I go, following three other women, ducking into the first office to the left, which doesn’t have any windows. Then Carter, who’s carrying the injured woman. He sets her down, yanks off his blazer, and rips one sleeve off it. He tightly balls it up, presses it to her wound, and then grabs my hands and presses them to it.
“Keep pressure on it,” he orders, then looks like he’s going to go back out there.
“What are you doing?”
“Stayhere, Owen.” He disappears, but reappears seconds later, dragging the deputy’s body through the door with him.
Carter unholsters the man’s sidearm, checks the safety, and sets it down next to him. I notice he keeps glancing out the door, down the hallway and toward the office lobby area.
After searching, he finds spare ammo mags in the man’s utility belt and puts them in his own pockets. Then he rips the man’s shirt open to expose his bulletproof tactical vest, and starts removing it from him.
“What are youdoing?” I’m panicking and probably feel like I’m repeating myself, because I am.
One of the women is on a cell phone. “The 911 operator says for us to stay here. We can’t put the school on lockdown. The controls are out in the office.” We all flinch as we hear two more shots, close together.
“Where are they?” Carter asks. “The lockdown controls?”
“On the wall on the far end, in the corner, with the PA system controls. It’s a button. It’s marked.”
He’s got the tactical vest off the deputy and is putting it on himself now. “Tell them there’s an armed civilian wearing body armor who’s going to confront and engage the shooter. Describe me to them so they don’t shootme. Tell them I think the shooter is using a handgun. It’s not automatic fire, and it doesn’t sound like a carbine.”
More fear rolls through me. “Carter, you can’tdothat!” I scream.
“If I don’t,” he says, “no telling how many people will die.” He looks back at the office worker. “CCTV cameras?”
“Same corner where the PA controls are.” She points.
“Close and lock this door after me.” He glances my way, but before I can say anything else, he’s gone, with the deputy’s sidearm in his right hand and his own in his left, because the tactical vest covers the rear waistband holster he normally carries his in.
I’m still trying to figure out how the hell he got the weapon into the school, then remembered that the resource officer met us outside earlier today, and Carter talked with him in private for a moment before the deputy personally ushered us inside the school.
Shit.
One of the other women close and lock the door, then prop a chair under the knob.
Seconds later, an alarm sounds, and I hear muffled thuds of fire doors releasing and swinging shut nearby. Carter’s voice comes over the PA system.
“Active shooter on campus. This isnota drill. Teachers, institute lockdown procedures immediately.”
The woman with the belly wound is moaning, and I don’t feel like I’m helping much, but I decide I need to focus on her and not my debilitating fear. I realize that this is probably the closest I will ever come to knowing what Carter went through that day in the desert.
I also wonder what kind of nightmares this will resurrect within him.
Hell, I wonder what kind of nightmares this will trigger inme.
My gaze falls on my tattoo on my right wrist, and I stare at it for a moment before I see the fallen deputy again, where he’s lying just feet away, and I realize this situation could get infinitely worse.
Please, let us both live to have nightmares after this is over.
* * * *
We can hear gunfire.
I know I’m crying, wiping my cheeks on my shoulders because I don’t dare let go of the makeshift dressing under my hands.
At least I’m not the only one crying.
When it goes silent, we all look up at each other, holding our breaths as we listen.
