Fierce Kingdom Read online

  The room is flooded with light. Joan is confused and blinded for a moment, but then she looks to her son and sees the light switch right above his matted curls. She lunges for him, pulling him away from the wall as she slams her hand against the switch and turns the overhead light off.

  They are quiet in the darkness.

  She hears herself breathing. She closes her mouth, but the sound is worse when she breathes through her nose. She finds Lincoln’s hand with her own, and his fingers latch on to her.

  He does not move from her lap. They all sit, waiting.

  “It was just for a second,” Kailynn says, and it is possibly the longest she has gone without speaking since they stepped into this room. Joan is glad to hear her voice.

  “It doesn’t matter,” says the teacher. “We’re fine.”

  Joan appreciates the effort they are making.

  “Mommy?” says Lincoln, and his voice is unsteady. She has been careful not to say a word of blame to him. Still, he has picked up on something, either from her or from the others. She has heard before that children are like dogs: they can smell fear.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay. We’re all okay.”

  A roomful of light, off and on and off. Like a damn beacon, calling all comers.

  “It’s okay,” she repeats, squeezing his hand.

  His fingers are small.

  He is so small.

  The feel of his soft knuckles—no part of him is roughened or calloused yet, not even his heels or elbows, and sometimes she runs the tip of her finger over them after a bath, just to see if he is toughening, hoping he is not and feeling guilty for the hoping, because of course he has to. The feel of those knuckles and his hard, smooth nails like seashells against her palm breaks open something in her, something that shattered hours ago, only she has been doing such a good job of holding it together.

  She has refused to think it: he could die.

  She cannot think of such things and still function, and she has needed to function, and she has never wanted to be one of those women who won’t let their children eat raw cookie dough or wander a block down the street without a chaperone, and you have to manage the terror or you can never watch your child walk out the front door. And here they are where death is shoving its bloody snout in their faces, and she has not considered it, not really, because she has some vague idea of what she will unleash if she does, the great, gaping chasm that will open up. That is what you do when you have a child, isn’t it, open yourself up to unimaginable pain and then try to pretend away the possibilities.

  She focuses on his hand—on thoughts of his evil villain laugh, mwah-ha-ha-ha, and the way he smiles when he wakes up from his nap and sees her leaning over him—and the terror recedes.

  As they are all, probably, trying to think of something to say to fill the silence, gunfire crackles and pops outside, distant enough that it has the feel of firecrackers.

  There is a chorus of different blasts and small explosions. There is a mumbling voice so loud that Joan thinks a bullhorn must be involved. And just as she is sorting through it all, she hears some kind of banging that she can’t identify. It reminds her of stacks of baking sheets falling to the floor. The cacophony is multitoned and expanding. She knows what it must mean, all this gunfire and racket and yelling.

  Finally, something is happening. Someone is coming for them. She should surely feel relief or excitement, but she cannot summon much of anything.

  “See?” says Kailynn, jerking her head toward the window. “The police.”

  “Yeah,” Joan says.

  “They’ll be here soon,” the girl says.

  “Yeah,” Joan says, crossing her legs. She wants to stand. To move.

  Her hand lands in something sticky on the floor. She lifts it, sure that she has seen a paper towel somewhere close by, and Kailynn catches hold of her elbow.

  “You hurt your arm,” the girl says, and from her angle she can see the raw skin near Joan’s wrist, not the cut on her palm.

  “It’s not bad,” says Joan.

  “You don’t want it to get infected,” Kailynn says. “We don’t have stuff here. But you could at least wrap it up.”

  Before Joan can argue, the girl has lunged toward the countertop and pulled open a drawer. She collapses back onto the floor with a thin white dishcloth in her hand, and she begins twisting it around Joan’s wrist.

  “It’s clean,” she says.

  There is a surprising efficiency to her movements, and it keeps Joan from objecting. She only watches as the girl wraps the towel tight and ties it off with two quick pulls.

