Day of Shooting

The bullets echoed and ricocheted in the vacant hallway. My eyes remained glued to the door in anticipation, bracing myself with every second that passed for one of my brothers to break through the door and open fire into the classroom. Coach Phillips stood beside the cluttered desk, his entire body as tense as my own. For a second, I think both of us slowly lowered our guard when we didn't hear the loud magazine being unloaded. But it was in that second that Clark decided to finally kick repeatedly at the door until it was open. Coach started toward my brother and within seconds had knocked the AR from Clark's grip.

"Run!" the middle-aged man yelled, trying his best to keep Clark from retrieving the gun. Not even halfway down the hallway I heard the gun go off and winced, the burning in my chest and my legs eventually forcing me to collapse in the cafeteria. It wasn't until I glanced up that I found myself equally relieved and horrified.

Most of the student body present today was in here, ducking and crouched beneath and behind tables and chairs. It would be Clark's wonderland if he found that they were in here. But it seemed as though he'd already made an appearance, as bloody footprints and trails of blood smeared the tile as it did in the hall.

"Evie, baby!" before I could comprehend what was happening, arms circled around me and I was in my boyfriend's arms. Though I was terrified to look up, I forced my head back and a quiet cry escaped me when I saw the blood splattered across my Miles' already mutilated face from his fight with Clark.

"Are you okay? What happened? Your face is covered in blood."

His cold fingers touched my forehead where my brother had drove the hilt of the gun into my temple. I flinched under the touch but refused to release my arms from his torso. He started to maneuver us backward, keeping his arms tightly around me as if he were in just as much fear as I was that if we were separated, we'd possibly never hold one another again.

"Frankie was in here. Picked off like five teachers and a few of the football team. We tried to help but. . . I had to make sure nobody else got hurt. But it didn't seem like Frankie was on a murderous rampage, he obviously has a plan."

I felt a cold shiver down my spine as I buried my face in his chest and inhaled the spicy cologne to keep myself from breaking down. "Clark picked off nearly everyone in my classroom."

Miles grew rigid against me as he lowered us down into a crouch and whispered. "Brady?"

I remained silent, knowing very well me explaining anything would only devastate my boyfriend further.

"Okay, I have a plan." Miles whispered a few minutes later, having recollected himself from the news momentarily. "If enough of us guys get the door to the courtyard open, it'll give everyone in here a way out. Your brothers may have automatics, but they won't be able to get everyone. And if a couple of us guys hold them off and try and disarm them—"

"No!" I immediately cried, clutching his blood-stained shirt in my hand. "You're not doing that."

Miles brushed his knuckle along my cheek. "I need your help, Ev. If they come in here while we're trying to break the lock from the inside, you may be enough for them to hesitate. Clark's a fucking psychopath but I don't think he'll shoot you."

After what I'd seen in that classroom and how he'd looked down at me in the hallway, I had serious doubts about that.

I shook my head repeatedly, but Miles began to rise to his feet and nodded toward a few of his teammates sitting under the table parallel to ours. I grasped his arm and steadied myself so I was in step with him as he started toward the door. "Miles, you can't do this. We need to stand down and—"

"And let them kill everybody?" Miles' voice rose. "I'm not going to stand around and watch them pick off all my friends, my teachers, my classmates."

"Clark will kill you without hesitation, Miles."

Miles kissed me softly, his hand resting on my dampening cheek before he turned his back to me and joined his friends by the door. I looked toward a good quarter of my classmates still crying and trembling in terror under the tables we'd spent the last few years stuffing crappy, questionable food into our mouths on top of. I opened my mouth, as if to offer them words of comfort, but the firing of a gun sent me into a crouch and covering my head.

"You saved me so much trouble." The sadistic remark only confirmed my suspicions and threw Miles' assumption right out the window.

My brother had no intention of letting anyone out of this building alive. Not even me.

"All of you in one spot. This is heaven." Clark started firing again, but slowly lowered the gun when his eyes met mine from across the room. "I don't know why you're running from me, little sis, I'm not going to kill you. You were never part of the plan."

I felt a scream scratching at the back of my throat, and could see Miles tense out of the corner of my eye, his shoulder still pressed against the door. Clark followed my gaze and snickered when he saw my boyfriend behind me. "Come on, Baxter. I thought you'd be smarter than that. You're all as good as dead, you might as well stop trying."

I looked from Clark to Frankie, but he was staring down at the tip of his bloody Jordan's, lips pursed and jaw set. He looked though he were purposely avoiding looking up.

