Chapter 30

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Trigger warning

This chapter contains a scene of a school shooting! Read only if you feel comfortable with it, if not, skip to the next bolded note!

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I wake up to my alarm ringing, and I sigh and turn it off. Sitting up, I rub the sleep from my eyes, and yawn. Crawling out of bed, I drag myself into the shower, then get ready for another day of school.

When I arrive, I wait at the entrance for Faith to come in. I only have to wait for a couple of minutes before she walks through the doors in a cute pair of sparkly blue jeans and a black teeshirt. She smiles when she sees me, and we walk to the cafe to the rest of our friends.

We hang out for a minute, and all the while I feel the absence of Jameson. Guilt washes over me and I question myself over whether or not I should have said what I did. Suddenly, the doors to the cafe bang open, and I turn to see him holding a large automatic rifle. As I stand, he yells out to the cafe,

"You have yourself to blame, you stupid bitch!" He opens fire. Acting quickly, I manipulate the startled and frantic energy of the room, channeling it into myself, then I drive the bullets downwards into the tile, and I run towards him while keeping the bullets from hitting anyone. He sprays the room, and people fall and duck, but from what I can tell, no bullets hit anyone, and my nose stays dry. I manage to shove through the panicked crowd and launch myself at him. He stops aiming at others and focuses his aim on me and pulls the trigger. Bullets hit my chest and it feels like I've been smacked in the chest with a baseball bat. My body is forced back from the impacts, and I fall to my knee. He stops shooting, the cafe now quiet. I raise my hand to my chest and pull it away, not bloody.

I feel a smile form on my face, and I look up at him, his expression going from anger to fear. Game on, bitch.

I dart my hand out and grip the gun by the end, pointing it to the ground and punch him in the nose. Ripping the gun from his hands, I sweep it around like a bat, knocking him in the back of his knees. He falls, trips me, causing me to fall as well, but I throw the gun away from the both of us so he can't get to it. I punch him in the nose again and get back to my feet as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a handgun, and shoots me right between the eyes. A couple clinks sound as blood oozes from my forehead. The sound of the gunshot makes me go temporarily deaf. I grab his hand and try to force the gun from it, but resort to breaking his elbow.

His screams fill the cafe, though they are distorted by my lack of hearing. I sit on his back, holding his not broken arm, making sure he doesn't try another killing spree. With my free hand, I touch my forehead and find the bullet wound to not have penetrated any more than the top few layers of my skin. The school officer bursts in as I wipe my blood on my ruined shirt, and he aims his gun at me.

"Fucks sake," I mutter. "Took you long enough." He doesn't laugh, only looks at me with fear in his eyes.

"Get up off him, but stay right in front of me." He mutters something into his walkie-talkie, and I nod and sit in front of him while he secures Jameson. Looking down, I notice my ruined shirt and I focus and make it look back to normal. After a few minutes, other officers rush in, then a SWAT team comes in. They order everyone to show their hands, and they begin to take people into lines and move them out of the building. An officer comes over and takes me out to a four-legged tent in the parking lot and sits me down on the tarp.

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Alright, scene over!

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Multiple officers come over and ask me what happened, and I explain how I disarmed him and broke his elbow after he pulled out a second firearm.

"What happened to your forehead?" One of the officers ask, and I touch my now scabbed bullet wound.

Shit.

"In the fight, I got hit with the gun and it cut my forehead," I say, and the officer seems alright with my answer. Over and over I have to give the play-by-play of my fight, and I watch as others from the cafe have to give their report. News vans come into the parking lot like vultures to roadkill. Cameramen and reporters come flooding out and it's all the police can do to keep them back. I look down and double-check my shirt still looks to be in one piece, and I let out a breath. I thankfully take a bottle of water from a kind officer and use it to wash off the blood from my face, then drink the rest greedily.

Looking up, I see Jameson being wheeled out on a gurney, one hand secured to the bed, the other in a sling.

He shot up a school because he couldn't have me. He was willing to kill people because I declined him. He tried to kill me because I said no. He looked at me, unblinking as he pulled the trigger right between my eyes.

It was my fault he did this, it was my fault that people could have died.

But they didn't die. And I didn't make him bring guns to school, I didn't make him attempt to slaughter half the school. I didn't force his hand, I just declined it.

I watch as the ambulance rolls away, escorted by multiple police cars. Sighing, I lay back, waiting for my parents to come to pick me up and take me home.