November 13th, 2013 

I walk along the brittle concrete to school. I watch the tree move softly through the November air. The chill makes my spine develop goose bumps- and my body shivers. I pull my hand down my sweater closer to my body as I reach the top of my neighborhood street. I turn the corner and begin the three million blocks it takes to get to Ellsville High School. I walk three blocks before stopping at the small blue house on the corner, I walk up to the door and knock. My friend, Kayla,  opens the door, and sighs. Her hair is pulled back in a tight high ponytail. Her big round glasses resting low on her nose. She’s wearing a pair of bright blue ripped jeans, an oversized sweater and high top Converse. Her healing black eye is now shades of red and purple. 

“I do not want to go to school today.” she says. I laugh and shake my head.

“You say that everyday, and everyday I say you said that yesterday.” I say. 

“Well technically I didn’t say that yesterday, because yesterday was Sunday and on Sundays I don’t have to go school.” she says with a grin. 

“Shut up, you know what I mean.” I say, lightly punching her in the arm. She punches back - a bit harder, making my arm sore. I will always love Kayla- but her anger issues have gotten out of control these last few months. With her dad overseas and her mom always in the hospital for treatment- she tends to get set off at the smallest things. The black eye she has right now is from a fight on Saturday morning she had with the neighbors. They were in her bubble is what she said. When I heard that I was lucky on the phone so I could dramatically roll my eyes into the back of my head. 

“Do you think Mr. James is going to notice my black eye?” she asked, looking down the road before she began crossing the street. I look at her black eye, it's so noticeable even if you were on the other side of the city you could see the redness of the bruise. 

“Nope, it's not that bad.” I say, keeping my eyes down at the pavement. The silence stands for a long time before she sighs and shakes her head. She knows I’m lying. We walk in silence the rest of the way to school, keeping to our own thoughts and staying in each other's company. 

The school enters into view. Its ugly green and black school colors stand out next to the old beat down brick buildings. Lots of cars honking, children laughing and screaming and teachers yelling for kids to get inside. 

“What if I don’t wanna” a bigger kid named Tristan says. He stands above most of the kids at our school- a whopping six feet three inches is what he says. 

“Tris, come on we got to go.” his girlfriend, Amber says. She grabs him by his hand and pulls him into the building. He bashfully walks forward, following her inside. 

“He gets what I’m saying” says Kayla, pulling lip gloss out of her pocket and applying it generously onto her lips before diva walking inside, leaving me in the dust. That’s one thing I admire about Kayla, she has the confidence of a Vogue model on the runway. 

“Have a good day!” I say before walking towards the other entrance and heading to the first hour. I enter the doorway and am greeted with the smell of BO and hairspray. Not a whole lot of people are still in the hallways, but there are still a couple mingling groups. I head to English on the second floor, using the elevator to get to the top. As I enter the elevator two emo girls stand on the opposite side and a small, awkward boy stands in the back, head down, earphones blasting in his ears. I sigh, these are the people I go to school with. As the elevator doors open the two girls exit followed by the short boy. I exit last, walking out the elevator doors and across the hall to Mr. Jackson's Advanced English Junior class. I walk in the classroom and find a seat towards the back of the first row. 

“Good morning Miss.” someone says in a low voice. I turn towards Mr. Jackson and see someone who I do not know as Mr. Jackson. 

“Good morning sir…um…are you subbing for Mr. Jackson?” I ask, looking around to see if this is a joke. 

“Yes ma’am I am. Everything alright?” he asked. He’s wearing a faded orange and yellow flannel with hair back in a ponytail. 

“Y-yes, he’s just never gone so I guess I’m just surprised.” I say, removing my notebook and pencil from my bag. I shift uncomfortably in my chair. 

“Hey, he’s probably fine. Those gunshots last night didn’t sound like they were on the East Side. I’m sure he’s ok.” the boy behind me says, putting a hand on my shoulder. 

My neighborhood has been going through a lot lately. There’s supposed to be a mysterious killer. It sounds super dramatic, but it's not. There's been deaths all over left and right. My aunt got shot in her sleep just last week- no trail left behind. Simply the door kicked down and shot her square in the heart. It was like a heart was ripped from them as if it was nothing. 

