Page 49 of Do Not Open

“Just do what he says, Chris. Please.”

“Fine,” he says. “I just need to get my keys.”

“That’s okay.” I hear a sudden shattering of glass, and then the back door is open. I can practically feel him through the wall of the seat that separates us. He’s just inches away from me. Inches away from finding me. Saving me. I try for another sound, but I’m too tired. I can’t do anything but lie here with my hope.

“Mari?” he calls. “Mari, can you hear me?” I feel him bump the seat, feel the vibration of it.

“What the hell?You can’t just do that! You can’t just break someone’s window!” From somewhere in the distance, Chris is shouting, “I’m going to call the police. I’m going to tell them—”

“I am the police, motherfucker,” Declan says. “And trust me, the others are on their way. Now stand over there and shut the fuck up.”

“Mari? Can you hear us?” That’s Kassara. Her voice is soft and soothing. I swear it seems to ease my pain.

“Chris? What the hell is going on?” The woman’s voice from before, Chris’s sister, is here now.

“Go back inside,” he warns.

“Why are the police here?”

I feel someone moving the seat again, the hard wall I’m lying against shifting. Then, it collapses, and in mere seconds, I’m free. My body falls forward, no longer pinned in place, and I stare up at the two faces I thought I’d never see again. Their faces are beautiful and perfect and real and here.

They’re here.

This isn’t a dream. It can’t be a dream.

“Oh my god.” Kassara’s horror-stricken expression tells me all I need to know about my current state and how bad it is. “Declan…” She looks at him, not me.

I open my mouth, trying to form words, but there are none.

“She’s okay,” he says, but even I know he’s lying. “She’s going to be okay. Can you hear me, Mari?”

I try to nod, but I’m not sure it works. I blink instead, tears filling my eyes.

His hard expression softens as he smooths a hand over my cheek. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here. I’m so sorry we couldn’t find you.”

It’s okay,I tell him silently. He seems to understand. We’ve always been able to do that. He dusts a tear from my cheek, but when he pulls his hand back, I realize it’s blood instead. “Stay with her,” he tells Kassara. “Keep her conscious.”

She nods as if she’s accepting a mission.

Then he’s back out of the car, gun drawn, pointing it directly at Chris.

The sight of him holding it, the sight of him ready to fire his weapon, takes me back. Takes me under.

Bile rises in my throat as I begin to fade out.

“Mari? Mari, stay with me, okay? Please stay awake.” Kassara pats my cheek frantically, but it’s no use. I want to stay, but I can’t.

I welcome the darkness this time as it swallows me, knowing anything is better than this. Even death.

* * *

When I receivedthe call that there was an active shooter in my son’s high school, I’d been in the middle of folding a load of laundry. It was just another Tuesday. Another day of the beautiful monotony that was my life, and in a split second, it shattered into a million pieces.

I didn’t remember getting into the car or most of the drive to the school. I tried to call Declan a thousand times. Honestly, it was a miracle I made it there without having an accident.

When I couldn’t reach him, I called the station, and the kind receptionist—whom I’d met countless times at Christmas parties and when I’d visited him at work—patched me through to the chief. I knew then it wasn’t good. Whatever news I’d be receiving, it wasn’t good.

“We haven’t heard from him, Mari. Last contact we had, he had the shooter trapped in a classroom. He was waiting on backup. Backup arrived, and they were both gone.”

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