"Clark." I tried, "Please stop this. We get it. We—"

"That's the thing! None of you! Not even you, my own fucking sister, will ever understand half of what I've went through. And it will never stop. Not until the world sees what happens when they let shit slide, when they allow things to snowball. This will be the change we need. This will shake the nation to its core, hopefully enough that nobody ever has to go through what I did."

I shook my head, stretching my trembling hand out helplessly. "This isn't the answer, Clark. We can find another way."

"Bullshit!" he shouted and was in front of me within seconds, the barrel of the gun pressed against my bloodied white blouse. "There isn't another way."

I could hear my heart beating over my brother's voice and his image began to blur as the cold, cruel reality of it set in. I was going to die. Miles was going to die. Everyone in this cafeteria was going to be six feet under by the end of the week.

Bang.

Only this loud, thunderous thud wasn't from a bullet but from the door Miles and his friends had been working at finally busting open. I staggered forward, into Clark, blinded by the sun as it bled into the lunchroom. It was enough to momentarily have my brothers unable to see anything either, but it didn't stop Clark, because he shoved me aside and began to shoot blindly toward where the crowd was rushing hysterically toward the door. My boyfriend ushered people out and with every person that left the building a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Now all I needed was for him to go with them. If he would just forget about me for a second, put himself first, he'd be okay.

Of course, Miles wasn't smart enough to comprehend that slowly creeping toward me was a death sentence. Even more so when Clark and Frankie finally regained their vision and were able to see my boyfriend's arms slowly wrapping around me.

"You want her safe and alive, right?" Miles said quietly, looking Clark dead in the eyes. I could tell by the slight shaking of his hand around me that he was scared despite his tough exterior. "Then let me get her out of here."

To my surprise it wasn't Clark who stepped forward and responded, but Frankie, his own gun raising.

"We do want her out of here and safe and we'll ensure she is. But you? All you've ever done is destroy the little bit of my brother that our father didn't kill off years ago." Frankie spat angrily. "You, of everyone in this school, should have been the first to go."

I immediately lurched forward so I was acting as a barricade in front of Miles. "Stop! Stop it!"

Miles looked back at the door over his shoulder, almost as if he were working out how long it'd take if he were to make a run for it, but it was ultimately his downfall as the second he started toward the door Frankie pulled the trigger and sent three bullets into my boyfriend's back.

"Miles!" everything seemed to move in slow motion as I rushed forward, him falling to his knees, then forward, Clark shoving Frankie and starting to shout in his face, even me collapsing to the ground beside him. He immediately clutched my shirt in his hands once I'd rolled him over.

"No." I touched my hands to the blood seeping through his blue shirt, pressing into the wounds for a few seconds frantically before I realized it wouldn't do anything. "You're okay, baby. I'm going to get help and—"

"I love you." He pressed his bloody hands to my cheeks. "I love you, Evie. You need to get out of here."

"Stop." I choked, touching my own hands to his face, leaving trails of blood to mix in the fresh tears that continued to roll down his cheeks.

"Miles, you've got to get up! You—"

"I love you."

I shook my head, grasping his face in my hands and kissing him, pleading that he stay with me repeatedly.

"I love you." He breathed for the last time, then coughed, but with the action came his body convulsing in my grip. I tried again to press my hands into his wounds but it did nothing but cover my own hands in blood. I felt a hand lock around the back of my neck before I was yanked backward. I hardly had the time to cry out before a hand was thrown over my eyes and another round of gunshots sounded through the cafeteria.

Digging my nails into the hand in hopes to force it off, I spun around to find Clark and Frankie had resumed their argument, but it had most definitely been Clark who'd put the final round in Miles as his gun was still aimed in the direction I was avoiding looking in.

"Let her go." Frankie snarled at his taller twin. "You promised she wouldn't get hurt. That was the agreement."

"That was before she decided she wanted to come to school. She was never supposed to be here!"

They started shouting even louder, their own anger consuming them long enough for Frankie to jerk forward and the hunting knife that had been hoisted to his belt to fall to the ground a few feet from him, and with the step he took toward Clark to get in his face, his shoe hit the edge and sent it spinning in my direction. I eyed them to ensure neither had noticed it fall or me slowly extending my arm out to grab it. The second my fingers locked around the camo hilt, it slipped through my trembling, slippery, bloody fingertips and hit the ground again. The second time, holding my breath, I was able to wrap my fingers around it completely.

I then made the mistake of looking over my shoulder and this time couldn't prevent the rush of nausea that forced everything I'd eaten last night and this morning up and on to the tile beside me.

Blood had pooled beneath Miles' head, and a gaping hole sat open on the right side of it. The three bullets Frankie had sent through his back left his entire body encased in a massive amount of blood. With the disgust and hurt and pain came an intense anger unlike anything I'd ever felt before. A fury that had me rising to my feet and both boys looking toward me in curiosity, likely wondering whether I was going to fight them or turn and run to my escape out into the courtyard.

