For a minute, there’s nothing but the wet sound of guys trying not to cry.
I taste blood in my mouth, but I don’t remember being hit. I wipe my face and my hand comes away streaked with red and snot and sweat.
The humiliation of it is instant, but then I look at the others, everyone is leaking, everyone is stripped raw. Whatever dignitywe brought in here was left on the ice, probably somewhere near Cap.
Minutes pass. Or maybe hours. Time isn’t working right.
There’s a crash, closer, maybe just outside the door. I hear footsteps, boots on tile, something heavy being dragged. Then silence.
I want to vomit. I want to scream. Instead, I fixate on the pattern of the floor tiles, count each black fleck like it matters.
Darius finally speaks, barely a whisper. “Stay behind me,” he says.
It’s so fucking unnecessary I almost laugh, but the sound comes out strangled. Still, I nod, because it’s what you do when a goalie tells you to cover the net.
We wait.
And wait.
At some point, the gunfire stops. The only sound now is distant sirens, and the occasional whimper from the huddle.
Then the sirens get closer, a new chaos layered over the old.
Someone yells outside, maybe a cop, maybe not. The pounding on the door comes sudden and loud.
“Police! Hands where I can see them!”
For a split second, nobody moves. We’re too fused to the ground, too used to hiding.
Then Darius stands, pulling me with him. He’s taller than the rest by a full head, so when the door finally gives way, it’s his chest and my face that are first in the line of fire.
The SWAT guy is enormous, in black armor and a helmet, gun up, eyes blank.
He scans the room, the terror in his face so out of place that it makes everything more real, not less.
“We’re clear! Got survivors!” he shouts, and the words hit harder than any bullet.
I look at Darius, expecting relief, or maybe gratitude, or maybe just the old, reliable indifference.
But what I see is something else, pure, undiluted emptiness, like the inside of a spent shell. His grip on my arm tightens, not out of fear, but as if anchoring himself to the fact that we’re still here.
I want to say something.
I want to tell him it’s over, or that we did good, or that I’m sorry about Cap, or that I’m glad he was the one next to me. But nothing comes out.
The rest is a blur, more officers, paramedics, questions I can’t answer. Darius lets go of my arm only when forced, only when they physically pull us apart to check for wounds.
We stand in the hallway, blinking against the emergency lights, and everything smells like ammonia and scorched rubber and smoke.
I’m still shaking, maybe forever.
There are news crews outside. There are more sirens.
They say one shooter is dead, but there's a second, still out there, still unaccounted for.
They say help is here, but their eyes keep scanning the hallways like they don't believe their own words.
But Darius and I lock eyes one last time, and we both know it’s not over. Not by a mile.
