by Groves, B.
Screams.
She would never forget the terrified screams. They haunted her dreams night after night. She thought the gunshots would never end.
She watched in horror as bodies fell in front of her.
She wondered when it would be her turn. When a bullet would tear through her body, like they were doing to her classmates.
She forced her eyes to the left. Dean Walker stood in front of Gabby’s table. His mind trying to process what was happening to them.
His hazel eyes met hers for a split second. Gabby screamed when blood soaked his shirt and jeans.
He said something to her, but Gabby never knew what it was, and then he was on the ground.
Gabby spotted Jake White after Dean fell to the ground. His face a stilled mix of terror and shock.
Gabby still couldn’t see the gunman, but one thing happened, she came to her senses and dove underneath the desk.
Each gunshot made her jump, wondering if a bullet would hit her any second.
Sheer panic made her heart pound in her chest. She was hyperventilating. She thought she would faint any second, but her mind scolded her to think logically, and try to figure out what she should do.
She still didn’t know who the gunman was. Was it a student? Was it a random act by a stranger? Was this an angry teacher? Why was this person shooting inside their school?
Was Margo safe? Where was her sister?
Gabby frantically looked around trying to find a place where she could blend into the background and not come into the line of fire. She looked over to see Dean lying on his side, blood forming a pool next to him.
Risking her own safety, Gabby reached out, and with all of her strength, she pulled Dean by his shirt underneath the desk to hide him with her.
She cried out as another gunshot rang out and thought she saw another body fall to the ground.
That was when she sobbed.
She risked getting shot and through a blur of tears, her eyes turned down to Dean. His eyes were closed, and his breath ragged. He was losing blood fast.
His shirt was soaked through and soaking into Gabby’s jeans.
“Dean?”
Gabby reached out and grabbed her fallen jacket. She ignored the turmoil around her and inspected Dean to see where the worst wound was and finding it in his shoulder.
She bunched up her jacket and pressed down on the wound. Dean groaned trying to protest her life-saving efforts.
“Dean, stay with me okay?”
He groaned again and opened his eyes.
“Dean? Dean!”
He tried to talk, but he the words formed on his lips with no escape, and then he would close his eyes once again with Gabby not knowing if he was taking his last breath.
Before Gabby saw the face of the gunman, her only thought was: I never told you the feelings were mutual. Why were we so stupid?
Then she looked up to face the person who murdered people that day in the library of Seven Hills High School.
The person who was shooting walked around the corner of the bookracks.
The person’s eyes mirrored her own.
Gabby jerked when she heard the front desk girl enter the locker room.
“We’re closing! I get the day off!”
Gabby pushed her memories aside, and smiled at the girl, remembering a time when she was that young and carefree. She yearned for those days all the time.
“Good for you,” Gabby said with a genuine smile. “Enjoy your day off.”
The girl nodded. “You, too. Have a good day.”
Gabby thanked her and found her phone with a text on it that Gabby must not have heard when she was inside the world of the past.
Her best friend from high school, Pamela Monroe, sent her the message.
“Lunch. This Saturday. I’m going crazy. I won’t take no for an answer.”
Gabby chuckled and said she would love to before she left the gym.
Gabby walked to her Ford SUV and wiped the snow from the windows with a towel. She really needed to invest in an ice scraper, she thought with a sigh, while shivering the whole time from the cold blast of wind that made her fingers tingle. She planned to buy one when she got here, but the snowstorm came from the west before she had a chance to run to the hardware store from her move.
She jumped into the driver’s seat and placed her hands over the heater vents and winced when they burned from the sudden blast of heat.
Gabby grabbed her phone and sent a text back to Pamela saying she was freezing.
Dean was still harboring her thoughts, and she needed a quick diversion.
Gabby received the “LOL! Better thicken that blood up,” answer from her friend, making Gabby laugh.
Gabby would tell Pamela about her chance encounter with Dean when they had lunch on the weekend.
Gabby still had a ton of unpacking to do and thought since she was stuck at home for today, she would concentrate on that.
Gabby white-knuckled the steering wheel the whole way home. The small, three bedroom, twelve hundred square foot red brick house was located at the end of an older neighborhood, and in-between some odd trees hiding her from the other neighbors.
This was the place where Pamela grew up, and her parents, now retired and living in the south usually rented out to people who stayed throughout the summer months. They were nice enough to make an exception for Gabby when she spoke of her plans to move back to Seven Hills.
Gabby’s family home was located about three miles from this house, but Gabby hadn’t had the heart to drive by there yet.
It was a cozy home with the chimney reaching into the sky on one side, and white decorative shutters accenting the windows around the front of the home, with a huge bay window sitting over a small porch area.
The home was finished off with black shingles, and bushes scattered around the home. The front yard was colossal with a big oak tree hanging over the driveway, right now bare from the season. Gabby smiled at the memories of her and Pamela trying to climb that tree when they were younger, and Pamela’s mother scolding them to get down because she worried they would hurt themselves. The town and county began at the southern edge of the Pine Barrens, and when Gabby exited her car, the mixed scent of fresh snow and pine trees wafted up her nose.