Kayla is home most of the time alone, so she’s been watching more carefully. She says she thinks it's all a big joke because she hasn’t seen anything. But the deaths are real. So something is going on. I don’t even go to sleep unless I check all of the bedroom window locks and make sure my siblings are secured. Having a bigger family makes me just that much more protective. I have eight siblings. Four girls and four boys. I’m the second oldest, my brother being the oldest. He graduated but he stays at home to help take care of the kids and bills. 

“Alright kids make sure you have all of your belongings- the bell will be ringing in a moment.” the ponytailed sub says. I grab my stuff and begin zipping my bag when the bell rings. I stand up and begin walking towards the door. I head down the upstairs hallway, leading to my chemistry class. My phone buzzes in my pocket. I answer it as I weave in and out of groups of kids huddled together in the small, musty hallway. 

“Hello?” I answer. The caller is muffled but I can still make out what the high pitch voice is saying. 

“Hey hon I’m gonna call you out of school. Um, I need some help at home.” my mom says. I’m confused. My momma always said that my education was always the top priority in life. Like my mom was the mom that would send me to school with a 102 fever if she had too. And she’s calling me out of school right now because she needs help at home? This isn’t like my mom. 

“Ok…is everything ok?” I ask, getting worried. I heard sirens in the background. Ambulance. 

“Grammy? What’s going on?” I say, this time I am alarmed.  The phone hangs up before I can even get a word out of her. I sigh and head towards chemistry because I don’t know what else to do. I have to just wait. I walk into chemistry and find my spot at the front, the very first lab table. My friend Casey is sitting on the stool next to me. 

“Hey girl. Are you feeling ok?” she says, putting a hand on my shoulder. 

“Yeah. I’m ok.” I say, setting my bag on the floor. She nods and begins to get her stuff out for class. I do the same and begin to play with the rubberband on my wrist. The rubberband I play with all day, everyday. It helps me from doing worse to my wrist. 

We begin class and we go to the lab. About forty minutes into class I get the call to head downstairs. I pack my things up slowly, taking my time walking to the elevator and down the hall to attendance. My grammy stands, holding a small white tissue in her hand. Her hair in a fuzzy jet black knot. Her dark blue jeans have tears going down the side and she's wearing a black shirt. She reeks of cigarette smell, she smokes more when she's stressed. 

“Hi baby.” she says, pulling me in for a hug. 

“Hi grammy, what's going on.” I say. She pulls her lips tighter together, and her eyes well up with tears. 

“We are gonna go for a little drive ok baby.” she says. I nod and we head outside into the parking lot of the school. My sisters, Nina, Trinity and Airy are sitting in the backseat giggling. I open the passenger seat door and get inside. I put my bookbag on the floor, buckle and sigh. Whatever this is, it's gonna be the biggest thing because my butt hasn’t missed school since the sixth grade- and that’s because my dad got deployed for the first time. 

“So baby, um your momma is at home with the others but um we got a call today from overseas about your daddy.”

“Dad? Dads coming home?” Nina and Airy say in the back, listening in to the conversation. 

“Well no. His um date to come home got extended…” she trails off. I already know. His date got extended forever. He’s not coming home. I know how this news goes. 

“Baby. You ok?” grammy as me. I nod, tears welling up in my eyes. I hate these goddamn tears. The tears start trailing down my face as I look out the window and out into the dull road that I call home. 

When I arrive home my mom has puffy eyes and her nose is red and dry. Her body seems to sink. As if the world has just sat down on her shoulders. Her ratty pink sweater is falling off one shoulder, my baby brother sitting on the other hip. Her black sweatpants are twisted, and have fur all over them from the outside dog, Charlie. 

“Hi girls.” she says, waving at us from my front porch. My younger brother Aric is running to the car, giving granny a big hug. 

“How come the girls got to miss school today?” he asks,using  his small high pitched voice. 

“Well first I got the boys and then I picked up the girls.” Grammy says, avoiding the question partially. My sisters walk inside the house and everyone else follows. When I reach the top of the stairs I wrap my arm around my momma's waist and lean into her. She doesn’t say anything but she leans in to me as well, my baby brother Jay is pulling at my hair. 

