“We’re not in love anymore. You know it and I know it. We haven’t been for a long time; we want different things. You love the social scene, and I hate it. You have ambition and drive, and I just want a quiet life. We don’t fit anymore. Clem?”
He touched his hand to her cheek, and for a second, she leaned into his touch. “Clem, it doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore. Far from it. You’ll always be my best friend, but we’re not in love. And please don’t think it’s because I have someone else; I don’t. I’m not interested in meeting someone else. But you deserve a fairytale, Clemmie.”
She pulled away from his touch. “You think I can’t function without a man?”
“That’s not what …”
“Fuck you, Luca,” she whispered, her tears falling freely now. “You’ve broken my heart.”
Someone knocked at the door, but didn’t wait for their signal. The stricken face of their lawyer, an otherwise unflappable man, made Luca’s heart stop.
“Guys,” the lawyer said, “you need to check the television news. Right now. It’s Bree’s college. There’s been a shooting spree.”
The gunfire had stopped. Emory signaled for her class to keep quiet. “Keep down, away from the windows. I’m going to check the exit to make sure it’s clear. Then we’ll get out.” She kept her voice steady—a miracle, considering the abject terror she was feeling. But that didn’t matter. The shell-shock on the faces of her English students made her want to hold them all, protect them all, comfort them all. Babies. They’re just babies. Not one of them older than nineteen.
“Emory?” One of the boys, Greg Sestino, stood. “Please let me come with you.”
Emory smiled at him but shook her head. “No way—but thank you for offering. Keep together; I’ll be back in a few moments.” She appreciated the way her students wanted to help, but there was no chance in hell she’d put them in danger.
As she crept out into the silent hallway, her ears were straining to hear any sound at all. When the first shots rang out, she’d been five minutes into her class, the students still settling into the lesson. There were some students who hadn’t arrived and now, as she moved silently through the corridors of her beloved school, her heart was thumping painfully.
Please, please let them be okay. What she wanted most to know was: Who the hell is the shooter and how the hell did they get a gun into school? Auburn prided itself on being one of the safest schools in the country—charging parents a little under fifty thousand dollars a year did that. Metal detectors at every door, constant around the clock security.
Emory rounded the corner and breathed a sigh of relief. An exit—a straight path for her kids to escape through. She ran quietly back to her class and told them to follow her. “Quiet as you can, though, and if anything happens, run. Run like fuck. When you get outside, run, but keep low and zig-zag until you get to safety.”
Her students grinned at her cussing, and she was grateful to have relieved some of the tension. She led them out through the corridor and watched as they skittered out into freedom. Greg was last, and he hesitated by the door.
“What are you doing? Greg, go!” Emory started to get panicky when he didn’t move. He looked at her.
“You’re not coming with us, are you?”
Emory shook her head. “I have to find the others.”
Greg looked unhappy. “Emory …”
“Go.” She closed the door on his grim expression and turned. Take a breath. Think. There were three of her students still in the building. Lee Shawn, Hailey Wells, and Bree Saffran. Lee and Hailey were dating, so wherever they were, they were together. Bree was a solitary creature, a well-liked but self-contained unit. God knows where she might be.
Emory moved through the corridors slowly. She’d kicked off her sneakers, so her socked feet glided silently along the polished floors. She checked every classroom along the first floor, then moved silently up to the second.
She wasn’t prepared for what she saw. Bodies. A small whimper escaped her as she saw two of her colleagues on the ground in pools of blood. Sam Jensen. Her friend who taught French.
“Oh no, no, no …” Emory whispered as she sank to her knees beside him. A bullet had torn through Sam’s neck; he’d bled out before anyone could help.
Tina Halsey lay on her back a few feet away, crumpled as if she had been felled. Emory gagged when she saw that half of Tina’s head had been blown away.
“Em …”
She spun around to see Lee Shawn crawling along the floor. She ran to him, and this time, she did moan. Lee had been shot in the chest and was bleeding from the mouth. One look and Emory knew it was hopeless.