The backyard was fenced in with a chain link fence to keep out the wildlife in the area, and Gabby spotted the remnants of a garden that Pamela’s mother used to water every afternoon when they lived there.
She entered the house and sighed seeing all the boxes scattered about. It was still early in the morning, so she had a full day ahead of her. Pamela had a newborn she was busy with, so Gabby had to unpack alone.
She needed to keep in her mind in check. Seeing Dean Walker this morning sent her into a tailspin, but over the years she learned to hide her emotions, it’s what kept her strong throughout the tragedy that consumed her and her family.
Gabrielle Ryan was now an independent graphic design artist and a painter.
Her old therapist was supportive about her artistic endeavors, making Gabby thankful she had some kind of outlet when her own inner pain became unbearable.
Her older brother, John, dealt with his pain by making the military his career. It was hard for him to come home when he had to, so Gabby was left to her own devices to deal with Margo’s crimes and death.
After she and her parents moved to Florida, she finished her diploma and went to school at Florida State University.
For a few years, no one recognized her or the family name until her paintings were displayed in a gallery at the university.
Most people showed her respect, kindness, and were supportive, but there were those who were outright hostile towards her.
She learned how to deal with the hostility and the occasional death threat. She was waiting for the death threats to start since the tenth anniversary was a month from now.
Gabby beat many of the odds stacked against her, and forged her career first as a junior designer,
then moving up the ranks. Two years ago she struck out on her own and run her own business.
Gabby already had her work office set up right in the living area, and her unfinished paintings sat on easels waiting for her attention.
The house was already furnished when Gabby moved in, so most of her own furnishings went to storage.
She was back in New Jersey on a mission, and the fewer people knew about it, the better her chances were of finding the source of Margo’s fury in her diary.
Gabby’s cell phone rang, and Gabby groaned when her parent's number came up.
Her move back to New Jersey was a sore spot between parents and child.
“Hi Mom,” Gabby said, taking off her coat on one arm, and slipping out of the other arm without missing a beat or her mom’s voice.
“I hear you're getting four inches of snow up there,” her mother said in greeting. Her mother, June, loved talking about the weather.
“That’s what it looks like,” Gabby said hanging up her coat and heading to the kitchen to pour more coffee.
“Be careful driving. Any plans for the day?” Her voice overly cheerful, making Gabby wonder how medicated she was today.
Gabby tried to keep her anger in check. Her parents knew exactly why she came back to Seven Hills and refused to speak about it.
“No, I’m staying home for the day and unpacking. I’ll be busy,” she said. “I’ll call you this weekend.”
Her mother didn’t hide her disappointment. “All right. Well, have a good day, honey, and your father says hi.”
“Tell him I said hi, and I love you both,” Gabby answered.
Gabby hung up the phone and sank into the couch. She thought about sitting around all day but didn’t want to be lazy.
She took a sip of her coffee and grabbed a little box seated next to her on the couch.
She grabbed her utility knife and cut through the tape.
She lifted out the antique wooden music box. The music box was square with intricate designs carved into the wood.
She lifted the lid, and the little ballerina spun place in front of the small mirror. Gabby never saw the gears, since they were covered for the ballerina and her dancing, but she could feel their slight vibrations through the bottom of the box. The song was Brahm’s Lullaby.
Eight-year-old Gabrielle lifted the lid for her little sister, five-year-old Margo.
Margo’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw the ballerina dancing.
“How’s she doing that, Gabby?” The curious little girl asked. Margo was losing her baby teeth, so everything was pronounced in a lisp.
The music box had been their grandmother’s and now their father passed it onto them.
“I don’t know, Daddy says it’s magic,” Gabby said, with a smile to her little sister.
The little girl made a face and tried to touch the ballerina spinning in place.
“No—no. Daddy says if you touch her, she’ll break.” Gabby pulled the box away from the curious fingers.
The little girl pushed back her blonde curls and pushed her lips out in a pout. She crossed her arms over her chest; upset her sister wouldn’t let her touch the box.
“I won’t hurt it, I promise,” Margo bargained with her older sister.
Gabby closed the box and brought it close to her chest. “It was Mom mom’s so you have to promise me you won’t break it. I mean really, really promise, no going back.”
Margo jumped up and down in place repeating, “I promise. I promise!”
Gabby reluctantly handed Margo the music box.
The little girl squealed in delight and ran to show their mother what Gabby gave her.
Margo kept her promise; she never broke the music box. She cherished it. It was the first thing Gabby laid eyes on in the empty room after they released her from police custody that day.
The box has since opened on its own twice. The first time was after the funeral when Gabby found Margo’s diary, and the second time when Gabby moved back to New Jersey.
Gabby was close. She could feel it deep down in her tortured soul.
She carefully placed the music box on the glass coffee table and lifted out the diary. She flipped through the pages and saw the parts she had highlighted. Soon, she would need to sit down and re-read the parts pertinent to her.
