THE LAST SHOT: by

by Matayo, Amy

  “I’m not stuck, and I don’t even know him. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be. He’s probably out now anyway. If I remember right, the tickets were on the opposite side of the stage. I won’t be getting anyone else free tickets in the future, though. Not at all, and definitely not without giving them safety lessons first.”

  “There are safety lessons for this? How does one react when a madman has a gun?” There’s not an ounce of sarcasm in his tone, so I tell him.

  “First rule of safety if a shooter is in your midst: Get underneath something. A chair, a desk, a table. Anything that might protect you from a stray bullet or keep you out of the gunman’s line of vision. Generally, if people can’t see you, they forget about you.”

  “Out of sight, out of mind?”

  “A worthless statement when it comes to romance, but it’s a real thing in this scenario. The longer you can remain hidden, the better. Even if that means you have to keep moving to stay concealed.”

  “The second rule?”

  “If you’re able, hide close to an exit. That way, when the doors open—and sooner or later, they will open—you’ll be one of the first to escape. I realize that sounds selfish in this sort of situation, but your own safety should be your primary concern. There are almost always casualties in these circumstances, so try hard not to be one of them. And three, do not engage. No matter how tempting it might seem to play the hero, don’t.”

  “Says the woman with her own gun.”

  “I’m trained for this, as are the police currently staked outside the building. Leave the heroics to us.”

  “So, you’re saying I should shrink back and be a wimp?”

  “Yep, if you want to survive.”

  “What if I don’t like the way it looks for you to—”

  “Protect you… because I’m a woman?”

  He sighs. “Back to that, are we? No, I was going to say ‘take the fall for me.’ Call me a chauvinist pig if you must, but most men don’t believe in hiding and letting a woman get shot for them. I respect you a little more than that. Also, I’m not weak or heartless.”

  “I appreciate that, I do. But letting me do my job isn’t weak, not to me. So please don’t do something stupid like get shot trying to prove a point. If you need a reason, think of my performance review. You don’t want me to get fired, do you?”

  He doesn’t respond. So much silence descends on this tiny room, it would be easy to convince myself that he left. I wait. Then wait some more. When I can’t take the quiet anymore, his whispering is the only thing keeping me sane.

  “Teddy?”

  “I’m here. Just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “That you’re pretty amazing. I’ve known a lot of women in my life, but not one since high school has ever called me stupid.”

  At this, I laugh. “I have a secret for you, Teddy Hayes. I’m not like any other woman you’ve ever met.”

  I expect him to laugh back, but he doesn’t. Instead, he gives my hand a squeeze, and we settle back against the wall.

  * * *

  Teddy

  I didn’t intend to fall asleep, but I didn’t intend for a lot of things that have happened today. Sometimes you just roll with a situation and throw a tantrum after the fact.

  A few minutes or hours or days later, I wake up to a raging headache and something pressing against my shoulder. My first instinct is to swat it off—it’s a nuisance, it’s uncomfortable. My second is to fight—maybe I’ve been caught, maybe I’ve been bound, maybe I’m already dead. My third—the instinct I develop in the two seconds it takes for my mind to become lucid—is to remain still. Jane’s head is on my shoulder, and she’s sound asleep.

  Her hair—good lord—it smells like roses. It reminds me of my great-grandmother’s flower garden that bloomed for twenty-eight straight years in the back corner of her two-acre downtown Nashville lot. Even though her home was surrounded by skyscrapers and miles and miles of oil-scented pavement, the stubborn woman refused to sell, saying she built that house with my great-grandfather, and if the city wanted it, they would have to tear it down with her still inside. I used to think keeping the home was a foolish decision on her part; I now see it as a testament to the strong will that kept her alive.

  She died eight years ago this month. She was ninety-five. Her house has since been turned into a Denny’s restaurant, the scent of bacon and grease a constant reminder of what used to be and is no more. The old flower bed became a foundation for two dumpsters and an oversized recycling bin. How’s that for a family legacy?

