“What’s our plan going to be?” whispered Malcolm, as they approached the staircase.
“I attack,” she replied, quietly. “You evacuate. Use your powers to get people safely down to the ground.”
“Wait, why do you get to attack?”
The look Tapestry gave him was more than a little condescending.
“Because I know what I’m doing,” she whispered. “And because if I get shot, I won’t die. Regeneration is my power, Malcolm.”
He couldn’t argue with that logic, and there was no time. Malcolm nodded and followed close behind her as they slipped the stairs. Tapestry pressed herself tight against the corner when they reached the top, peering to get a sense of the scene. Malcolm lowered himself to a crouch and did the same from a lower angle, doing his best not to sneak a peek at her butt.
The shooter was at the end of the hallway, pacing back and forth and paying less than optimal attention to his surroundings. He looked like a student, except he held two pistols, and was muttering to himself. Malcolm felt his heart pounding as he considered the situation of the students still trapped in the wing.
“Ready?” mouthed Tapestry.
Malcolm nodded.
Tapestry headed out first, holding her hands up in the air and making herself into a target. She walked toward the shooter slowly, letting the boy focus his attention on her before talking to him in a soft voice.
“Hey, it’s okay,” said Tapestry. “Let’s just talk. I know you’re angry, and confused…”
Malcolm didn’t waste any time. He used the wind to propel himself down to the opposite end of the hallway, checking each room for trapped students as he went. Most of them were already empty. One of them had a small, red pool of blood on the center of the floor, but there was no body in sight.
He moved to the next classroom, and then the next after that, slowly approaching Tapestry and the shooter. He couldn’t hear what she was saying to him, but the boy hadn’t opened fire, which was a good sign.
Malcolm found a classroom full of older students three doors down from the danger at the end of the hallway. The door was barricaded, and they were all hiding underneath desks, shielding themselves with books. Malcolm tapped on the door urgently. They just stared at him.
Of course. They don’t know who the shooter is. I need to convince them that they can trust me.
He waved through the vertical window alongside the door, and then used his wind manipulation to make his clothes flutter while miming running in place. Most of the students looked he was crazy, but one of them picked up on his meaning and explained it to the rest. Malcolm waited, feeling impatient and more than a little stressed out as they got the door open.
He slid into the classroom and shut the door firmly behind him. The students, along with their teacher, a chubby woman with red hair, looked at him expectantly.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” he said. “You’re going out the window. Don’t worry, I can make it so that your fall is cushioned by the wind.
At least, I think I can. This will be the test case.
“Class!” said the teacher, in a high-pitched voice. “Just… follow along with what the champion is saying. Evacuating is the best thing we can do at the moment.”
Malcolm heard the shooter shout something out in the hallway. He frowned, trying to push his concern for Tapestry to the side so that he could focus on the rescue.
The window had a screen behind it that was attached firmly to the window frame. Malcolm knocked through both the glass and the screen with a concentrated blast of wind.
“Anybody interested in going first?” he asked.
None of the students said anything. Malcolm pointed to one at random.
“You’re up,” he said.
It wasn’t as hard as he’d expected it to be. Each of the students climbed halfway out the window, and then Malcolm gave them the signal to jump and created a cushion of wind to slow their fall before they hit the ground. A few, too afraid to let go, had to be pushed out the window.
“You’re Wind Runner?” One of the girls, a short brunette with freckles, stepped in close to Malcolm. “I saw you, yesterday. On the TV. And on Instagram. And on Twitter… Your name is a hashtag now that people use whenever someone does something outrageous and gets away with it. I think it’s appropriate. It just seems to fit you really well. Wind Runner. Did you pick it, or-”
“Hey,” said Malcolm. “No offense, but I’m trying to focus.”
He had to push another student out the window, and this one let out an almost comical cry as he fell to the ground, the wind slowing his fall to almost a standstill for the last few feet.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to distract you,” said the girl. “My name’s Melanie. I talk a lot. Especially when I’m nervous. You didn’t go to school here, did you? I’d recognize you if you did. You’re only like, what, 19? 20? That’s pretty young for a champion. Though I guess it really doesn’t matter what age you-”
“Hey, Melanie?” said Malcolm. “Shut up!”
She did, for a couple of seconds. Malcolm tried to pull her over to the window to push her out next, but the teacher stepped up before he could.
“I’m sorry,” said Melanie. “Really, I am. I don’t mean to talk so much. It’s like sometimes when I’m nervous I start talking, and just keep going, and going. I’m on the debate team. It’s my main hobby, though some of the football players told me I’m cute enough to be a cheerleader. That’s kind of a weird thing to tell someone, I think, and I don’t really know if it’s true. Plus-”
Gunshots came from the hallway. Malcolm still had a half dozen students left, including Melanie. He felt a flash of panic as he considered what would happen if the shooter made it into the classroom while he was in the middle of helping a student to the ground.
No choice. I have to go out there.
“Barricade the door as soon as I leave!” he shouted. Melanie gave him an army salute. Her eyes were wet with tears, and Malcolm suddenly felt a little bad for not noticing earlier.
CHAPTER 14
Tapestry was laying on the hallway’s tile floor, clutching her stomach, a pool of blood spreading out underneath her body. The shooter was standing over her with menacing body language, the gun dark and metallic in his hand. Malcolm was just down the hall from them, pressed into a door well, trying to make himself into as small a target as he could.
“Tapestry!” Malcolm shouted. “Are you okay?”
The shooter answered the question with several gunshots in his direction. Malcolm gritted his teeth, trying to ignore both his concern for Tapestry and the ringing in his ears.
She said that she can regenerate. I have to trust that she knows what she’s doing…
Malcolm leaned out, feeling his fear surge as he exposed his head as a target. The shooter was fumbling around, trying to slip one gun into his pocket so he could reload the other. Malcolm thrust his hand out, summoning the wind. Before he could pull up more than a breeze, the shooter aimed and fired, proving that he still had at least one bullet left.
“Hey! Hey!” shouted Malcolm. “Let’s just talk about this. Come on, man… This isn’t a good road to go down!”
He tried to think of what he could possibly say to make the shooter back down. The kid had already committed to what he was doing, already opened fire on his classmates. There was no coming back from that, at least not from the perspective of a teenager.
“They deserved it!” shouted the shooter. “You don’t know what it was like.”