“What is it?” Ellie asked.
“I can’t get through—maybe the lines are jammed.”
“That’s good, right? It means lots of people are calling, and the police are probably on their way.”
I wanted to think so. I wanted to think they’d be here any time.
I walked over to the window and looked out. I could hear sirens and see flashing lights. Police cars were screeching to a halt in the parking lot out front.
I hated to think what was to come. The survivors, if there were any, emotionally shattered, covered in blankets, gathering in front of the school the way I’d seen on TV. And then they’d have to take out the dead. It didn’t matter how many—even one death was one too many.
How many lives would be ruined? How many parents would suffer forever, knowing their children had been stolen from them?
I remembered my mother and father, how destroyed they’d been when my sister died. It all played in my mind like a film. Andthe only thing I could think of was how I would never wish such a thing on anybody. I couldn’t let my mother suffer that way. Not again. I had to find Thiago. I had to get these people out of there. I had to save them.
I don’t know why, but it felt like a duty suddenly. I had this feeling that my purpose, the reason I had been put there that day, was to save these kids from this hell. It was my obligation, and I accepted it.
And that meant I needed the police to know where we were so they could rescue us. But how? The library’s windows were in the back of the building, and the police had parked out front.
The lights went out.
And that’s when I knew I’d made a huge mistake.
It was as if I could feel our collective energy vanish in a heartbeat.
“What happened?” a chubby younger kid asked.
Ellie looked at the ceiling. “They’ve cut the power.”
I looked over at the librarian’s desk. Her phone was cordless. That meant it wouldn’t work. I’d made a terrible mistake; I’d waited too long. I picked it up just in case, and all I heard was dead air. Our one way of getting in touch with the outside world was gone. Julian… Had he known? Had this been part of his plan? Had he somehow cut the lines to the phones in the teachers’ lounge, the cafeteria, the office?
I’d had my opportunity to call someone and get out the message that we were locked in the library. I could have called anyone. Anyone could have alerted the cops: my mother, one of my friends from DC.
“SHIT!” I screamed, slamming the phone down and raising my hands in frustration.
And then we all heard a sound.
Holding our breath, we looked at each other.
Did somebody know we were in here?