“Momma. I know.” I say, softly rubbing her back. She nods quickly and places her face in the crook of my neck. I hear her let out a weep and then she starts sobbing. 

“Oh baby…I  just can’t do this. How am I gonna do this? I can’t. I can’t take care of all of my babies with your daddy. He kept everything together. Even if he wasn’t here. He just knew how to keep everything going. I need him. I need him to be a part of my life.” she says. 

“Shhh…it's gonna be ok. God is going to be with us always. He has a reason for his decisions. What if God is protecting us from something? He doesn’t do things with no reason in mind. You are an incredible mom and you have me and Thomas and Grammy. We love you so so much, and we will never stop loving you. We got you mama” I say, grabbing her palm and rubbing small circles on her hand with my thumb. 

“Thank you baby,” she says, smiling through her tears.

I pull her hand inside and we walk in to tell everyone else. 

I wake up to my alarm. The first thing I do is think about the call from last night, Kayla. Her mom passed away in the hospital around eleven at night. Her words were shaky and her breath was quick and inconsistent. I stayed calm, simply letting her talk and telling her the truth. She doesn’t know about my dad yet. Last night before the call I sat with my siblings in the living room, listening to his favorite records and eating popcorn. Too sad to eat dinner, we went through a whole bag of popcorn. My sisters cried and my brothers stayed quiet. 

I get out of bed slowly, not ready for the day. I wash my face and brush my teeth before tying my brownie brown hair into a messy bun. I put on army green sweatpants and a black shirt with a small white bird on it. I grab my worn down Ugg slippers and slide them on my feet before grabbing the rest of my stuff and racing out the door. 

I walk to Kayla’s slowly, texting her once to let her know I am headed her way. When I get to the door she’s already there. Sitting on the bottom porch step, bookbag next to her. 

“Hi.” she says. 

“Hi.” I say, moving her bag to the ground and taking the spot next to her. She puts her head on my shoulder and I move my head to lay on hers. She lets out a sigh and I nod slowly. 

“How was your night?” she asks, typical Kayla to change the subject before I can say anything about her. 

“Fine.” My chest is getting tight, I hate lying to her.  She nods and begins to stand up before sitting back down. 

“Um…mom said I could skip today if that was ok. I’m going to walk you up there and then probably dip and go to the store and get some stuff. You can come if you want. But I know what you’ll say,” she says. I shake my head, get off the porch step and we begin walking to school. We walk in silence all the way up to the school and right before I walk in the doorway she goes: 

“Wait- has your dad called you at all recently?” and it's asked in such a typical nonchalant, he's-still-here type of way. 

“Um…no.” I say, and open the door and walk inside. I hear her tell me to have a good day at school but I pretend to not have heard her. 

The morning is a blur, going to classes, checking in on my mom through text, and working on assignments. Everything is fine. Everything. Is. Fine. I walk toward my second to last hour and sit down at one of the farthest from the door seats. In the dark back corner next to the air conditioner. 

“All right boys and girls today we are going to work on finishing up those-” the voice stopped short. A loud boom goes off in the distance. 

“Run! Everyone run!” says a student running past our door. The sound of twenty something chairs scoots backward before the feet begin running towards the door to see what’s going on. 

“Everyone get back!” I hear a familiar voice say. It's approaching. 

“Everyone go out the window,” my teacher, Miss Eli says. She points towards the windows and we all run. I hear two shots go off, as the other students open the windows I turn around, Miss Eli and my classmate, Xavier, lay on the floor. A pool of blood surrounding each of them, they lay face down. 

“Holy…crap.” the boy next to me says. He’s new here, moved here from Arkansas last week. 

“Hey. I don’t know you too well but right now we are like this-” I hold up my hand showing my middle and index finger wrapped around each other. “We need to get out of here. Alive.” I say. He nods, grabs my hand and we head towards the windows. I grab onto the ledge of the window and I look at the boy- I don’t know his name. 

“It's Tony,” he says, grabbing my hand and leaning into the window. We slide out and stand on the roof of the first floor. 

“Everyone! Over here!” a girl shouts, waving her arms over at the far side of the roof. We ran over. She points to the ladder that kids are climbing down. 