  “See?” says Kailynn, leaning back on her elbows, hair skimming the tiles. “Better?”

  “Yes,” says Joan. And the truth is that the wound does feel better with the cloth pressing against it.

  She is still studying her wrist when gunfire explodes through the room, so loud that it is a new thing entirely. Joan jolts backward and slams her head against the edge of the counter, and her arms clamp around Lincoln tightly enough that he struggles against her. The sound of the bullets is all around her—she hears it echo in her head like cymbals.

  She hears Kailynn screaming, and Lincoln is yelling something into her ear, but she can’t make it out.

  The noise is physically painful, and it takes a moment to fight through the urge to clamp her hands over her ears. To clamp her hands over Lincoln’s ears. She has turned so that her back is to the door, and Lincoln is tucked under the curve of her body.

  One thought is coherent: someone is inside the restaurant. Someone is outside the steel door to their room, trying to get inside. She feels the noise in her teeth. With every single shot, she is sure that a bullet will come through the door.

  The shots pause. There have been a dozen of them, maybe. They start again almost immediately.

  Kailynn has scrambled to her feet and backed into the far corner of the room, boxes tumbling around her, coffee filters and paper cups spilling onto the ground. The teacher is almost upright, her hands bracing against the counter.

  The bullets stop again, and the quiet is more frightening than the noise.

  “They can’t get inside,” says Kailynn. She is crying, although only her wet face gives that away. Her voice is strong. “They can’t.”

  Joan does not feel so sure. The door is only steel. It is not magic. There must be a limit to what it can withstand. She touches her face, wondering if she might be crying, too, but she is not. It is a waste, crying. She has learned, over the course of this night, to unclench her teeth. To make herself breathe in and out.

  Breathing does help.

  There is still an echo of the gunfire in her ears.

  “The window,” she whispers, and she is standing, lifting Lincoln to the countertop. She climbs up behind him, and she shoves at the window and it opens, thank God, with hardly any effort. Only a twist of her wrist and the handle turns: the glass pushes outward, but it judders to a stop after a few inches. The gap between the window and the frame is plenty big for Lincoln but tight for her. The gunfire has not resumed—maybe the men are working on a strategy? and why have they not said anything? shouldn’t they be performing rhymed couplets? are they positioned by the door, or is one of them waiting outside this window?—and then there is a new sound, a heavier thudding against the door, and by this time she has directed Lincoln to stay still on the counter while she clambers up.

  The light is bright by the window. Definitely more streetlamp than moonlight. She looks up and sees ladybugs, tiny black buttons, speckling the ceiling.

  “Come on,” she says to the others, mouthing the words more than speaking them. She is not going to try shouting over the racket.

  Kailynn moves toward her, lifting a foot to the counter, climbing up in a split second, all knees and elbows.

  The pounding sound—is it a batte
ring ram?—is vibrating through her skull as the teacher shakes her head.

  Joan keeps one hand on Lincoln and beckons frantically with the other, her hand blurring, and still the teacher is shaking her head.

  “I can’t make—” the teacher starts, and any other words are buried.

  Then there is a shift in the noise—another thud, but this one with a new tone in it. A different kind of impact against the door. There is a clinking and a crash.

  For a moment everything is quiet—blissful—and then the door moves. It barely drifts open, only an inch. Such a small movement that at first Joan can tell herself that she did not see it. But the door continues to swing farther, slowly, and she knows it is opening, and she looks down at her son and sees a crumb on his cheek. Kailynn is pressed against her back, warm and with a tremor of movement, and the teacher is standing closest to the door, backing away, and the light is catching her hair so that it shines. The moment stretches out, slowing and slowing and slowing, and then the door slams open entirely, banging against the shelves behind it.

  A man is there.

  Joan cannot help thinking that she was right all along: he is barely a man. He may not even shave yet. He is not wearing boots, as she had imagined. He is wearing tennis shoes.

  One second.

