and they say (how the good die young)
Michael "Robby" Robinavitch & daughter!reader
It was just a normal morning. An overworked, emotionally exhausted single father snapping at his daughter. A stubborn, defensive teenage daughter snapping back. Three words that should have never gone unsaid remaining unspoken. Just a normal morning - until a boy brought a rifle to school.
Part 1 | Part 2
Words: 13,2k
Content: School shooting, Hurt/Comfort, Gun violence, injury, single dad!Robby, Reader!daughter, No major character death
No use of Y/N
Read on Ao3 or below the cut:
A/N: Heavy angst incoming :D
I got guns in my head and they won′t go Spirits in my head and they won't
I've been lookin′ at the stars tonight And I think, oh, how I miss that bright sun I′ll be a dreamer 'til the day I die And they say, oh, how the good die young?
But we′re all strange And maybe we don't want to change
- Spirits by The Strumbellas
“Morning.” Jack chirped, far too cheerful for it being seven a.m. and him having just worked a twelve-hour shift on - presumably, but also most probably - three hours of sleep.
Robby merely grunted in response as she stripped off his jacket and reached for his thermos.
“Who pissed in your cereal this morning?”
Determined to drink his coffee while it was still hot, Robby took a large sip, just to scrunch up his nose and almost choke. He forced the scorching hot coffee that’d been desecrated by the violet coffee syrup you used for the cold brewed teas you made at home down, fighting his own gag reflex.
“Ah.” Jack said with a smirk he didn’t even bother to conceal. “Robby jr.”
“Nah, she lost the right to my name.” Robby scowled at the thermos but not without a healthy dose of heartbroken yearning.
There went his only shot at good coffee for the next twelve hours.
Jack took a sniff of it and chuckled. “Coffee-based warfare. She must be pissed, brother. What happened?”
“When,” Robby said after a longsuffering sigh and braced his underarms against the counter, peering up at Jack with tired eyes. “Did it somehow become acceptable to go to school with one’s entire midriff out? Not to mention that it’s against dress code and I can’t be driving up to her school in the middle of the day to pick her up because she earned yet another violation!”
“Urgh, I hate that I can’t find any shirts that aren’t cropped anymore.” Javadi sighed. Mel next to her nodded along eagerly. Jack and Robby turned at the same time, staring the unsuspecting med student down. She looked up, realised she had said that out loud, blushed and scurried away. Mel followed closely behind.
At least those two had enough shame to run and hide when caught eavesdropping, the same could not be said about one Trinity Santos.
“Honestly, power to her. School dress codes are dumb.”
Robby blinked, slowly, like a frog on sedatives as he tried to process Santos’ audacity he might never get used to.
“Be that as it may, I expect my seventeen-year-old daughter to wear more than what’s basically a glorified sports bra to school. Shouldn’t you be finding Cruz and Ellis for handovers? And when did this become a public conversation anyway?”
“Gee, sore spot I guess.” Santos muttered and sauntered off. She had barely even looked up from her tablet the whole time.
Had Robby lost his bite?
Jack watched her leave for a moment before turning back to Robby. “So, I’m guessing you told Robby jr in your usual soft and understanding way to change, and she blew up for no reason?”
“May not have been very soft or understanding.” Robby grunted and pressed his fingers into his temples to ease the whisper of a headache sneaking up on him. That was the last thing he needed today.
“Mhm.” Jack sounded as if he had already expected that answer.
Robby grunted again. He sighed and folded his arms against the counter to hide his face against them. “Nobody warned me a teenager would be worse than the defiant phase of toddlerhood. You didn’t know her then, Jack, but fuck, I wanted to throw the whole kid away and start over.”
“Amen.” Dana murmured with a quiet chuckle. “Raised three of ‘em and still don’t know how I survived it.” She peered at Robby over the brim of her glasses. “And I didn’t have to do it alone.”
Robby bristled. As much as he talked about you, fawning over you and how proud he was of you every damn chance he got, he didn’t speak about that part.
Dana and Jack knew he was a single parent. The rest assumed he and your mum were separated, but not that the sole responsibility of raising you rested on him.
Only Jack knew all the details of your mother walking out on both of you when you were just five. He’d been at work, unaware that his whole life was about to change. Unaware of the irreparable damage being done to you that he would spend the next twelve years scrambling to somehow fix. He was at work, back when Dr Adamson was still with them, before he became department chair, when he wasn’t yet drowning in work and paperwork as he was now. He was still working a lot, too much, but not the way he was now.
Robby went home after a long, gruelling shift, excited to see his family. His chest was lighter then, even when he lost patients, even when everything went to shit. Coming home to you and your mother was the best he had ever experienced, and after growing up without his parents, with only his grandma trying her best, he swore to himself you would not go through that.
