Young Adult Fiction
It's like the entire school floods into the stairwell. People pound down the stairs toward us. Their voices clamor, frightened voices. They push and shove toward the blocked exit door, trying to escape the school.
Like fish in a bucket, that's what we are. My mouth goes dry. A locked stairwell seems like a good place to kill a lot of people at one time. I grab Zoe's hand.
"Come on. We have to go back up."
Tocamos por diez minutos, sin saltamos ni una nota. La voz de Al apenas se oía, mientras Drek y yo hacíamos las segundas voces, y creo que el micrófono estaba apagado. Al final, terminé con un acorde improvisado y largo en la guitarra. Y ¿saben qué? me salió super bien. Sonó mejor que nunca.
Era como si la guitarra y mis dedos hubieran estado haciendo todo el trabajo mientras yo observaba desde afuera. Mis dedos se movían como pólvora. Las luces creaban una sensación mágica en todo el lugar. Llegamos al punto más alto y justo como lo teníamos practicado, paramos la música de pronto, de forma perfecta.
There's a masked man in the store, and it isn't Halloween.
I duck down again—fast.
I hear someone say, "This is a stickup." It's the guy in the mask. He has a weird voice, like it's not a normal voice. He says, "Is there anyone else in the store?"
That tells me that the masked man hasn't seen me.
"No," my dad says without even a second's hesitation.
The guys huddle closer and murmur; the girls' heads incline together and they whisper. They're all talking about me. I'll bet if they were naked I could see their tattoos. They've been taken. They're waiting for me to be taken too.
I force myself to walk past them, even though I have the overpowering urge to run. Or scream, tell them I know all about their plans. Why me? I'd like to ask them that. I hesitate. Maybe I should ask them. Maybe there's some shred of humanity left in one of them and they'll help me escape.
The seating on the bus is different this year. That's because Raedawn and I and Sherry and Steve crossed the line.