“Oh God, Lee … hang on, please.” She took her over-shirt off and pressed it to his chest. There was blood in his mouth, and he coughed, splattering more blood over them both.
“Emory … Hailey’s dead. He killed her in front of me, and he was laughing, Em, he laughed …”
Both of them had tears dripping down their faces now. “Who is he, Lee?”
Lee’s eyes were taking on a glassy look, and Em knew he was dying. She was going to watch this bright, funny, kind student die in front of her and she felt helpless. “Can you tell me who, Lee?”
He shook his head, and for a moment, Emory reeled at the thought of a random shooter. God, no …
“I can’t believe it, Em … it’s Mr. Azano. David Azano … Emory … I’m so scared.”
Emory felt as if she’d been hit in the chest with a hammer. David Azano. Physics professor. Her friend. She scooched down next to Lee and wrapped her arms around him. Lee had to be delirious; it just couldn’t be David. David was the clown of the teacher’s breakroom, the born teacher who loved the kids, loved the life he had here. He was one of the most popular teachers both with the kids and the staff. No. No way.
Lee shuddered in her arms. “Tell my mom and dad I love them, Em, promise?”
She couldn’t give him any reassurance that she could save him, and this seemed like such a little thing to do. “Promise. Oh, God, Lee, please, try to hang on. Some of the kids have gotten out; they’ll call the cops.”
But he was silent, and she knew from the way his weight was heavy in her arms that he was gone. The sobs came then, and she struggled to keep them quiet, burying her face in Lee’s short dark hair as she cried over the dead boy.
As her sobs shuddered to a halt a few moments later, she heard it. A scream. A female’s scream, and the adrenaline coursed through her body. Gently, she laid Lee down on the floor and scrambled to her feet. The scream had made her realize; she still had a job to do, and now she was raging, furious as she strode down the blood-soaked hallways, focused on the one thing that was obvious.
Bree Saffran needed her help.
The police keep the media and the relatives far away from the school building, in a clearing beyond the school boundaries. A hastily convened press conference was happening, and as Luca and Clem arrived, they made their way over the throng around the police captain who was talking.
“We currently have an active shooter on the property, and we are effecting a rescue scenario as we speak, but folks, this is an ongoing situation, and we need every resource available. I promise you, when we know your children, your friends, your colleagues are safe, we will let you know.”
Luca realized he was clutching Clem’s hand, but she was so pale, so drawn that he didn’t want to drop it and hurt her feelings. Right now, they needed each other. He looked over to the see the dean, Stephen Harris, talking to the cops. He looked beyond devastated.
A cry went up as a flood of teenagers and staff came pouring into the clearing, and hysterical relatives threw themselves at their loved ones. Luca and Clem rushed forward, but as the crowd cleared, it became obvious that Bree was not among them. Clem looked at Luca, and he could see the panic in her eyes.
“No … not my little girl …” she whispered, and he clutched her to his chest.
“We don’t know anything yet,” he w
hispered to her. “Let’s keep calm until we do. If she were … gone, I’d know it. You’d know it.”
He felt her nod against his chest and wondered if she could feel just how hard his heart was thumping. Over her head, he spotted Greg Sestino being hugged by his family. Greg met his gaze and nodded, speaking quietly to his mom, who reluctantly let him go. He jogged over to them.
“Mr. Saffran, Mrs. Saffran, hey. Look, Bree is still inside, and as far as we know, she’s okay. Ms. Grace … you know Emory?”
“I do,” said Clem quietly, and turned to Luca, “Emory Grace, Bree’s English teacher. The one she’s always talking about.”
Luca nodded, then looked at Greg. “Go on.”
“Emory, I mean, Miss Grace, she stayed behind to find Bree and a couple of our other classmates. I know Emory; she won’t let anything happen to them. And Bree … Mr. Saffran, Mrs. Saffran, I don’t know if you know this about your daughter, but she’s kickass. I know she’ll be okay.”
Clem smiled gratefully at him. “Thank you, Greg. And I hope everyone is okay, all your friends, too.”