He swore to himself you would have a real family, stability - everything he didn’t get. And in the end he could give you none of it.
He unlocked the door and found you, five years old and so small, so young and innocent, but no longer bright-eyed, curled up by the front door with your blanky, sobbing so miserably he was afraid you couldn’t breathe.
He found your mother’s note on the kitchen counter while you sniffled into his shoulder, tiny hands clinging to his filthy scrubs.
I’m sorry, Michael. I just can’t do this anymore.
Robby knew she wasn’t happy. Not exactly. He was trying. He was a good partner! For her, he had been a good partner. Getting groceries after work, cleaning, laundry, taking you to parks and playgrounds and the doctors. He knew what size you wore and what food you liked that week and your vaccination status. He was a good father, a great father, and a good partner, back when he still knew how, but it hadn’t been enough.
Your mother didn’t want children. You weren’t planned, and even though Robby left the decision up to her, and even though she chose to keep you, she never grew into her role as mother.
She regretted not getting out of the car outside the clinic Robby had driven her to the whole five years of your existence.
And then she left. She didn't reach out. She didn't talk to him. She pretended everything was fine until one day she just... disappeared from both of your lives.
She locked the door so you wouldn’t wander away and just walked away, leaving you home alone for nine hours while Robby was at work. The thought of all the things that could have happened to you still made him wake in a cold sweat at night all these years later. What if there had been a fire? You would have been trapped. What if you fell and hit your head?
He would almost call it lucky that all you’d done was cry for hours on end, waiting for your mother to return, terrified and lonely. The show your mother put on before leaving was not nearly enough to keep a five-year-old from realising she was home alone, all alone…
And just like that, Robby had become a single parent without a fucking clue how to navigate any of it.
Not for the first time, Robby wondered whether things would be… easier if you still had a mum. How was he supposed to relate to the daily hurdles, big and small, of being a teenager frighteningly fast on her way to being a young woman?
This felt so much worse than the period disaster…
Jack braced his hands against the counter and leaned forward, chasing eye contact with Robby in that infuriating way of his. He had the habit of stripping him off his defences just by looking at him, and Robby really didn’t need that to happen in the middle of the goddamn ER.
“It’ll be fine, man. You both are stubborn as mules, but no matter how much you clash, it never lasts long, does it? You’ll be out of each other’s hair for the coming twelve hours, that’ll give everyone time to cool down. You’ll see. Pick up some KFC on the way home, and all will be forgiven. This-” He gestured towards the thermos and the ruined coffee within. “-tells me it’ll be okay. Robby jr doesn’t do shit like that to people who pissed her off so bad she doesn’t care about them anymore. She doesn’t waste her energy on them. She did this so you’d think of her every time you take a sip. Remember the time she put neon pink hair dye into my shampoo and curl cream because I ruffled her hair in front of the boy she had a crush on, right before sending her into school?”
“You had pink hair for weeks.”
Jack was grinning, looking as if it was one of the fondest memories he had.
"And I rocked that shit!"
He always loved your mischievous side, ever since he met you when you were just five years old, shy and frightened and shut off in a way you had never been before. Jack somehow managed to get you out of your shell, a little bit more every time you met. Robby had already gotten on well with him then, new to the team and still a little bruised and battered from war, but seeing the way you responded to him was the true kickstart to their friendship.
“No girl wants to be told what to wear by her dad. We’re boring, brother. We’re embarrassing and lame. And she has an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex because she’s a teenager and can’t gauge the full scope of her decisions yet, so lame af Dad sometimes has to step in. She knows this, even if her nervous system in the moment didn’t let her see it. You’ll see, come tonight you’re both sitting on the couch watching one of her shows together - like always.”
Jack slapped Robby on the shoulder and, probably deeming this conversation a job well done, walked away to help an intern who looked like he was about to cry.
Robby did not deem the conversation a job well done.
He fiddled with his phone, staring down at the dark screen between his fingers - his nails filed, oiled, and cuticles trimmed thanks to your inability to watch a show without occupying your hands (manicures were better than those black peel-off face masks that felt like they were skinning him alive at least) - and tried to figure out why the heavy, gnawing pit in his stomach remained.
Jack was right. Your coffee warfare, past fights, and just the overall good relationship you two had (a far better relationship than he’d ever have expected from a father and his teenager daughter, if Robby was being honest - perhaps he had done some things right after all, judging by the late nights you spent huddled together on the sofa, discussing gossip from the Pitt and school with whatever mocktail creation you came up with that day) all pointed towards this just being a fight.