“Everyone get down quickly and run to the far side of the park! Everyone sticks together with someone!” she shouts. She has blood on her hands and a couple cuts on her knuckles. I think she was the one running down the hallway because her voice matches. I take my turn on the ladder and begin climbing down. I look up and Tony is beginning the climb as well. I feel my fingers begin to slip on the rungs before falling abruptly on the ground. It's cold and hard, with barely any grass left on it. 

“You ok?” Tony asks, I roll over and hold up a thumbs up. Yeah. I’m good.

“Hey, are you good?” I hear him getting closer. Oh shoot I didn’t say that out loud. I nod and take a deep breath. He helps me up before pulling me along to keep up with the others. I feel my phone vibrate in my back pocket. It’s Kayla. I picked it up.

“Hey, is the school good? I just saw something about a shooter?” she says, her breath is fast. Almost like she’s been running. 

“Um. Yeah. I mean there’s a shooter. But we are out, we are getting to safety now.” I say. Tony taps me on the shoulder, pointing towards the group ahead, and motioning for me to hurry up. 

“Hey I gotta go, can I call you back later?” I say. 

“Y-yeah of course! Can you guys just let me know where you're going so I know where to find ya?” she says.

“We are headed for the park. The one across from Dave's Diner.” I say. I hang up the phone and we begin running. We run through what feels like a neighborhood I've never seen. I’ve seen it before but not like this. Not as my safety net or my escape route. We walk and walk until we can’t breathe and our faces are all red. 

“Okay, the park is just up there a bit,” said a boy at the front of the group. He points up Marlyn Avenue and sure enough, there's the sign for the park in view. We all nod and begin walking, knowing how far away we are. We get to the park and I see her. Kayla is standing there, eyes puffy, oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants. She has slippers on with a hole in the side of the right slipper. I run. I run until our bodys slam into each other. Nobody can stop us from falling to the ground. She laughs and I laugh too. 

“Hey, no goofing around, this is a very serious situation.” Tony says, giving me a serious look. I stop smiling, nodding in agreement at his statement. 

“Sorry.” Kayla and I say. I look back at Kayla and I stand up, putting my hands out to help her too. She grabs onto my hands and pulls herself up. Once she’s standing I sigh. This week. This week has been crazy. 

“Is everyone okay? Someone called 911.” I hear a girl say. 

“I already did,” Tony said. He nods in my direction and I smile. 

“Don’t tell me you somehow got a new man because of a flipping school shooting.” Kayla whispers under her breath. 

“No! …he was just a very nice man who helped me get out of there.” I say, avoiding eye contact. 

“Mhm.” she says sarcastically. She shakes her head and starts laughing. I nudge her in the side and she giggles even more. I look back at Tony and he’s gone. Like genuinely just poofed out of the air and disappeared. I look around. He is nowhere to be seen. 

“Anyone seen Tony?” I say, trying not to panic. Everyone starts looking around, shaking their heads. 

“I’m right here,” he says in a low tone. One of his hands slides around my waist, the other- a gun pushed into my side. I gasp.

“Get the f-” Kayla is cut short. 

“Nobody moves. Nobody speaks. Not even a word.” Tony says from behind me. He guides me to the side of the road, shoves me against a car. I wince as he pushes the pistol back, this time on my ribs. 

“I want everyone in a row. Right in front of this car. Now.” Everyone quickly does as they are told. I hear his breath get calmer- almost steady. 

“Now. You are all going to watch her die. And then you are all going to get in that  truck over there and stay silent. Do you understand?” he says. I look at the truck he’s talking about. It's a red van, older and rusty. It's sitting a couple cars up from the one I have been shoved into. I breathe in scared for my life- I let out a laugh- I’m actually scared for my life right now. Holy actual crap. I will never get to see my momma or my brothers or my sist-

The sky above goes black. 

Chapter 1 

I grab the soft creme winter coat, made of a thick haystack type texture. My brown boots tuck into a pair of black slacks, an army green turtleneck tucked into my slacks. 

“By babies!” I holler. I hear two sets of footsteps come tumbling down the grand stair. 

“Wait! Mommy!” shouts my youngest, Faith. She runs up and wraps her hands around me, I bend down to hug her back before reaching for my older son, Dillion. They both have matching sets of christmas pjs on and their hair is still messy.