Filed to story: Brace Face Betty Drama Story
I thought wrong.
CRACK!
Marcus shoves me to the ground. I can feel him over me, his body on top of mine, his chest up against my back. His ragged breathing is so loud in my ear.
“Sarah! Oh my god. Sarah. Sarah, no, no, no!”
The petrified shrieking cuts me down to the bone. I know the voice… “Oh, shit. Shit, please! Don’t fucking…just…”
CRACK!
“We need to move,” Marcus pants. “I need you to run, Betty. I need you to run toward that stairwell, up, up, up and through the science block. Do not stop. Do not look back. I’ll be right behind you. Can you do that for me?”
“I don’t know!”
“You can, Betty. I know you can. You’re brave, and you’re fucking fast. Come on. We have to get out of here, right now.”
I scrunch my eyes closed, trying to grab hold on the terror lashing around in the pit of my stomach. It takes every scrap of willpower I possess, but I manage to calm myself. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
I nod beneath him.
“All right. One…two…THREE!” Marcus has me by the back of my shirt. He lifts me up off the floor and onto my feet, and then his palm is against my back, shoving me forward so quickly I can barely get my legs to move fast enough. I hurtle toward the stairwell, jumping over two girls who are hunkered down, covering their heads with their backpacks.
“Up! Let’s go, let’s go!” Marcus hisses. His hand is gone from my back. He told me not to stop. He told me not to hesitate, but I do…
Then he’s right behind me, the girls, Alicia and Sophia, being herded along by his side, their faces stained with eyeliner.
“RUN!” Marcus’s roar echoes down the hallway. A strangled scream comes right after, cut off by the loud, terrible report of another gunshot.
My lungs are burning. My legs are burning. I take the stairs three at a time, tripping, struggling to stay on my feet. There are footsteps behind me, screaming and shouting-
I take a turn in the stairwell, surging up the second flight of stairs.
“He’s coming. He’s fucking coming!” Alicia yells.
“Faster, Betty. Go faster!” Marcus hollers.
There’s a skidding, a thud, but I keep going forward, keep trying to pull air into my lungs. The door to the first science lab crashes against the wall as I hurl myself through it. The lab is empty. Deserted. I run for the interconnecting door, flying through that, into the next lab and then through the next again.
My backpack snags on something. I rip it from my shoulders, dropping it, still running…
Out of the last science lab, I nearly fall down the stairs that lead toward the music rooms. Oh god, where’s Max? Where the fuck is my brother? Through the chaos whipping through my head, for a second I don’t even have the sense to realize that Max is at his school. He’s not here. He’s not here…
Everything is noise, and color, and panic.
Blood on my tongue.
My pulse racing in my ears.
I’m going to fucking throw up…
“Left! Left, Betty! Through the door!” Marcus shoulders the music room door open, grabbing me and yanking me after him. Alicia and Sophia cling to each other as we race for the sound booth. A second later, Marcus has that door open, and he’s pushing us all inside.
His fingers dig painfully into my shoulders again. His face is ashen. “Close it after yourself. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone, you hear me? I don’t care who it is. You lock that fucking door, and you do not open it.”
“MARCUS, NO!”