  Two seconds.

  She slides in front of Lincoln, her legs dangling from the counter. She thinks she is blocking him entirely, and maybe there is some chance the shooter will not notice her boy—could she push him through the window, even? Without his being seen? There is a set of knives behind her, a foot or two away, although she doesn’t want to look toward it.

  She looks at the man instead. It takes effort to look past the long gun that he’s lifting toward them all—toward the teacher—but she does look past it.

  He is holding an axe in his other hand, but as she watches, he tosses the axe behind him. His jacket is too big, and his jeans are too tight, and his belly overflows them slightly. He is thick-looking, but there is a softness to him. She is feeling on the counter behind her, trying to think of how—even if she manages to grab a knife without his seeing it—how she might get to him before he shoots her, and if he shoots her, can she still manage to stab him, even if she is dying? She thinks there are a few seconds before the body knows it is dying, and how much force would she need to drive the knife into his heart? Or maybe the neck would be easier, softer, no ribs would be in the way. As she thinks it all, fingers scrabbling behind her, she is trying to see his face.

  Three seconds.

  Four seconds.

  She cannot see enough. His head is tilted down, and all she can see are wide, dark eyebrows. The shadows frustrate her, keeping her from making out the details. She wants him to look at her. His gun is chest level with the teacher, but he is still looking toward the floor.

  Joan wants to see his face.

  Her fingers close around the block of knives, and she runs her fingertips up to a handle. Should she pull out the knife or should she be trying to lower Lincoln through the window? But if she does that, if she moves that fast, she will surely draw the gun in their direction—and it is maybe too late now, because the shooter is looking up, finally.

  He is staring at the schoolteacher. Without turning, he reaches behind him, his hand slapping against the wall, and he flips the light switch when he finds it. The room is bright again, and she squints as her eyes adjust.

  He has not looked away from the teacher. The teacher is staring back, blinking in the light, chest rising and falling.

  Five seconds.

  Six seconds.

  His gun dips down.

  “Mrs. Powell?” he says.

  The teacher only watches him, not moving or speaking. The elastic in her pants leg has snagged around her knee, exposing a pale calf. She is arched backward against the counter so that an inch of belly is exposed under her sweatshirt.

  Lincoln shifts, and his foot jabs into Joan’s side.

  Say something, she thinks at the teacher. Do something. Whoever you are, tell him you’re Mrs. Powell.

  The teacher straightens. “Yes,” she says finally, as calmly as if someone is calling roll. She tugs her sweatshirt down.

  The teacher is the only one of them who has moved. Joan has her hand on the knife handle, but she has not moved to pull it from the block. She cuts her eyes toward Kailynn, and she can see the wet shine of the girl’s cheeks. She can see that the girl’s legs are trembling, either from fear or from the strain of perching on the balls of her feet for so long.

  A ladybug falls from the ceiling to the floor.

  “Yes,” the teacher repeats, just as calmly as before. “I’m Margaret Powell.”

  The gunman takes his left hand from his gun, opening and closing his fingers. Over and over. Grabbing at nothing.

  “I’m Rob,” he says, and his voice is loud enough that Joan recognizes it. He is the colobus killer. “Robby—”

  He stops, frowning, maybe frustrated with himself for announcing his own name. Joan thinks that maybe he will make up for his mistake by shooting them all, but he only glances at his feet, lowers his gun farther, and starts again.

  “I had you in third grade,” he says. “Robby Montgomery.”

  Again the teacher is silent. Too silent. She could be charming him, but she clearly has no sense of strategy. Maybe she is frozen in terror, or maybe she does not want to admit that she cannot remember him. She only looks at him, at his hair curling long past his collar and his loose jacket and his guns: the rifle in his hand, some kind of pistol under his jacket, and something else big strapped across his back.

  The teacher’s hands are still clasped around her sweatshirt.

  “Robby,” says Mrs. Powell.

  He nods.