A stupid fight between a daughter who was getting ready to leave the nest, discovering herself, testing boundaries and a father who, perhaps, was a little too willfully ignorant of that impending change, but also saw too much shit every day to not be at least a little overprotective of the one good thing in his life.
And you were.
You were everything.
You were the reason Robby sat on the couch with you after a shift so gut-wrenching, so brutal it left him feeling raw for days to come instead of taking that step off the roof.
You were his greatest joy, his biggest pride, his treasure, his whole world.
Perhaps it was the lesson his grandmother instilled in him, and Robby in turn instilled in you. ‘Never go to bed angry.’ which Robby turned into ‘Never part ways angry’ since he often didn't get to tuck you in at night, and eventually ‘Your parting words may be the last you ever say' because Robby had seen too many parents, spouses, friends - you name it - part ways while angry and wound up reuniting here in the Viewing Room.
No matter how furious Robby was, he never left without saying that he loved you.
Not when you set fire to your curtains with a scented candle and called him at work, all panicked instead of using the fire extinguisher that’s been in the kitchen since you were six! Not when you lied to Jack that Robby allowed you to go dirt biking with him and ended up needing stitches on your chin. Or when you incited Jake to start a secret, rigged betting ring at your middle school with you.
When he had to leave for work, it was always with a ‘I am so angry right now, but I love you, and I will always love you’ as his parting words.
Always.
For seventeen years.
He didn’t say it today.
Robby couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t said it. He went over the morning in his head over and over, but he couldn’t make sense of it. Perhaps it was the exhaustion that still sat deep in his bones after his last shift, exhaustion of a thousand shifts over the years piling higher and higher. Maybe the fact he’d been sleeping worse and worse for weeks now. Stubbornness and pride because you were in the wrong, and maybe, just maybe, after fighting to keep the peace at work for twelve hours every day, he didn’t want to be the one keeping the peace at home too!
You wanted to act and walk around like a grown-up, then perhaps it was fucking time for you to start acting like one too. Maybe if you did, Robby wouldn’t have to be on your ass all the time!
Robby ran his hand over his face and down his beard and unlocked his phone. He was greeted by the wallpaper you’d set up, a picture of you and Robby making faces at the camera during one of the rare occasions he had taken time off work to take you on a trip. Robby opened your chat and pulled up the keyboard, thumb hovering over the screen-
“Dr Robinavitch?”
“Yeah.” Robby locked his screen and shoved the phone into his pocket as he turned around to the expectant R3 waiting for his help.
He was swallowed by the ER after that. Without his coffee, he was in a foul mood, but not yet desperate enough to surrender to the fate of breakroom coffee.
He was getting there though.
Jack stuck around, for one reason or another, Robby wasn’t entirely sure. Jack just… pulled a double sometimes for no reason. He didn't use to while his was still alive.
He wasn’t going to complain, not when the department was already a mess, Gloria hounding him for some paperwork he’d entirely forgotten about and he… well, he missed working with his friend. Was that a crime? With Jack banishing himself to the nightshift, Robby barely got to see him anymore. It had its good sides, sure. You and Jack were spending a lot more time together now, and Robby was glad to know you weren’t hanging out at the apartment all alone all day, or god knows where with your friend, even if he sometimes envied Jack when you sent pictures of the two of you out and about, at your weekly laser tag date or just grabbing lunch after school.
It was doing Jack good too.
About three hours into his shift, Robby’s feet found their way into the break room after all. He poured himself a cup of shitty coffee and slumped down on the sofa, out of view of the little window in the door to catch a moment of quiet and peace - just a moment. He wasn’t asking for much! But at the first sip of coffee he took, coffee that was not brewed from his favourite coffee beans, you were back. A ghost in his mind, or more like a pesky little mosquito.
His mind dragged him back to the drive that morning. How you sat next to him in the passenger seat, stiff and refusing to take your eyes off the road, arms crossed in front of your chest. You’d put on a different shirt under your hoodie - his hoodie, actually - but you were making your displeasure known by refusing to talk.
Driving you to school was never so quiet. It felt… eerie. Wrong. You were always talking, telling him about this and that while Robby understood approximately one out of five words that left your mouth - what was a red flag, and why was your best friend’s boyfriend saying she and you were spending too much time together one? - or you were giving running commentary to some podcast you put on. Or ranting about politics. Robby couldn’t remember being so political at your age. A lot was going to shit around him, but seeing the way you and your peers rose amidst all the shittyness was nothing short of inspiring.
You wore a whistle around your neck. You had ever since ICE made more and more appearances on the streets. Your whole friend group spent an entire weekend handing them out at the mall alongside laminated cards educating people on their rights in different languages.
