And he was still screaming, and all the while, I heard his bones breaking.* * *We were kept on the floor, on our bellies with our hands palms down until after Coop was removed from the classroom. It felt like an eternity stretched out—even though it had only been minutes—until an unfamiliar voice ordered us to stand and to leave the room in an orderly fashion.
Escorted out of school, we weren’t allowed to go to our lockers or to stop. I stayed close to Zoe, and I didn’t remember the walk to my car or how I ended up in the passenger seat with Zoe driving, since she had her own car, but there we were. Without asking, I knew Zoe was driving to Foretoken.
That made sense, because after what we’d just seen, Luc had to be told about it. Maybe he could even shed some light on it, because I had no idea what had happened to Coop. All I knew was that whatever happened to him sure as hell was not some flu.
I held my book bag close to my chest and stared straight ahead like a little robot. After what had happened, the buildings reaching into the sky, the manicured lawns in front of the homes, and the cars filling the roads felt a little fake.
Did the woman in the van at the stoplight beside us have any idea that Coop threw a teacher through a window? And then seriously injured another student? Did the driver of the city bus flying through the intersection know that Coop had vomited blood and the good Lord knows what else before freaking the hell out?
Was Mr. Barker going to be okay? Or the guy that had smacked his head on the floor? I didn’t know.
Since I’d figured this was going to hit the news soon, I’d texted my mom and let her know that I was okay. I hadn’t heard back from her, but that wasn’t uncommon. She was probably squirreled away in a lab somewhere.
The normalcy of today had been all too brief.
Squeezing my bag as if it were a giant stress ball, I exhaled long and hard. God, they’d shot him with a Taser. Shot him multiple times and with a real live bullet, and he still didn’t go down.
“You okay?” Zoe asked as we pulled onto the street toward Foretoken.
I nodded. “You?”
“No. Not really.”
“Me neither,” I admitted. “I can’t believe that happened.”
Zoe didn’t respond, and neither of us spoke as she parked and we crossed the busy street. Clyde met us at the front entrance, ushering us in with a grunt of acknowledgment. A Mr. Potato Head on the front of his shirt peeked out from behind a pair of blue-jean overalls.
He caught my arm, his grasp surprisingly gentle for such a large hand. I looked up at him, and he nodded at me. “Face.”
I didn’t know what he was referencing.
The piercings in his eyebrows and cheeks glimmered in the bright ceiling lights as he jerked his chin at my face again and let go of my arm. “Got blood on your face, girl.”
“Oh.” I reached for my cheek. There was a dull sting there that I’d forgotten about. “It’s just a scratch.”
“Luc’ll see it and react like it’s a gunshot wound,” he grumbled, and Zoe snorted her agreement. Clyde reached into his back pocket and pulled out a red-and-white handkerchief. “It’s clean.”
I didn’t get a chance to protest. Clyde was quick as he played nurse, carefully wiping away the trace of blood.
“Thank you,” I said when he was done.
He grumbled something again. “Luc’ll probably still see it.”
I really hoped not.
Clyde walked away then, disappearing into the darker recesses of the main club floor. I turned, following Zoe toward the employee entrance. It was always strange to me to see the club like this, empty of people and chairs on tables.
We’d just reached Luc’s floor when the door swung open, and there was Luc, dressed in jeans and a camouflage shirt that said YOU CAN’T SEE ME.
I squelched the laugh crawling up my throat, because in light of things, it seemed inappropriate.
“Emery just told me what happened. Heidi told her,” he announced, his gaze flickering over Zoe to me. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I let go of the railing as I glanced at Zoe. “What do you know?”
“That some kid flipped out in class and threw a teacher through a window?” He held the door open for us.
“Yeah, that’s, like, one-tenth of the story.” Zoe walked through. “Is Heidi on her way?”
“I guess so.” Luc frowned as I slipped past him. I made it about a step, and then suddenly, he was in front of me.
I stumbled back. “God. I hate when you move like that.”
“You’re injured,” he said, lifting his hand and placing his finger on my cheek. Only then did he look to where Zoe waited by his door. “What happened?”