “Not that it matters. This is my punishment for thinking that being like all of you was the answer.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rashid shrugged. “It was easier when I was younger. At least it seemed like it was. People didn’t automatically think I was Muslim until I had a beard. We’re not supposed to cut it when it grows in; did you know that? My cousins were jealous this summer because the beard made me look older. But here, it only seems to make people think about how I am different. Even my friends.”
“That’s why you shaved your beard? To be like everyone else?” Diana asked from her perch near the window in the far corner of the room.
“No.” Rashid looked down at his hands. “I shaved it because I wanted people to see me. I did it here so my family wouldn’t see what I was doing before I was done. The school was letting students take new identification photographs today, and I hoped . . .” Rashid shrugged and shook his head.
For a second, everything was silent. The radio was still crackling, but Tad heard nothing other than Rashid’s words and the pain behind them.
Finally Tad spoke. “You thought if you looked like everyone else, people would stop calling you names or looking at you sideways?” He understood that. He should. His life was filled with moments that made him wish he were someone else.
White kids calling him Monkey Man or Afro Boy—even though he kept his hair short.
When he was little, having his friends tell him their parents called him Half-Breed. Then the cleverer ones shouting “Zebra!”
People telling him that he couldn’t understand what it was really like to be black because his daddy was white. He didn’t count as black. He certainly didn’t count as white. And when he told his family he was gay, he realized that no matter how much they might try to understand him, he’d never be the same as they were. He’d always be the odd man out who had to work to fit in.
And then Frankie made him feel that who he was was okay, before snatching that away.
Tad’s heart beat faster. His palms sweated even more as the memory of those moments twisted in his gut.
“Boo-freakin’-hoo,” Z said, dropping a box of stuff onto the floor. Kaitlin jerked in her sleep, and Rashid moved to her side as Z said, “You shaved—something a zillion guys do every day—and your family is going to hate your makeover. Sorry, but I’m not sorry. At least you have a family to give a crap, so how about we stop telling sob stories and figure out how we’re going to get Kaitlin to the paramedics and the rest of us out of this place?”
Z crossed the room to the storage closet. He disappeared inside, and Tad said, “I think most of us in this room can understand what you’re dealing with.”
Cas nodded.
“Do you think anyone would assume any of you could be a killer because of how you look or how you pray?” Rashid asked.
“No, but I’ve had people make assumptions about me because I’m black.” Tad swallowed hard, looked at Frankie, and said, “And also because I’m gay.” Now that he’d admitted it to someone outside his family, it was like a balloon inflated inside him, waiting to be popped.
“You’re gay?” Diana asked from the corner.
He nodded, never taking his eyes off Frankie. “Yeah. News flash. Macho football players can be gay.”
“How about we do true confessions later and worry about escaping now?” Frankie said, grabbing a couple of extension cords off the ground. Tad had come to the school today to force Frankie to face him and admit the truth. To admit that they had been more than friends and to tape that admission. He hadn’t planned on showing the tape to anyone. He just wanted proof that he hadn’t fooled himself and to let Frankie know eventually that it existed. Then Frankie would finally understand what it was like to have someone twist you up inside and make you worry about who you were and whether there was something wrong with you. Tad had earned that. He’d earned having the upper hand for once.
And maybe he would have used it.
Tad swallowed hard at that thought. He told himself he’d never wanted to use the tape, but he’d been angry and tired and maybe he’d wanted to make the tape because he didn’t want Frankie to get a pass the way he always did. The way Tad never could.
Knowing that he’d been angry enough to think that way sucked, but it didn’t make it any less true. And if he wanted Frankie to face it all, now was the time. Frankie could deny they had kissed. He could deny all the late-night phone calls, but everyone in the room would still hear what Tad said.
The words sprang to Tad’s lips, but as he looked around, he realized he didn’t want to talk about Frankie and his choices. Frankie wasn’t important.
So instead, Tad said, “If we think it’s safe enough, Rashid said there might be some things we can use in Mr. Lott’s room.”
Rashid nodded. “I can go. I’m in Robotics Club. I know where everything is kept.”
“What about the smoke?” Cas asked.
Rashid turned to her. “I can hold a piece of wet paper towel over my mouth. I won’t be gone long.”
“I’ll go with you,” Tad offered.
“You don’t trust me to go on my own?”
“Of course I trust you,” he shot back. “But I was in that room during the first explosion, and I know where the floor is cracked. I can help.”
He waited to see if Rashid turned him down.
He didn’t. “Wet a paper towel for each of us.” Tad reached for the water bottle next to Kaitlin as Rashid added, “You guys should close the door behind us to keep the smoke out until we come back.”
“Ready?” Tad asked, handing one of the wet paper towels to Rashid.
“As ready as I’m going to be,” Rashid answered, wrapping the edge of his shirt around the handle on the door, turning it, and pushing it open. “Let’s go.”
They stumbled through the smoke and debris of the hallway to Mr. Lott’s classroom. Despite breathing through the paper towel, Tad tasted char and smoke. Mr. Rizzo still lay on the floor. Unmoving. Tad pressed the wet paper towel tighter to his mouth to keep from throwing up as he stepped over the body and slipped into the room.
“Who was the friend you were going to meet today?” Rashid questioned as he hurried toward the boxes in the corner of the room.
“Does it matter?” Tad asked.
Rashid looked at him for several long seconds through the haze of dark gray smoke. Finally he said, “No, it doesn’t. Not to me.”