Gun. Kane thought it before he whispered it as if he didn’t believe it himself. He jumped from the stands yelling. “He’s got a gun!”
A ricochet of bullets pounded the royal blue and white mats hanging from the gym walls.
“Peyton!” He heard Braden’s scream in the distance.
“Get down, now, Peyton, now!” Evan trailed behind Kane, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Down! Hit the floor and stay there!”
Damnation the bullets were everywhere. Two shooters, there had to be two shooters.
Kane bolted across the gym floor and tackled Peyton, shielding her with his body as he pressed her against the hardwood floor. “Two shooters, there are two shooters.” He didn’t know why he kept saying it, and thinking it. Who fired into the crowd like this and why?
“I gotta get you out of here. Stay down, Peyton. Please God, stay down.”
He held her head to the cold floor as he tried to peer up from under his crossed arms. Bodies were down. He couldn’t tell who was injured, or who laid low for protection.
The shooters still rippled gunfire across the gym. Anguish surrounded them. People screamed out in pain.
He heard someone begging for their life, begging for their daughter’s life and then a click, a misfire maybe? “Now Peyton, run like hell, honey, let’s go! Move! Move! Run, baby girl, run!” He pushed her through the emergency exit, grabbed her hand and pulled her with him. The gym doors led to a long narrow hallway. If the shooter stepped inside before they made it out, they were toast.
“Book it, sweet cheeks! Run!”
Peyton ran as fast as he did and they both hit the back doors with their weight slamming against the bars across the emergency exit. They were free.
Once they made it outside, they sprinted for the parking lot about a hundred yards from the gym. “Keep her down, damn it!” He heard Braden shouting as their SUV screeched to a halt in front of them.
Once they shut the doors behind them, he noticed his brothers and Vicky looked unharmed. Thank God, one of them carried Vicky out to safety too.
“We’re going to pull you around to the back parking lot. Braden and I have to try and get those people out of there. It’s like a damn ambush. The second shooter isn’t on the floor, and we’re not sure where he’s located, maybe near where Braden was standing. We’ve called 9-1-1 and help is on the way but emergency crews will need all the help they can get.”
The girls immediately held onto one another tears streaming down their faces. When Peyton pulled away from her, Kane glanced at the blood on Vicky’s white uniform and then turned to look at Peyton in horror.
“Peyton, honey…”
“Kane, I’m cold. I’m so so cold.” She stared down at the blood and then passed out.
“Damn it! Peyton’s been shot! She’s bleeding. Step on it.”
Peyton slipped in and out of several worlds while she was in the hospital. The reality of what happened played out on the local news, and the devastation of what could have happened unfolded in her head. The world she visited frequently unraveled like a play in her dreams.
In the opening act, she saw the Cartwell men with their mother. They disappeared one by one until she stood there alone with their mom. They strolled through a beautiful garden chatting, getting to know one another. Then, she disappeared without warning. Braden, Kane, and Evan appeared where she once stood but their mother’s voice instructed her to choose. Over and over again, she told her to make a choice. “Walk away or make your choice.”
She didn’t want to choose, and her dream always ended the same. She woke up with a great sense of loss. She’d shake until she found comfort in the hands holding her own. Their voices soothed her, and most of the time, Kane’s arms cradled her right back into a deep, deep sleep.
He saved her life. Maybe the choice was clear.
Peyton blinked away sleep as she left behind another flight through fantasy. The television was off, finally. She’d listened to the local reports until she felt like she’d die if she heard another description of the events she apparently survived. Some weren’t so lucky.
She studied the faces of those waiting for her to speak. By the weary looks on her guardians’ faces, they’d all stayed with her and beneath their tired, hooded eyes, she saw something else, something resembling what she imagined as love.
She tried to focus on Braden, mainly because he always had all the answers. “What happened?”
“Shh…rest now. We’ll talk about all of this later, tomorrow maybe.” He patted her leg as he inched closer to the head of the bed. He moved his hand across her bangs and kissed her on the forehead. “You gave us a scare, Peyton.”
She tried to speak but her mouth offered little assistance. Her parched lips and heavy tongue felt dryer than the Grand Canyon.
“I’m thirsty,” she stated.
Evan knelt over her and offered her spoon. “Ice chips, open up.”
“Can I get a drink?”
Kane chuckled. “Scotch and water or vodka, straight-up?”
“Don’t tease right now.”
“You had us worried, kid.” Kane calling her kid irked her more now than ever before. She’d show him ‘kid’ just as soon as she got out of her hospital bed.
“Somebody tell me what happened. How many others were injured? Did anyone…” As soon as she asked, she closed her eyes. “Oh yes, yes somebody close. Somebody close, oh Coach Pratchert.” She remembered her stumbling and then the bloodcurdling sounds of bullets, a horrific catastrophe raining down on them and Coach Pratchert fighting her way to stand in front of the girls, her girls-her team.
Tears streamed down her face. “She caught some of the first shots.”
“Honey, let’s talk about this later,” Braden suggested.
“No, you don’t understand. I saw her. I saw it all happen.” Peyton closed her eyes again. “She took several shots to the chest, she couldn’t have survived…”
“No, Peyton, she’s-”
“Don’t say it.”
Peyton waved her hand in front of her face. She’d dreamed this nightmare and saw it several times when she closed her eyes. She couldn’t block out the images. Now, she played it over and over again in her head remembering how Coach Pratchert shoved a few of the kids off the bench. She’d stood up to protect her girls, teenagers with bright futures, the kind of promising futures she helped her girls prepare for and anticipate.
“Who would do this?”
“Pratchert’s ex-husband and the, uh, second shooter…he…got away.”
“He got away?”
Braden stood up and went to the window. He peered outside and watched the foot traffic come and go. “You’re not in danger, Peyton. We’ve talked to the local sheriff and federal agents. This was personal.”
“And Coach Pratchert’s ex-husband?”
“He’s locked up.”
“And everyone else? My friends and teammates?”
Evan’s face softened with what he perceived as good news, no doubt. “No one on your team suffered fatal injuries. A few parents and Coach Pratchert died before they were transported to the hospital.”
Peyton digested the information. A few parents and Coach Pratchert. Lives, somebody’s parent, somebody’s daughter or son, somebody’s lover, oh God, someone’s spouse… died at a high school volleyball game.
She turned to Kane. “You saved my life,” she whispered.
“Yeah well, I kind of like having you around.”
“Don’t downplay this, Kane.”
“Then thank me and forget about it.”
“I’ll thank you later,” she said with a hint of devilishness in her voice, but the sadness returned quickly. “When Mom died, Coach Pratchert offered,” she stopped speaking at once and looked at Braden specifically, “Did you know Coach Pratchert offered to take me in before you did?”
Braden nodded.
“I planned to live there until I found out the particulars of the arrangements Mom made with you. At one point, I really considered her offer.”