The Competition

81

The next time I opened my eyes, we were surrounded by police. An officer with sergeant’s stripes gestured toward Evan’s body. “That him?”

Bailey nodded. Only then did I notice the smell of smoke. “The fire-”

“It’s out,” the sergeant said. “Fire country up here. They keep plenty of fire extinguishers on hand. They got it before it could reach the audience. Scorched the back of the stage pretty bad, though.”

Bailey gestured to me. “Paramedics coming? She got hit.”

He nodded. “Should be here in a few seconds.”

One more second, actually. The paramedics arrived carrying two gurneys. I pointed to Evan Cutter’s body. “You only need one. I’ll be okay. Just give me a few minutes.”

The younger paramedic shook his head. My theory-that God made paramedics good-looking so you got to see something beautiful before you died-was once again proven true. He was a dead ringer for Brad Pitt. Blue eyes and all. He knelt down, checked my right side, then swapped out Bailey’s scarf for a big gauze pad and an Ace bandage, which he began to wrap around my torso.

“See, just the fact that you said something that ridiculous shows you’ve got a nasty concussion,” he said. He shined a light into my eyes, checked my pulse, and with the help of another paramedic, lifted me up onto a gurney. He was about to wheel me away when the sergeant who’d spoken to Bailey walked over. “How’re you feeling?”

“I’m okay.” I gestured to the paramedic. “Pay no attention to Brad Pitt.”

The officer smiled and shook his head. “We’ll take your statement at the hospital. After another ‘know-nothing’ like Brad says you’re able. But I want to be the first to say that you and your partner over there are heroes. You saved a lot of lives today.”

I tried to raise myself up again, but Brad Pitt gently pushed me back down. “Did he get anyone?” I asked.

The sergeant looked at me sadly. “I heard five got hit.”

I closed my eyes. “God, no.”

“Yeah,” he said. “But so far it looks like two, maybe three are going to make it.” He leaned down and spoke with intensity. “Listen, it’s bad. But it would’ve been a helluva lot worse if it hadn’t been for you and that detective.”

I guess I should’ve been consoled, but I wasn’t. At least two more had died at the hands of this monster. As Brad Pitt rolled me away, a hot ball of anger burned in my gut. I’d been determined to see Evan Cutter brought to court in chains and made to live out a life of miserable anonymity behind prison walls. But he’d managed to go out in a hail of bullets-in a bloody shoot-out with a cop and a prosecutor, no less. It may not have been exactly the ending he’d fantasized about, but it was close.

Bailey insisted on accompanying me to the hospital. It turned out she was right: the wound was through-and-through, no vital organs involved. I’d heal cleanly. But I did have a concussion, which meant I’d have to spend the night there. I hate hospitals. Too many sick people. “You can let me go home,” I said. “Bailey will stay with me.” I looked at her. “Won’t you?”

She started to answer, but the doctor-a young Asian man with a ponytail-held up a hand to stop her. “I don’t care if Mother Teresa wants to stay with you. You’re not going anywhere. We need to monitor you for twenty-four hours.”

“Twenty-four hours?” I rolled my eyes.

“They tell me that’s only one day. One day to make sure you don’t die of a brain bleed. Is that so much to ask?” I started to say yes, but he glared at me, then turned to Bailey. “She always like this?”

Bailey shrugged. “Pretty much.”

He muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like “wing nut,” then turned on his heel and walked out.

After the doctor left, I remembered the sight of Principal Campbell as he fell face-first onto the stage. I asked Bailey if she knew how he was.

“I’ll call around, see what I can find out.”

I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, Bailey was across the room, curled up in an armchair, covered with a blanket. Graden was standing at the foot of my bed, whispering to my warden, the Asian doctor.

Graden smiled when he saw I was awake. “How many of me do you see?”

“Just two. But one of you has a ponytail.”

The doctor chuckled. “Not bad for a few hours after a concussion.” He gave me a stern look. “But you’re still not going home.”

I started to fold my arms across my chest, but it hurt, so I let them drop. “You’re a real buzz kill, you know that?”

“Yes.” He patted my foot and walked out.

Graden came over and kissed me on the forehead. “You’ll have to start giving your statement pretty soon.” He nodded toward Bailey. “She’s already given hers a few times.”

I knew we’d both be giving statements for days to come. No matter how obvious it was that shooting Evan Cutter was justified, there would be a full investigation. And that meant endless questioning.

But I had some questions of my own. “Have you been able to find out what kind of bomb he used at the amphitheater?” I asked. I told him about seeing Evan on the hill with the trash can.

“They’re pretty sure it was a propane bomb.” Graden saw my expression and nodded. “Same as Klebold and Harris.”

Klebold and Harris had put propane tanks with alarm-clock timers in the school cafeteria. The timers had been set to go off when the cafeteria was at its most crowded, but something went wrong. The bombs malfunctioned and never detonated.

“How’d he make it work?” I asked.

“I didn’t get all the details. But from what I heard, it can be done if the valve on the tank is jammed and unable to release pressure-for example, by putting the tank upside down in a trash can. Then, all he had to do was start a fire in the can. The pressure builds and…”

So Cutter had managed to “outdo” Klebold and Harris once again.

Graden’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and frowned, then looked away.

“What?” I asked.

He sighed and took my hand. “I don’t want to give you this news right now, but I don’t want you to get blindsided. There were two more casualties.”

A lead weight dropped into the pit of my stomach. “Who?”

“Officers. They were patrolling the hillside behind the stage. I don’t know if you know them. Craig Silvers and Dwight Rosenberg. Silvers is critical, but Rosenberg didn’t make it.”

Dwight. I couldn’t believe it. Hot tears pricked my eyelids. My voice was thick. “How?”

“We had security patrols set up around the entire amphitheater. But we only had a few on the sides of the hill because it was the least likely point of entry. Dwight came here straight from the Taft High scene and saw we were a little shorthanded there…” Graden paused and took a deep breath. “Silvers wasn’t able to say much, but it seems Evan was dressed like a volunteer. He rolled up with the trash can, and when Silvers asked to see some ID, Cutter shot him. Dwight came running when he heard the shot. Silvers passed out at that point, but based on what we saw, our guess is Evan Cutter got the drop on Dwight.”

I was so miserable I could barely move my lips to speak. I stared out the window. “And so that despicable piece of shit gets his damn blaze of glory, doesn’t he? They’ll write about how he got the jump on the police and managed to set off a bomb and got killed in a shoot-out with a prosecutor and a cop.”

“They were going to write about him no matter how it ended, Rachel. He bought himself a place in history with the very first shots he fired at Fairmont High.”

Fame is amoral. It was such a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. “And right now, there’s another monster out there, salivating over his chance to show the world how he can do it better.”

“There probably always will be. We can take them out when we find them, but we can’t stop them from being born.”