Keller hadn’t had any luck breaking through to the boy. He wasn’t answering, but at least the shooting had stopped.
She walked up to Keller, loaded for bear. He took one look at her and said, “Whoa. What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m making entry with you.”
“Lieutenant, you know I can’t let you do that. We’ve got our assigned roles, our designated fields of fire, all of our contingency plans have been rehearsed over and over. You don’t fit into those plans.”
“I trained for SWAT, Keller, you know that. I know what to do. I’ll stay in the back, but I am going in.”
Happily, she outranked him, so she was going to get her way whether he wanted her to go in or not.
“Suit yourself,” he said finally. She smiled and walked off to join the column of heavily armed men getting ready to enter the building.
It was time. She felt her focus pinpoint, shuffled into her place behind the initial entry team. Her earwig was itching; she reached up and adjusted it. The sun broke out, creating a glare on the cement, but that was okay, they were moving now. “Go, go, go!” rang in her ear, and she hustled behind them, weapon drawn in a two-handed grip.
The first body was the safety officer, life’s blood glistening on the linoleum. He’d been taken in the throat, a ragged wound, and was dead. The human body carried over five and one half liters of blood in its veins and arteries. Taylor felt sure at least seventy percent of his was spreading across the floor under his inert form.
She felt the pressure building in her chest.
There was chatter in her ear, a sniper was in place, ready to take the shot if necessary. They drew closer to the classroom, listening for sounds. There was nothing. Taylor heard the crashing glass of the windows, the flash grenades were in. The door to the room was open now, there were screams and shouts, the rush of bodies stank with the cold, tangy scent of fear.
There was no shooting, no screaming. She watched as the team cleared the room, saw no one with weapons pointing at them in threatening ways.
Merritt wasn’t in the room.
There were a few moments of controlled chaos as the SWAT team took advantage of the situation, brought the hostages out of the room, hustling them down the hall and out into the bright fall morning. She recognized a few faces in the panic, Theo Howell, wild-eyed, and a couple others from his party, all herded together for safety and comfort. Thank God no more were hurt.
The room was clear now. Taylor leaned back against the wall, out of the way. He was here, somewhere. This was his school. He’d know places to hide. She grabbed the two closest SWAT boys that she knew and said, “Follow me.”
They stalked along the halls, one foot in front of the other in perfect unison, silent, careful. Each darkened corner held the promise of the afterlife, and Taylor wasn’t in the mood to get herself or any of these boys killed. They crept through the school, finding nothing. Taylor started to relax, though how could the boy have gotten away? The school was surrounded.
She heard shouting from the parking lot, panicked screams, and it hit her. She felt the horror well up in her chest.
“He’s outside,” she yelled, tearing off down the hall, the clanging SWAT members hot on her heels. They flew out the doors and toward the group of evacuated hostages. They had their backs to her, were moving away as quickly as possible.
There. There he was.
She hadn’t seen him inside because he was wearing an ill-fitting baseball cap. He must have walked right past her. Goddamn it.
The dyed black hair peeked out from under the edge of the ball cap, she knew this was him. She drew closer, careful not to alert him. The boy had several people cowering in front of him. He had his arms outstretched, a gun in each hand, pointed at the crowd.
She yelled, “Stop right there, Schuyler!”
People scattered, running, crying, but she held her ground, and so did the boy. Sensing this was their moment, the people around him cleared in an instant, and he was alone.
“Turn around! Get on the ground. Put your hands on the top of your head and get down on the fucking ground now!”
He put his hands up and turned, slowly, pirouetting on his right foot. Face to face with him, Taylor was shocked at just how young he really was. She could hear noises in the distance, weapons being readied, knew they were in fact right beside her, but she felt captivated, drawn in by the boy’s stare, a mongoose faced with a cobra.
“It’s finished, Schuyler,” she said. “Drop the weapon and get on the ground.”
He continued to look at her, his coal-black eyes flashing. Their eyes locked together in a battle of wills. He finally blinked.
“My name is Raven!” he screamed at her.
She felt the movement before she saw it. His hand was coming up, the glint of steel, the sunlight flashing off the gun. She didn’t think, didn’t hesitate, pulled the trigger three times in quick succession. Blood bloomed on the boy’s chest and forehead-three kill shots, clean, perfect. Time stopped.
He looked vaguely surprised for a moment, then crumpled in a bloody heap.
“Get the paramedics,” she screamed, advancing on him. She kicked the guns out of the way, quickly ran her hands over the rest of his body. He was clean. He looked her right in the eye and she felt a cold slithering down her spine. Blood bubbled over his lip as he died.
Hands were pulling her away now. Her gun was taken from her, standard operating procedure. The blood was roaring in her ears, she felt like she might faint. Cold water was pressed to her lips, Lincoln, rubbing her on the back. She started to come back to herself, realized that the deafening roar of the shots was making everything sound tinny. No ear defenders, she thought to herself, fighting down hysterical laughter.
The boy was lying on the hard ground, eyes vacant, waiting for the ME to declare him. Officer-involved shootings were a nightmare for everyone.
Taylor was segregated, talked to, debriefed, but didn’t hear the words leaving her mouth. The roar of the gun, the startled look on the boy’s face, the blood blooming in a spurt from the head-shot, replayed itself over and over and over.
Her day was only just beginning. She’d be investigated, cleared of wrongdoing, but saddled with yet another mark on her record.
Dear God, what have I done? He was just a boy. Just a boy. What have I done?
She managed to tear herself away, fumbled open her cell phone. She needed to talk to Baldwin. He would understand. He would forgive her.
Baldwin answered on the first ring. Her voice sounded foreign, not her own, echoing in her mind as she told him what had happened.
“Taylor, are you all right?”
She wasn’t all right. She’d never be all right again. She’d just killed a boy. Not a man, not a leering criminal, but a boy.
It was justified, she knew that. It was what had happened in the brief moment of clarity that she’d experienced before she shot him that was upsetting her.
She’d seen the boy’s soul, a dark mass of hatred and fire, at the very moment her finger squeezed the trigger. She’d seen a man before, in her dreams, who glowed with the same sense of righteous hatred, directed exactly at her. She might not have let her finger move otherwise.
When she shot Raven, she’d seen the ghost of the Pretender staring from the boy’s black eyes.
Sixty-One
T aylor sat in the Adirondack chair on the back deck. She felt the chill of the breeze, but ignored it, let it bite
