He barely spoke a word. If he hadn’t been hanging on to me so tight, I’d have thought he was wounded or worse.
I had to run past the bodies of people who had been my colleagues, including the woman who had been my friend and lover. They’d been shot, and their bodies were lying contorted in pools of blood.
“Don’t look,” I told Cameron, squeezing him tight as I reached the vestibule. I ducked down, trying to cover the boy with my body as much as I could. I was so afraid, so full of adrenaline, that I wanted to vomit.
Blood.
Screams.
Fear.
This was hell on earth…and I had no idea what to do.
I let my survival instincts guide me, the way I had in the past, the way we all do in situations like these. Except this time, it was different—this was huge compared to anything I’d been through before. I thought of the pain I’d felt when I lost my sister, and I told myself if I could make sure even one person didn’t have to go through that, it would be worth it, even if I had to risk my life. There were too many lives on the line for me to be afraid now…
In Cameron’s eyes, I saw horror mixed with blind trust. I was all he had right now. And there was no way I was going to let him down.
I hadn’t managed to save Lucy, but I would save little Cam. There was evil in the world, and he was learning about it today, but I wasn’t going to let it take him away.
I ran to the cafeteria. I needed a weapon, I kept telling myself, something I could put in my pocket that wasn’t a pencil or pen, something I could reach for if these murderers caught me with my guard down. The sound of shots was becoming more distant, which gave me some momentary relief.
“Where are we going, Thiago?” Cameron asked, so scared I could barely hear him.
“We’re going to hide in the cafeteria. Everything will be fine.”
The halls were empty—no killers, no bodies, no signs of life or death.
Now that I think about it, I should have done something different. It would have been better to try and hide among the carnage. Because for three armed psychos, those empty rooms and halls were like a blank canvas, a sign of defeat.
The cafeteria was empty, too. I was confused. Where were they?
We walked behind the counter into the kitchens. There was nothing on the stainless-steel counters. This was where Ms. Puck, one of the cooks, usually stood. She was a tall and imposing woman older than my mother who had been nice to me ever since I’d started working there. She always gave me a second piece of chocolate cake when I asked. I was relieved not to find her now, hoping that her shift hadn’t started yet.
I put Cameron down and told him to stay by the door while I went in the back where the loading docks stood to receive daily deliveries for the hundreds of students at Carsville. I felt so relieved when I saw the door because it meant a way out of this nightmare. All I wanted was to get Cameron to safety so I could go find Kam and my brother, make sure they were OK, too, and bring them back here to escape.
I pushed and pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t move an inch.
“They’re locked,” I heard a soft voice say.
I turned and found Cameron with his eyes full of tears.
“How do you know?”
Cam looked around, unsure what to say, squeezing a little stuffed dinosaur he’d been carrying the whole time without my noticing. He gazed up at me with a pleading expression, as if he needed me to tell him it wasn’t his fault.
“He forced me,” he responded as I came closer. “He forced me to help him…”
“Who forced you, Cameron?”
“Momo,” he responded with terror in his eyes.
“Momo isn’t real.”
“He is, too, real! And he forced me! He forced me to lock it…”
I could feel the blood drain from my face.
“Did you see him, Cam?”