  The scent of Jane’s hair brings all the memories rushing back. I remember her hair being short, or maybe it was pulled back. I remember blonde, although it could be red. In my mind, she is tough and no-nonsense, overly tall and muscular, not exactly pretty but not ugly either. Right, wrong, or in-between, men have perceptions of people in her line of work, the same perceptions they might have of a female body-builder or a cop. Not unattractive, but not soft and gentle either. The kind of woman who would literally carry the weight in a relationship.

  The scent of her hair is shaking up my normally straight line of thinking and turning it into a web of mangled scribbles. If these are the last moments of my life, I suppose it’s no wonder.

  Why the heck am I thinking about relationships?

  I wish I’d made time for one.

  I’ve always thought relationships were for whipped, desperate romantics like Liam and Chad. Listening to those guys talk about love gives me pains in more places than my head. It’s nauseating the way they wax poetic about missing their women, about being in love, about soulmates and lifelong partnerships. I never know what I want for breakfast tomorrow, let alone for my whole life. As God is my witness, relationships aren’t for me. I like casual. I like non-committal. I like one night stands and “don’t forget your shoes on the way out.” I like painless and uncomplicated. I like ”you go your way, I’ll go mine, no, I do not want your phone number.”

  I like the smell of roses.

  I press two fingers to my temple to slow my ridiculous, out-of-nowhere, depression-ridden thoughts, and Jane shifts in place. Slowly I lower my hand as to not wake her up. The roses mix with cinnamon and the smallest hint of evergreen—no idea how that’s possible underneath the stage of a fifteen-thousand seat arena, but here we are. I close my eyes and listen to her breathe. The scent of a woman is one of my favorite things. The scent of a tough one who could undoubtedly take me down with the flick of her finger has me stifling a groan. I’d like to be taken down by her. Even here, even now.

  My mind. It’s a jumbled mess of thoughts spinning all sorts of weirdly inappropriate directions. Why am I even thinking about this? Worse, what if it’s the last time I ever do?

  I don’t want my life to be over.

  I don’t want my last moments on earth to be lived on a closet floor with a woman I can’t even see.

  I thought I’d be old when my time was up; married once or twice with a few kids to complete the package. I never thought I’d be twenty-eight and on the upward slide of a very prolific career. How fair would it be for everything to stop now? And how am I going to get married a couple times when I’ve never really been in love? How awful am I to be thinking of myself when several outside are already hurt or…worse?

  My chest feels tight. I think this might be what a panic attack feels like.

  I take a deep breath to ease the grip it has on my throat, then plant a hand on my chest to make my heart rate slow. Neither work, but both cause Jane to stir.

  “What’s happening?” she whispers, half-asleep.

  I guess the groan wasn’t stifled like I thought.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Go back to sleep.”

  Her head sinks into my shoulder, and she curls into me. “Do you want me to move my head?”

  “No,” I say the word too quickly, but I want her to sleep. I want her to stop talking and sleep and stay put and give me something to think about besides
thousands of frightened fans and one heartless man’s cold-blooded ability to end lives so casually. God knows how many people he’s cut down without regret or second thought. More could be on the horizon.

  We could be two of them.

  “Okay,” she says with a sleepy sigh.

  She’s tired. Mind tired. Bone tired. The kind of tired that latches onto your organs and pumps through your blood, and has very little to do with lack of sleep. That same kind of tired is running through my veins at such a rapid pace that it might take over my cells as the only element keeping me alive.

  Jane yawns and tucks herself further into my neck. I know she’s more asleep than awake. I know she means nothing by it. But I wish I could wrap an arm around her waist and pull her closer as much for my sake as for hers. I’ve read about strangers clutching one another during plane crashes, and acquaintances kissing each other in workplace ambushes, and I’ve always, always thought it was crazy. Now I get it. If Jane weren’t in this room—if I were here alone—I don’t know how I would make it through this ordeal intact. She’s keeping me sane. She’s the only thing stopping me from doing something foolish. “Don’t be a hero,” she said. It’s only because she’s here that I’m choosing to follow her advice.