Chapter 4
The announcement came over the intercom that school was dismissing early.
Weather forecasters said four inches, but it turned into a foot of snow since the storm was moving fast from the west. The wind was picking up again and blew snowflakes in every direction.
Dean spotted the buses pulling into the parking lot from the window.
He looked over his class of anxious freshman, most of them grinning from ear-to-ear about leaving early.
Dean smiled at their sudden enthusiasm. “You guys stay put till the bell rings. A snow day doesn’t mean a break. Chapters eleven and twelve are due. Read them, have the questions at the end of the chapters finished by tomorrow.”
A collective groan wafted through the class, and Dean sat down at his desk with a satisfied smile.
“Oh, I know. You poor things,” Dean said mocking sympathy.
Coming to school this morning was the right decision. Once Dean started his lectures during the morning classes, he put aside his emotions about Gabrielle Ryan.
The bell rang, and the students couldn’t rush fast enough to the door. Most of them saying bye to Dean along the way.
Dean put his hands on his chin and waited for the classroom to empty.
Dean didn’t move for a while. He knew he needed to grade those reports still, and should have taken advantage of the early dismissal to do just that, and go over his lesson plans for the week, but he had no motivation.
He couldn’t deny it. Gabrielle looked beautiful.
Besides her golden blonde locks, her skin looked permanently tanned from living in Florida. Her nose had a spattering of freckles, and her round dark blue eyes were just as expressive as he remembered.
Dean inhaled a deep breath, and shook his head, trying desperately to push those thoughts aside.
You'd think hearing about how Gabby ran out of the library after her sister shot herself, leaving him to bleed to death alone on the floor, would have changed his feelings for her.
He’d dug into the deepest parts of his mind to remember everything from that day, but the only clear picture he had was Jake.
Dean never knew what he was angry with more, the fact that her own sister shot him, or that she left him there without helping him or even other students who were injured.
He’d convinced himself over the years that they’d been kids. Gabrielle was in a panic over witnessing her sister shooting people at the school. The sisters arguing about something only moments before Margo came back inside with her guns. He never knew if Gabrielle had been a target of Margo’s rage or if something else had driven her to snap.
Gabby never returned to school. The damage in the school wasn’t catastrophic like other shootings, but the school thought it best to send the kids to another school as they made their recoveries.
Dean returned just in time for graduation.
“You going to sit there all day and stare out the window?”
Dean jumped, and looked up to see William Barnes, the political science teacher, and boy’s basketball head coach standing in the doorway.
A man in his mid-thirties, he was the most popular teacher in the school. He always had a ready smile and was a two-time all-star from his college basketball days. He favored neon orange ties, and Dean swore he wanted to blind his opponents for the Seven Hills Stingers basketball team.
He had three daughters, all under the age of ten, and his wife worked in another school outside of the county.
“Nah, I thought I’d get some work done before heading home. What about you?” Dean said leaning back in his seat.
A dark eyebrow rose in question. “You look like you’re getting a lot
of work done.”
“I was, I swear,” Dean said with a laugh. “What are you doing?”
William walked in a pulled up a chair. William was over six feet five inches tall and towered over everyone in the school.
“Nothing,” William said. “I made the mistake of calling my wife to tell her we got out early.”
Dean laughed. “Big mistake.”
Dean turned away again, and William caught the far away look.
“What’s up?”
Dean scoffed and leaned over his desk. He spotted the baseball schedule for the year and cringed. Soon, he'd be up to his elbows in the duties of head coach.
“You having problems again?” William asked.
Dean shook his head, and said, “No, but old memories came back this morning.”
William looked at him confused. “What do you mean? The memorial they’re having?”
“No, Margo’s sister is back in town.”
William sat back in his chair, surprise clear on his features. “You mean… Margo—Gabrielle Ryan—sister—Margo?”
Dean took a sip of his coffee. He made a face because it was cold. “Yep.”
“No, shit? Where did you see her?”
“At the gym this morning.”
“Is she just here for the memorial? If so, it’s a little early.”
“No, she told me she moved back into town a few days ago,” Dean explained.
William’s eyes widened, and his mouth turned into an “O” shape.
“Of all people it had to be her,” William said, rubbing his chin in thought. “Why would she move back here? Hell, if people find out she might face pitchforks.”
“I don’t know about that, but I wasn’t exactly nice to her either,” Dean said.
“You don’t have to be.”
“No, I have every right to be pissed, but it took a lot of guts to come back here,” Dean said.
“Didn’t she leave you on the floor? I remember you telling me you had the hots for her, and she was right next to you.”
Dean scoffed. “At one time, but I put those feelings behind me.” Dean didn’t want to bring up these memories, but William was his friend and wasn’t there when the shooting happened. “I don’t know much between the time her sister shot me, and the time I woke up in the hospital. There are a lot of rumors. I asked her friend Pam once, and she said it wasn’t up to her to say.”