"Hope—" Clark started, but the second he stepped forward, I rushed at them and thrusted the knife into something hard. Only it wasn't Clark, as he'd dodged my hand, but Frankie, or more specifically, his throat. He dropped the AR in his hands and clawed at his throat for the knife, but the second he pulled at the hilt and drew it from his jugular, blood began to spray all three of us.

Frankie grasped Clark's shoulder and I watched both boys' guards drop for the first time in years. Clark dropped to his knees, catching Frankie before he could hit the bloody tile. I all but dove to grab my brother's gun and started to back away toward the set of double doors leading back out into the hallway. I hesitated in the doorway, propping the door open with my foot as I stared at Frankie, breathing growing ragged. As if he could feel my eyes still on him, he tilted his head back and stared at me. But there wasn't anger or hatred, or even a questioning look. He almost looked relieved. As if I'd relieved him of the heaviest of burdens. Not chancing it, I let the door shut behind me as Clark shouted for Frankie to stay with him and made my way down the hall.

I didn't make it but halfway down the first hallway before I felt a sharp pain in my right side. I hadn't run this much in years, even jogging around the field with Miles had never left me with side cramps.

"You killed him!" Clark's voice echoed through the vacant hallway as another magazine was unloaded. "You killed him!"

I raced for the front doors leading out of the school and into the parking lot but didn't make it far. Clark caught me by my hair in the middle of the hallway, then thre me to the ground in a swift movement that sent Frankie's AR sliding across the tile. I stretched my arm out for it, but the butt of the gun in Clark's hand slammed into the side of my head repeatedly, doubling my vision and causing a blurry haze around my brother standing over me. A black circle began to illuminate around him dressed in all white and left him looking like some kind of fallen angel.

"You killed our brother!" he shouted, but his words shifted into a sob as he grabbed the gun and pressed the barrel into my forehead once more. "How could you?"

There was so much I wanted to say, that I should have said, but no words would form. All I wanted was to get out of the school and curl up in my bed and wake up from this nightmare. Wake up and find my boyfriend standing outside in my driveway with his quirky smile and the little crinkles around his eyes that only appeared when he was excited. He'd hug me and reassure me that this was all some sick, warped nightmare buried deep in my subconscious. I'd go to the police and voice my concerns about my brother's behavior, and this would all just be a sick dream that would forever be buried deep in the back of my mind for the rest of my life.

But deep down, where the cold knot was tightening in the pit of my stomach, I knew this was very real. That my boyfriend was a mutilated body on the cafeteria floor, that I'd drove a knife into my older brother's throat. That Clark was about to make me one with the already bloodied tile beneath me.

Just another dead body for the morgue to have to collect.

"Shoot me." I managed to croak. "Do it!"

Clark, taken back by my response, brought the gun back to his side, but seconds later was tackled by a sophomore basketball player I'd only met in passing a few times over the last couple years. The second the player's honeysuckle eyes met mine, he nodded and continued to try and disarm my brother. I gasped and rolled over on to my stomach, forcing myself to my knees for a moment, I glanced down to find blood pooling on the tile, spreading across and into the black crevices between, drops threatening to pour into the next one over. It took my right hand grasping my white blouse to realize that the blood was coming from me. The blood before me was mine.

That pain in my side hadn't been a side cramp, it'd been a bullet. And with the newfound awareness of the injury came a wave of crippling pain that had me nearly collapsing to my knees again when I was finally able to force myself to my feet.

"Go!" I heard the voice of the basketball player shout behind me. Knowing neither of us had time on our side, I clawed at the locker beside me, leaving a bloody handprint, before limping forward, clutching my stomach with my other. I heard another round of bullets sound behind me and darted into the classroom this had all started in. I looked toward the window, then to the paperweight sitting on Mr. Nichols desk and threw it as hard as I could across the room. Shards immediately rained along the floor and on to the still, lifeless bodies of the classmates I'd sat with for the last year. Hearing the squeaking of footsteps nearing, I looked toward the window, knowing I had no chance of being able to wiggle my way out in time, I rushed for the back of the classroom and pushed a few girls dead weighted bodies aside. I had to keep a hand over my mouth with every movement I made, forcing myself to stare at their fingers and legs instead of their wide-open eyes and gaping mouths, forever stuck in look of terror.

