Gun.
A tiny, three-letter word that had knocked their world off its axis and punted it into a different dimension forever.
“So you never saw the shooters?”
She wrapped her hands around her elbows, trying to keep the inner chill from becoming visible shivering, and she ignored the pine scent of the janitor’s disinfectant that burned her nose as if she were right there again. She still couldn’t buy a real Christmas tree because of that smell. “I didn’t see anyone until Joseph opened the door.”
Because Finn had left her. The second he’d heard Rebecca scream, he’d bailed on Liv. He’d said something to her, but she could never recall what. All she remembered was him leaving. And in his rush to save his real date, he’d inadvertently alerted Joseph to Liv’s presence.
“He pointed the gun at me and yelled at me to stand up.” Her voice caught on the last bit, snagging on the sharp memory, bringing back that all-encompassing fear that she was in her last minutes. She’d learn to mostly manage the panic attacks that had plagued her after that night, but that moment was always the image that haunted her most, where she saw the barrel of that gun pointing at her, the scared but determined eyes of her former lab partner drilling into her like cold steel.
“But Joseph didn’t pull the trigger?”
Liv looked down at her hands, turning her mother's wedding band round and round. “No. He knew who I was. I…wasn’t on his list.”
“Meaning?”
There was no way Daniel didn’t know what it meant. The media had latched on to killers’ manifesto like ants on honey. Joseph and Trevor had chosen prom night for a very particular reason. Not to take out the popular people or people who’d wronged them. They wanted to take out the happy ones. If you can be happy in a fucked up world like this, then you're blind and too stupid to live. That’d been the motto of their mission.
Liv hadn’t been deemed a happy one and had been spared. But she wasn’t going to say it and open herself up to the question of why she hadn’t been happy. There’d been enough speculation in the press back when it’d happened. What was broken with all those lucky survivors? Were they the mean kids? The depressed kids? The damaged kids? Friends of the killers? “Joseph and I had worked together on a project in chemistry. We weren’t friends, but I’d been nice to him.”
And he’d been nice to her. But she’d also seen part of him that would haunt her later. When she’d worried that their project wouldn’t be up to par, he’d assured her that the rest of the class was filled with idiots, jocks, and assholes, so they’d look like geniuses in comparison. He’d smirked at her and said, I mean, seriously, someone should just put them out of their misery. Save us the trouble of having to deal with them.
Back then, she’d already been a subscriber to the church of sarcasm and had no love lost for many of her classmates, so she’d taken it as such and agreed with him. Now the memory of that conversation made her sick. She’d reassured a killer that he was right. Gave him more fuel for his bonfire.
“He cursed at me, told me to stay put, and wedged a chair against the outside of the door.” She rubbed her lips together. “After that, I heard more shots.”
“Presumably when he shot at”—Daniel checked his notes—“Finn Dorsey and Rebecca Lindt.”
Liv reached for her water and took a slow sip, trying not to hear the sounds of that night in her head. The gun going off in that steady, unrelenting way. The cries for help. A Mariah Carey song still playing in the gym. Her own rapid breath as she huddled in that closet and did—nothing. Frozen. For five hours. Only the chair against the door had alerted the SWAT team someone was in there after everything was over. “Yes. I didn’t see any of it, but I know Finn was shot protecting Rebecca. You’d have to ask Rebecca about that part.”
“I did ask her. I plan to ask Finn, too.”
Her head snapped upward at that, the words yanking her out of the memories like a stage hook. “What?”
“Mr. Dorsey is my next interview.”
She stared at him, not sure if she’d heard the words right. “Finn’s here?”
She barely resisted saying, He exists? The guy had become a ghost after the awful months following the shooting. He’d gotten a ton of press for being a hero, and the media had played up the story to the nth degree. The star athlete and son of a local business owner taking a bullet for his date. But within a year, his family had moved out of town, running from the spotlight like everyone else. No one wanted to be that brand of famous.
She hadn’t heard anything about him since, and he never gave interviews. She’d decided that he and his wealthy parents had probably moved to some remote tropical island and changed his name. She would’ve skipped town back then too if she’d had the funds to do it.
“Yes,” Daniel said, tipping his head toward the spot over her left shoulder. “He got here a few minutes ago. He’s declined to be on camera, but he’s agreed to an interview.”
With that, she couldn’t help but turn and follow the interviewer’s gaze. Leaning against the wall in the shadows of the darkened gym was a man with dark hair, black T-shirt, and jeans. He looked up from the phone in his hand, as if hearing his name, and peered in their direction. He was too far away for her to read his expression or see the details of his face, but a jolt of bone-deep recognition went through her. “Oh.”
“Hey, we should invite him to join you for this part since you were both close to the same place at the same time. We’ll get a more accurate timeline that way.”
“What? I mean, no, that’s not—”
“Jim, can you turn off the camera? I think this will be important. Mr. Dorsey,” Daniel called out, “would you mind if I asked you a few questions now? The camera’s off.”
The cameraman went about shutting things down, and Finn pushed away from the wall.
Liv’s heart leapt into her throat and tried to escape. She’d avoided Finn after everything had happened, not just from hurt, but because seeing his face, even on television would trigger the flashbacks. But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Seeing Finn after all these years shouldn’t concern her. Still, she had the distinct urge to make tracks to the back door. She slid out of the director’s chair she’d been sitting in. “I think I’ve probably given you everything I have to add. I wasn’t in the gym, and my story is really just me cowering in the closet. Not that interesting—”
Liv’s words cut off, her voice dying a quick death, as Finn got closer and some of the studio lights caught him in their glare. The man approaching was nothing like the boy she’d known. The bulky football muscles had streamlined into a harder, leaner package. The smooth face was now dusted with scruff, and the look in his deep green eyes held no trace of boyish innocence. A thousand things were in those eyes. A thousand things welled up in Liv.