“I hope so, too. Thanks. Look, I’d better get back to …” He nodded at his mother and father. Luca shook his hand.
“Of course. Thanks, Greg. We do appreciate you coming to talk to us.”
Luca and Clem stood, their arms locked around the other, and waited. Luca bent to kiss the top of Clem’s red hair. “Our daughter’s kickass,” he said softly.
Clem nodded. “She’s kickass,” she agreed, and tightened her grip around him.
Bree Saffran felt anything but kickass at that moment. In fact, she was pretty sure she was about to pee herself, and that would suck. Really suck. Because if Mr. Azano was about to shoot her, then she wanted to die with dignity and not covered in urine.
David Azano was leveling the gun at her, his eyes wild. Bree had never seen him like this, but she could tell from his eyes that there was no one sane inside him. She’d seen this before in some of her wilder friends. Two words.
Bad. Trip.
“All you kids, you just leech the life out of people like me. You take, you take, take, take, take, fuck …” He pulled the trigger, and Bree’s heart failed. The gun clicked and clicked. Empty. Oh, thank you, thank you.
While Azano stared at the gun, she edged around the room, trying to put herself between him and the door. She didn’t look down—couldn’t look at the bodies that were littering the teacher’s breakroom. God … she could smell the blood rust and salt and gore. She moved slowly, but Azano looked up them and grinned.
“No use trying to escape, little rich girl. I’m three times the size of you, and faster. And, my, oh my, what do we have here?” From his pocket, he pulled a flick-knife. He waved it at her. “Backup. Looks like I’m going to have to get up close and personal.”
He lunged at her, and Bree let out the loudest scream she could as Azano grabbed her and flung her back against the wall. She struggled with everything she had, but he was strong, huge and the knife slashed ever closer to her.
Then, in what seemed like a dream, a small, dark-haired missile launched herself at the man, knocking him away from Bree. Bree was stunned and froze. Emory.
“Bree, fucking run! Bree! Run!’
But she couldn’t. She watched as Emory wrestled with the man … if he was three times bigger than Bree, then he dwarfed the tiny Emory. Bree blinked, then leaped onto the man’s back, yelling and screaming like a banshee. The two women clung to the man, hitting, biting, clawing at him, trying to subdue him, but the acid trip he was on gave him superhuman strength.
In horror, Bree watched as the knife sank into Emory’s stomach, and she gasped in agony.
“No!” Bree yelled, but Azano yanked the knife out of Emory and waved the bloody blade at Bree.
“Bree! Run, now!” Emory was clutching at her belly, trying to stem the bleeding and trying to get to her feet as Azano advanced on the younger woman. “Run! Go get help … there’s nothing you can do here. Please.”
Emory kicked out the back of Azano’s knee, and he went down, screaming and cursing, before whirling around and grabbing Emory again. Emory, weakening, looked at Bree.
“Bree.” Her voice was unbelievably calm in the face of her certain death. “Please, go. I can’t bear it if you die. Please, run …”
Bree started to sob. “Em … we all love you. I love you. Please, I can’t leave you …”
“Run, baby, run…” Emory choked as Azano stabbed her again, and then Bree gave her her dying wish and ran.
Clem saw her first, being carried by a policeman, and let out a scream. Luca followed her gaze, then they were running to meet their daughter.
“She’s okay,” said the policeman carrying her, “She just passed out. She was hysterical when she escaped.”
Luca took his daughter from the policeman and carried her over to where the paramedics were treating the injured. In a few seconds, Bree was coming around, but burbling and getting hysterical again.
Clem took her daughter’s face in her hands. “Baby, baby, it’s Mama; it’s Mama. Look at me; you’re safe now, you’re safe…”
“Please, he’s killing her … you have to help her,” Bree was panic-stricken, looking between her mother and father.
“Who, baby?” Luca took her hand, his chest tight.
“Emory … it was Mr. Azano … he shot some people, some teachers, some kids, and he was trying to kill me but his gun was empty. He had a knife, and he was going to kill me, but she stopped him; she jumped on him…”
“Ms. Saffran.” They all started and turned to see the police captain, his expression urgent and alert. “You say he ran out of ammo?”