  “I’m so tired. Just gonna sleep a little longer.” A single drop of water that hits my sleeve and seeps through the black cotton fabric has me sucking in a breath. She’s been crying, probably cried herself to sleep without me noticing. The reality of it sends a small but very prominent crack through the middle of my heart. She may be tough, but she’s not hard.

  Without thinking, I bring my hand around her back and pull at her waist. She fits nicely into my side, this girl named Jane that I’ve known only a handful of hours. I still can’t believe it’s her name.

  “I’ll wake you if anything happens.” The words are a breath, a line spoken to someone on the cusp of a dream, and then she’s asleep again. She grows so relaxed that I begin to drift. I fight it for a second, and then let sleep pull me under. It isn’t difficult to move Jane’s head to my chest. It isn’t difficult to shift positions until I’m lying on the floor, one arm around her waist, the other resting on the top of her head.Her hair is definitely pulled up into a tight bun. I finger it, finding comfort in the strands. One has escaped, and it becomes my plaything. Her hair is curly, or at least it feels that way in the dark.

  Sure, we’re strangers.

  Sure, we’re nothing more than acquaintances.

  But this is our trauma, and going through it with someone sure beats going through it alone.

  Chapter Eight

  Jane

  I wake up on Teddy’s chest, and just so we’re clear, lying on the floor is a terrible way to sleep.

  To save myself the embarrassment of him finding me this way, I gently roll off and curl on my left side on the hard concrete. Everything hurts—my back, my shoulders, my head from crying myself to sleep, my hair from this tight bun I’ve worn since noon. I pull out pins and an elastic and let my hair fall down my back, sighing in relief right along with my scalp.

  But despite my aching everything, nothing hurts as much as my mouth. I reach for a water bottle in the dark and drain it, feeling marginally better but still awful.

  The heat in this room is oppressive. It’s the middle of November, and it feels like August during a rare Southern-fed heatwave. Muggy. Sticky. Soggy. I’m wearing tight black pants, a white button-up, and a jacket I should have ripped off when we first locked ourselves in here. I slide it off my shoulders right along with the button-up. I’ve never been as thankful for the tank top rule as I am now. “No visible underthings” is an actual regulation of the job. At first, I thought it was sexist—now I don’t care. I ball up the jacket and shirt and use them as a pillow, blinking up at blackness while I listen to Teddy breathe.

  There are no vents to help circulate air. The atmosphere is stale, ventilation is non-existent, everything smells musty, and supplies are limited.

  And nothing at all is happening. Maybe the suspect has already been apprehended. Maybe Andy will call any second to tell us we can leave.

  “Jane? You okay?” His voice is a low hum. I turn toward the sound.

  “I thought you were asleep.”

  “It’s too hot to sleep.”

  “I think I’ve lost five pounds from sweat alone.”

  “Gross.”

  “I agree.”

  He scoots a little closer, pressing his forearm against mine, always seeking, always touching. “I dreamed I was swimming in my parent’s back yard pool, and for some reason, I was wearing my football uniform from high school. I was drinking pool water through a straw, and when I couldn’t get it down fast enough, I went under and started gulping. My mother was yelling at me to stop, but I couldn’t. And then I couldn’t swim back up because my uniform was too heavy, so I panicked. And now my stomach hurts even though it was only a dream. I wish I knew what it meant.”

  “You played football in high school?”

  “In theory, though. I spent every game standing on the sidelines. I was five feet five inches tall on graduation day if I was standing up straight. Also, I was drowning in the dream, if you’re interested in that part.”

  I manage a smile. “Please don’t drown. But I think the most important part of that dream is that you felt powerless, and that feeling made you panic. Not all that hard to figure out under the circumstances.”

  “What are you, a dream whisperer?”

  “It’s my side job. On Saturdays, I tell fortunes at traveling carnivals in Texas.”

  “Just Texas? Because you might make decent money in New York or LA.”

  “Just Texas now, but I’m thinking about expanding.”