  “Robby Montgomery,” she says.

  He looks at them all then, but only briefly. He glances at Kailynn, still crouched on the counter. He glances at Joan, and when he tilts his head, she knows he can see Lincoln over her shoulder.

  Then he steps backward, pressing himself against the doorframe.

  “This way,” he says, his voice filling up the room. “Come on out.”

  He is back to looking at the teacher—Mrs. Powell—and it is not clear whether he is including the rest of them in his order, whatever kind of order it may be. It is possible that he will spare the teacher and then come back for them. Or maybe he is leading her out to be shot first, and then he will come back for them.

  But when Mrs. Powell steps toward the door, Robby Montgomery waves his hand toward the rest of them. Joan slides to the floor and lifts Lincoln into her arms, moving slowly as she considers whether she should try to take one of the knives with her. Then she is turning around—still unsure—and she has lost the chance. She hears Kailynn’s feet hit the floor, and she settles Lincoln on her hip.

  Joan steps over paper cups. She focuses on the floor. When she looks up again, she sees that Robby Montgomery is touching the teacher. He has put a hand on her arm as she passes through the doorway.

  “You don’t remember me, do you?” he is saying.

  Mrs. Powell looks down at his hand, and he lets go of her arm. The teacher, as usual, is slow to speak. But once he has removed his hand, she reaches out and lays two fingers on his wrist.

  “You sat next to that little boy who put glue in his ear,” she says. “Harrison . . . Harrison something. And you liked to help me staple the bulletin boards. Any kind of stapling. You liked the staple remover—you said it looked like—”

  “Vampire teeth,” he says, and he smiles.

  “Mommy?” Lincoln says softly, his breath warm and cheese-smelling. She knows that he is interested in the mention of vampires. But she is watching the gunman smile, and it is a strange sight, and she thinks maybe she is not so different from Lincoln—she does not think villains should be happy.

 
Then Robby Montgomery is jerking his head at them, and they are moving. Joan follows Mrs. Powell through the doorway, trying not to brush against Robby Montgomery or his gun as she passes him. Kailynn is behind her, and she feels the girl’s hand close around her arm, just above her bandage, keeping close.

  They are back in the hallway then, the dark stainless-steel gleam of the kitchen in front of them.

  “Look,” Robby Montgomery says, “you need to go somewhere else. Not up here. The police are coming through the entrance—but don’t go that way. They’re still shooting.”

  “Who is ‘they’?” asks Mrs. Powell.

  “The police,” he says, easily enough. “And Destin. Unless he’s dead, but he’s done up for it, and the police wouldn’t still be shooting if he was dead.”

  “Who is Destin?” asks Mrs. Powell. There is a primness to her voice—as if she is considering whether to approve the boy’s choice of a prom date—that is almost funny.

  “Destin is the star of the show,” says Robby Montgomery in a voice that is not his own. It is a TV newscaster’s voice, overly dramatic.

  Joan takes a step away from him. She does not like his pretend voices.

  Mrs. Powell frowns, and it seems that Robby Montgomery notices. When he speaks again, he is talking normally.

  “You see a tank on legs, that’ll be Destin,” he says. “He’s got himself the good stuff—Level IV plates that’ll take rifle hits and a Blackhawk helmet and the whole deal. You don’t want any part of him. And then there’s Mark up here with me, but he ditched me again. Lucky for you. Come on. You need to get moving.”

  “Mommy?” whispers Lincoln again.

  “Not yet,” Joan whispers back, so softly that she can barely hear herself.

  He is letting them go.

  He is letting them go.

  That thought is so overwhelming that she cannot push past it at first. Even when she does, it is hard to make sense of what he’s saying. There are three men involved in this, including this boy, and he is throwing names out as if they do not matter. Surely he should not be sharing such details: she wonders if he fully understands what is happening. What has happened and what will happen. Or maybe he does know what will happen, and that is why it doesn’t matter if he tells them names.