It wasn't until I was laying down that I felt cold fingertips brush against my own a few inches away that I was distracted from my inevitable death. I lifted my head a fraction and turned to find Brady a few feet away. His face had lost close to all color, his hand clutching his lower abdomen bloody and unrecognizable. The hand that was wrapped around my fingers was covered in blood as well, but he nodded slowly and tugged my arm. I didn't have to question what he was doing. We'd seen what happened in Parkland, we'd seen the things other people in this situation had done to survive.

Within seconds, most of Brady's weight was distributed on either side of me. I could tell that he was trying his hardest to not crush me, but he was double my weight and even with him leaning a little more to the left, he was pressing down on me so hard that a dead girl's hand was digging into one of the gunshot wounds in my back and I had to bite down hard on my lip to keep from screaming out in pain.

I had initially thought Clark had somehow managed to shoot me in the stomach, it took until that very moment to understand that he'd done the same Frankie had to Miles; sent three bullets through my back and one of them most have managed to go through the back and out through my stomach.

The squealing of my brother's shoes in the doorway had me slowing my breathing so he couldn't hear it, and I watched his blood speckled, white Jordan's cross the room to the window before he yelled an extremely loud, "Fuck!"

He collapsed against Mr. Nichols desk a moment later and started crying. A full on, uncontrollable sob that sounded through the quiet, empty room. The gun in his right arm dropped limply to his side as he tried to catch his breath, eyes flickering from the pile of dead girls in the corner of the room to the window.

I felt Brady shift his weight just the slightest, and he breathed out with what seemed to be all his energy, "It's over."

Clark lifted his head and reached for the gun, but whispered, "I don't want anything to be the same as it was, why doesn't anyone understand that? All I ever wanted was to be accepted, understood, but everyone always pushed me even further into the dirt."

Brady coughed hard before saying, "I'm sorry."

"Are you really?" Clark snapped, but he sounded genuinely curious. "I don't think your little pea sized brain could ever understand even half of the shit you put me through."

All it took was a shifting of my foot under Brady for Clark to look from him to me beneath all two-hundred pounds of my friend. He shot to his feet, raised the gun, but this time he didn't point it at us, but pulled it over his head and extended it out to us.

"Shoot me." He said, teary eyes burning into my own as I pushed myself up from the ground. This time I couldn't contain the cry in pain as I hunched over and grasped at my stomach. "I don't want to go to prison. I want to be dead. I want to be with Frankie."

I shook my head, but he started forward until the gun was being thrusted into my grip. "Do it! Shoot me, Everly!"

As soon as I dropped my gaze to the gun, a bang sounded through the hall and both my brother and me looked, only to have the room raided with a swarm of swat members. One swiped the gun from my grip, but it took three to restrain my brother as he pleaded with me and the law enforcement encasing us to put him out of his misery. It was one of the men, crouched beside Brady, that looked to my brother and spat disgustedly, "You don't deserve the easy way out. Get him out of here."

Multiple swat members tried to talk to me, restrain me as they had my brother, but they didn't try as hard and I was able to break past the wall of them filling the classrooms and hallway and to the open door. As soon as I stepped outside the door, I froze, my eyes scanning my surroundings. Parents and my classmates that'd managed to escape through the courtyard stood crowded behind caution tape in the parking lot. Law enforcements were in every direction, paramedics and police and swat cars lining the streets and barricading everyone in, blocking anyone from getting out. There was even a helicopter circling overhead. My eyes immediately found Ms. Baxter, arms hugging her black shawl around her as her mascara ran and smeared under her eyes and down her cheeks. She lifted her head slowly and met my own, and my guilt must have been plain as day on my face because she sunk to her knees, letting out the loudest, most agonizing guttural sob. It echoed through the lot and had most of the parents surrounding her drop their heads in a silent prayer.

"Everly!" my own mother's shout tore me from my daze and I watched as she ducked under the tape and rushed for me, much to the police officers around her dismay. She immediately clutched me against her, her sobs in my ear only halting to a stop when she pulled away and grasped my shoulders roughly and asked "Where are your brothers? Everly, where are they?"

I stared at her for a moment, wishing desperately to have the answer that she wanted to hear. I wanted to assure her that they were alive and well and that the shooters hadn't got them. But that was far from the truth, and somewhere under her armor of denial she knew that too. She knew that her kids were responsible for this. She knew that they were as good as dead.

Rather than stand and try to explain myself to her, I trudged passed her a few steps, but couldn't make it all the way to Ms. Baxter, but fell to my knees a few feet in front of her, the top of my head touching the caution tape. My mother found me again, and within seconds of it, paramedics were trying to tear me in every direction. It wasn't until I was laid out on a stretcher and staring at the front of the school as SWAT members ordered kids out with their hands behind their heads in a line, that I finally cried. I sobbed until there were no tears left to cry.