  “Thank God. I’d hate to see that side business stagnate.”

  “It’d be a shame considering I interpret dreams correctly almost half the time.”

  “You must be in high demand with those statistics.”

  “I have a stack of singles you’d be jealous of.”

  “From fortune-telling, or are the singles from your other side job?”

  “I work that one only on Wednesdays.”

  “Why just Wednesdays?”

  “Because it’s half-price drink night, and the men at the bar get too drunk to care what anyone looks like.”

  “Well, granted, I haven’t seen your face, but I would think it’d be good enough for the occasional Thursday as well.”

  “With compliments like that, no wonder you have groupies lined up.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I didn’t say thank you.”

  His quiet laugh turns into a sigh we both share. Silly banter is odd when spoken with the weight of unease, like telling a joke when the crowd already knows the punch line. Polite laughter, strained smiles, a pitter-patter of applause. Is this horrendous night almost over? Nothing about it is funny. “It’s been quiet for a long time. Do you think we should—?” Teddy abruptly sits up, and my stomach falls. Even in the darkness, I know this move, this stance. He’s determined. I don’t like it.

  “No,” I say it hard like I mean it. I sit up beside him.

  “No, what?”

  “We’re not opening the door again.”

  “Jane, it’s been too long, and we need to know what’s going on. You know it, and I know it. It will only take me a second to—”

  When the light from my cell phone comes on, he stops talking. “It’s been forty-five minutes since last time. It isn’t smart, Teddy,” I say, but it’s weak. I set the phone down in defeat.

  “Forty-five, that’s all?”

  My shoulders sag. “That’s all. It’s not even ten o’clock yet.” How can so little time pass while your spirit personally ages five years?

  Still, I’m starting to cave because I’m losing my mind, and the idea of cracking the door one more time for a quick update seems less and less foolish. For a long minute, we sit in what feels like a sightless stare-down, him looking at me and
me looking at him and both of us reflecting on projected outcomes. Will we get caught? Will we be discovered? Will we get shot?

  “Give me a better idea then,” he says.

  I don’t have a better idea, and that’s the problem. My mouth opens in search of one, but nothing comes out. I have nothing to offer because he’s right. We can’t just sit here forever, but what are the options? Defeat is a heavy weight to bear when you’re also the one holding the armor.

  “Fine, sit back against the wall again.” My voice wobbles on the foolish demand, but I can’t help it. If I get caught, this whole thing could be over, and not in a good way. Yes, the shooter may be in this for the notoriety, but Andy already made it clear he’s also targeting Teddy himself.

  He can’t get hurt. At this point, it would break me.

  “No, let me do it this time.”

  “We’re not having this conversation again. Back against the wall.”

  “Jane…”

  “Now.” I’m a very reasonable woman when I’m not working.

  He hesitates. When I think he’s about to move, I feel his hands on my shoulders, and he gives a squeeze. I think that’s it, that he’s going to move away, but Teddy surprises me and pulls me to him. He doesn’t want to risk this any more than I do.

  “Just take a look and close the door.” He sighs into my hair, the kind of resigned sigh that leaves my spine prickled with both fear and something else I don’t want to name. He smells good, he feels strong. For now, I’m safe and protected. It’s a nice thing to have the tables turned for a moment. “Hey, you have long hair.” This isn’t what I expected him to say, and I smile-frown into the darkness.

  “Did you think I had a buzz cut?”

  “I may have at one point.”

  “At one point, when?”

  “All the way until a minute ago.”

  “Nice to know the female bodyguard stereotype is alive and well.”

  “Nice to know I’ve been proven wrong. Say a quick prayer, okay?” He whispers the words into my ear, and my eyes begin to sting. I nod in a wordless promise. I’ve never been the praying kind—at least not in many years—but I am now. I’m not sure if God likes eloquence in conversation or if He’s okay with short, pleading words, but fear is knotting my throat. All I can manage is a successive string of please God please Gods and right then and there I decide He’ll accept it as my best. I’ll work on expressiveness later when I’m safely out of this mess.