“I’m fine,” he said.
“I know. You’re a brave little boy. You know that, don’t you?”
He nodded.
“Cam, wait for me in the ambulance,” I said. “I’ll be there in just a second.”
“I want Mom,” he cried.
The cop who had rescued us from the roof stepped forward and kneeled down. “Come with me, Cam, and we’ll get your mom on the phone, sound good?”
My brother looked at me, I nodded, and the cop took his hand and led him away. I wanted to run after him; I couldn’t lose sight of him again, but I knew they needed me to tell them everything I knew about the situation.
“You need to go in,” I said, staring the woman in the eyes. “Now.”
She tried to get me to sit down, but I refused. “What are you waiting for?” I screamed at the whole group, who were all staring at me, dumbfounded.
“We’ve been told there are hostages. If we go in now, we’ll put more lives at risk. Our protocol—”
“Fuck your protocol! They’ll kill everyone! My classmates, my best friend—people are getting shot!”
My voice cracked, and I stumbled. My legs couldn’t hold me up anymore.
“It’s going to be all right,” the woman said, trying to calm me down.
“You don’t understand!” I screamed. “They don’t care about anyone! They’ll kill every person in there if you don’t go in now!”
“How many shooters are there?”
“Three,” I answered.
By the shocked look on her face, I could tell they had literally no idea what was going on inside. “Tell Montgomery what she just said,” she ordered one of her colleagues. Then, addressing me, she went on, “I need you to tell me everything. Everything you’ve seen, everything you know.”
And I did. I told her Julian was behind this, and he’d implicated his sister. That Jules had a website where other deranged psychos like him could connect. I told her what had happened a few weeks ago, how we’d figured out he was pretending to be someone completely different, how he was obsessed with me, how they’d found his room full of photos and videos of me and my stuff, and how no one had done anything. I told her he had disappeared, and then we’d seen him the night of the basketball game. I told her about his announcement over the intercom from the principal’s office, addressing the students and reading out the list of people he wanted dead. I gave her details of things I’d seen with my own eyes, boys and girls who’d been shot at the hands of those bastards. I said they had tricked my little brother into locking the doors to the gym and cafeteria and how Thiago had broken a skylight to set us free. I told her my best friend was likely dead. I told her I was the one he wanted.
The captain listened to everything I had to say, without interrupting. I added, “If you don’t go in now, there won’t be anybody left to save.”
The woman stared me in the eyes for a few seconds, then turned to her team and said, “To hell with protocol. We’re going in.”
And that was when the insanity began. Everyone was in motion, while the woman got into an argument with a big-bellied man in a suit jacket. I tried to hear what they were saying.
“You can’t—” he told her.
Before he finished the phrase, she said, “The hell I can’t.”Then she hurried back over and asked, “Where exactly did you say your friends were?”
With all the hope I could muster, I told her, “They’re in the principal’s office. Julian’s there, too, I’m sure of it. He has Taylor with him. He’s waiting for me to show up.”
She nodded, and I heard commotion outside the police tent. It was my mother and Ms. Di Bianco struggling to get in.
“Mom!” I shouted.
I ran to her the way I used to when I was a little girl, when she’d wait for me outside daycare and the sight of her would fill me with joy because I knew it was time for us to go home for my after-school snack.
She hugged me, and I buried my head in her arms, and I cried—finally letting out the tears the way I’d needed to all day.
“Kamila, where’s your brother?” she asked, terrified. “Where is Cameron?”
“He’s fine. The medics wanted to check him over, but he’s OK. He doesn’t have a scratch on him.”