Bree nodded. “Yes. He just has a knife … I think we were the only ones left, but please, you have to stop him. He stabbed her … she’s only tiny and she saved me, saved my life, Mom, Dad…”
Luca wrapped his arm around her shoulders and nodded to the police captain, who turned and spoke quickly and quietly into his radio. As if from nowhere, shoals of cops began to flood towards the school. Clem and Luca sat on either side of their daughter, who refused to move until she knew how her beloved teacher was.
Minutes passed. Everyone in the clearing fell silent as they waited. Then, a few minutes, they heard shouting, gunshots. Bree clutched her mother’s hand.
Finally, they saw paramedics running beside a gurney, an IV blood bag swinging from a stand affixed to the bed. Bree gave a small cry, but they couldn’t see who it was. Luca stood and patted her shoulder. “I’ll go see, sweetheart. Stay with your mom.”
With a meaningful look at Clem, he turned and rushed over to the ambulance. With a rush of relief, he saw the young woman on the stretcher—this must be Emory Grace. The relief was fleeting; he saw how much blood she was still losing. One of the first responders looked at him as she hopped into the ambulance to attend to the unconscious Emory.
“Will she be okay?” Luca felt helpless.
“Are you a relative?”
Luca felt desolate. “She saved my daughter’s life.”
The responder’s face softened. “We’re going to do everything we can, but she’s in a pretty bad way. Lost a lot of blood.”
He asked her where they were taking Emory Grace and she told him. “We really have to go.”
“I know, just one quick thing,” and he leaped into the ambulance, leaning over Emory and whispering. “Thank you. Thank you for saving my girl.”
He touched her soft cheek, and she gave a small moan, and his heart flipped.
“Sir?” The responder sounded urgent now. Luca stepped out of the ambulance, and just before they closed the door, he called. “Anything. Do anything you can to save her. Please.”
The paramedic nodded and closed the door, and Luca was left to stare after the ambulance as it raced, screaming, towards the nearest emergency room.
“Please,” he said softly. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t only his daughter’s life Emory Grace had saved that d
ay.
For Emory, a few days later, it wasn’t a happy awakening. Searing pain racked her body; her throat felt like sandpaper; and worst of all, she opened her eyes to see her estranged husband sitting by her bed. Oh God. Had she gone to hell?
“What are you doing here?” Her voice sounded echoey, hollow, rasping.
Ray jumped up and called for the doctor in that imperious tone of his, before helping her sip a cup of water. “Darling, of course I’m here. Where else would I be at a time like this?”
Emory felt a button in her hand, and she pressed it, hoping it was for morphine or to call the nurse. “Well, Ray, are you here because you care or because you’re mad someone beat you to trying to kill me?”
Ho-hey, she must be flying high on the morphine to talk back to him like that. His face went red, and she watched him try to keep his temper.
“I’ve been here day and night to care for you,” he said in a low, furious voice. “Just like you to be so ungrateful.”
“Fuck off, Ray.”
Yep, yep, she was definitely high. Luckily for both of them, the doctor came then and started to ask her a bunch of questions; his voice was so warm and kind that she couldn’t help compare the two men in front of her. She interrupted the doctor.
“Doc, before you say anything else, I think I’d like some privacy from my soon-to-be-ex-husband. Ray, please leave.”
Ray looked annoyed, but when he glanced at the doctor, the doctor shrugged and nodded. “Patient’s prerogative, Mr. Grace.”
From the tone of his voice, Emory could tell Ray had been a royal pain in the hospital staff’s asses. Dr. Lundheim, a young, handsome man in his thirties, she guessed, waited until Ray had left the room and then grinned.
“As I was saying, feel free to scoff derisively, but you were very lucky. No major organs were damaged and we were able to perform a graft on the leaking artery that was the cause of your blood loss. Now, that doesn’t mean you can go swing dancing anytime soon, but you should make a full recovery and, as you’re young and healthy, pretty quickly, too.”
Dangerous Kiss Page 59