The sirens get louder. They must be getting closer. I’m sure now that there is more than one police car.
“Shit!” Dennis sounds panicked. I look out the window. Behind the building, there is a strip of parking spots but no police cars. I hear Rob and Dennis yelling and swearing at each other. There is some scrambling. It sounds like they leave in a hurry.
I unlock the door and open it slowly. As I step out of the bathroom, two police officers enter the apartment with their guns drawn. My arms shoot up. I recognize one of them. He’s Constable Williams — the one who came to my house two days ago about the Facebook threats. I never thought I’d be this happy to see him.
“I thought the name sounded familiar,” he says, lowering his gun. He gestures to the other cop to put his gun away.
“Are you hurt? EMS is downstairs. Need any help getting down?”
I say, “I’m okay. I think I can manage.” Constable Williams radios someone outside and lets them know that we’re heading down.
As we leave the apartment, a couple of people in uniforms carrying tool boxes hurry inside. Outside, the parking strip at the front of the building has grown full. There are four police cruisers and two ambulances. I see Dennis in the back seat of one of the cruisers. Rob is being loaded into one of the ambulances on a folding gurney.
I’m led to the other ambulance. The EMS woman introduces herself — Jill. She asks me what happened. I give her a rundown of the fight, highlighting the kick to my side, being tackled and getting crushed by the 250-pound behemoth. She asks me a bunch of questions — checking for a concussion. There’s another EMS person and two cops watching. I feel like I’m on display. I wish they’d go and do something else.
Jill checks out my side. It’s very red. She asks me to lift my arm. When I do, I feel a sharp pang. There’s pain too when I take a deep breath in, but it’s not as sharp.
“You have a contusion on your ribs,” Jill says. “That’s just a fancy way of saying that they’re bruised. You’re really lucky. It could have been much worse.”
As soon as she says “worse” my parents’ car pulls up. At least I can tell them that there’s nothing wrong with me medically.
Mom runs over to me. I try to remember the last time I saw her run.
She asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I tell her, and she starts to cry. She puts her arms around my neck and pulls me into her. Mom never cries. I struggle to remember the last time I saw her cry too. She gets upset often enough, especially when my dad is mean to her. But she always holds it in. The last time I know she cried was four years ago — when we got word from China that my grandmother had died after a heart attack. My mother hadn’t seen her since our move to Canada. Even then, she stayed in her room for about six straight hours. I heard her weeping quietly through the closed door. Seeing her cry right now, I realize just how worried she must have been. I’m sure that I’m going to pay later for making her feel this way.
She keeps hugging me. The last hug I can remember getting from her was when I was valedictorian for my grade eight class. It wasn’t really a hug then. She just put her arm around my shoulder. I lean into her. “Mom, I’m good. Really.” I look up and my father is now standing with us.
“Maybe you should go to the hospital?” Dad asks. I tell him that the EMS woman said I was okay. He sighs. The only thing showing on his face is relief.
Constable Williams tells us that I have to come into the police station to answer questions and give a statement. I feel dread wash over me as I get in our car. I can already hear them asking me how I could be so stupid. Why I would put myself in such a dangerous situation. All the doors slam shut and Dad pulls away. There is dead silence in the car.
We drive two whole blocks before anyone says anything. Then Mom turns to me from the front passenger seat and asks again if I’m okay. I nod and see my dad peek at me in the rear-view mirror. That’s all that’s said during the entire ten minutes it takes to get to the police station. No questions about whether I was happy to bring them one step closer to their graves with the worry I caused. It seems like forever since I last saw them, when I split from the store. I don’t know what to think.
I get out of the car with Mom. She insists on staying with me. My father goes back to the store. We meet Constable Williams inside and he guides us into an interview room. He tells us that they found a gun and ammunition in Dennis and Rob’s apartment.
“It matches the one from the Facebook post, Emerson,” he explains. “It appears that they’re both former students from MCI. Do you know them?”
“They looked familiar, but I don’t know them,” I answer.
He suggests that they stole my phone and then figured out what school I went to from my social media. “They likely saw it as a chance to screw with the vice principal and one of the teachers. We’ll know more as we complete the investigation.”
Then Constable Williams calls in another officer who is an expert on social-media-related crimes. She gives me some advice on what to do about the Instagram picture. She tells me to go through every social-media account I have. She explains what I have to do to minimize the damage and to maximize security.
Constable Williams tells us that the forensics department will work hard to go through the evidence. If what I’ve told him is true, within a week or two, I’d be done as far as any charges were concerned. “For what it’s worth, Emerson, I believe your story,” he says.
I say that I’m glad it’s finally over. He informs me that it isn’t completely. I will be asked to testify against Dennis and Rob. For that, I will have to appear in court. I ask if I can have my phone back. Constable Williams tells me that it’s currently police evidence. After the case is done, I can apply to have it returned. It will likely take a year or two.
“Seriously?!” I cannot believe my ears. And after everything I just went through.
“I’m glad things worked out, Emerson. But things could have turned out much differently.” He’s in lecture mode. “What you did was very dangerous. A boy your age was killed not too long ago, trying to do exactly what you did today. Do you understand?” I guess he’s obligated to point out the obvious.
I nod.
Constable Williams offers us a ride home. I was thinking we would have to take the bus back to our store. My parents never take a cab anywhere and I didn’t expect the kind gesture from the police. My mom thanks him, but declines. She says that she is very grateful to the police for saving my life. They are too busy to be chauffeuring us around as well. I swallow a groan. I was still in pain, kind of tired and would have really appreciated the lift. But I guess it’s the bus.
Mom thanks Constable Williams again and we head toward the exit. As we walk, she calls my dad on the flip phone to let him know that we are finally done. I turn in the direction of the bus stop. Mom holds me back by my arm. She tells me that we are going to wait for my dad to pick us up.
“Dad’s closing the store again to pick us up?” I can’t believe this.
“Yes,” Mom answers.