He and Jack had been in Jack’s truck in the parking lot keeping watch over you the entire time, just in case some asshole wanted to start some shit - he never told you. You never saw him.
Robby’s hands had been curled tightly around the steering wheel the entire drive, anger and exasperation running hot in his veins. It was a reasonable request, Robby still thought so, to tell you to mind the school’s dress code. It wasn’t even that Robby policed what you wore. If you wanted to wear that skimpy half-shirt when you met your friends, knock yourself out! But you had to learn there was an appropriate and not-appropriate way to conduct yourself at school, and later college, and after that work. School wasn’t a goddamn fashion show!
And he knew pressure on young women was different in this time than it had been when he was young. And he knew some boys at your school were huge assholes. And he knew the manosphere podcast bullshit was doing damage - both to boys and the psyche of girls.
But Robby thought he raised you to be above that kind of shit!
Before Robby knew what he was doing, he had his phone in his hand again, your chat open, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
It was simple.
Two words. Seven letters. One apostrophe.
It should be simple.
I’m sorry.
He could have handled things better, he was sure of it because lately… lately he could be handling everything better. His grandmother spent his whole life trying to teach him to be the bigger person. That it took less effort to be kind than it did to be an asshole. To own up to his mistakes, and you were his daughter. If Robby couldn’t even get over his pride and apologise to you, how were you ever supposed to learn to be the kind of person who can put their pride aside and say I’m sorry. Would you end up learning to accept this behaviour as normal from a future spouse? Was Robby messing you up the same way he was messed up?
You were stubborn and prideful and infuriating sometimes, but really, who was to blame for that?
The speakers calling out a code blue tore him from his ruminating thoughts. His coffee was forgotten instantly. His phone locked and back in his pocket - the words he never typed, never sent still tingling at the tips of his fingers.
The gnawing pit in his stomach remained.
Robby was just leaving the trauma room an hour later when his phone buzzed in his pocket. Faster than usual, and not without Dana noticing the hurried gesture, Robby pulled it out to check the message.
I’m sorry.
Robby slumped against the counter, staring at the phone in his hands, brows furrowing.
He watched the three dots dance under the bubble with your text, and dance- and stop.
The pit in his stomach grew to the size of a fucking boulder.
“Brother?”
Robby hadn’t noticed Jack looking up, nor that he’d been watching Robby stand still and silently stare at his phone for several minutes.
Robby didn’t react. Jack quickly put his tablet back into the charging port and rounded the counter, coming up next to Robby.
“What’s the matter?”
Robby tilted the phone towards him.
“That’s… I mean, that’s good, right?”
Jack didn’t sound convinced. Jack knew you almost as well as Robby. You would not apologise in a text. Not like this.
Something was wrong.
Robby felt physically sick. He barely heard the red telephone ringing. He stared at the screen of his phone and waited for the dancing dots to come back. For you to send the message you’d been typing.
“She’s at school.” Jack murmured next to him. “She probably- she probably just doesn’t have time to- to do her big voice message thing.” He shifted uncomfortably next to Robby. “She’s not even supposed to have her phone, isn’t she? Maybe a teacher-”
“Yeah.” Robby whispered, unconvinced.
“Oh god-”
Both men looked up at the same time, meeting Dana’s horror-stricken, pale face. Her hand trembled when she hung up the red phone. She cleared her throat, trying to find her voice again, something that he, in all his years working with Dana, had never seen.
Robby felt a cold shiver run down his spine.
His grip tightened around his phone.
The feeling of impending doom that had been following him all day crashed into him with enough force to knock the air from his lungs.
I didn’t tell her that I love her.
“We- There’s a school shooting. We don’t know how many injuries to expect but- but we should prepare for the worst.”
“Which school?”
Robby’s voice was tiny compared to the shocked, distraught murmur cutting through the ER, momentarily silencing all background noise.
Dana was still calling out orders, preparing her nursing staff for the expected influx of patients the same way Robby should be doing with his doctors, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t-
He stared down at his phone, at your message in its blue bubble right beneath the meme you sent him last night. He knocked on your door because he didn’t understand it. You were sitting in your bed already, reading the book you picked up from the library earlier when Robby and you went out to buy new gym shoes for you because you had gym class today and of course you forgot to tell him you needed new shoes. You always did-
“Dana.”
The charge nurse did not turn around.
“Dana!” Robby slammed his hand down on the counter. “What school?!”
Dana’s shoulders sank, and Robby knew the answer.
He knew the answer before she opened her mouth.
A picture of you flashed through his mind. You slamming the door of his car and taking a step towards your school. You hesitating, turning around, looking at him through the rolled-down window, waiting.
Waiting for him to say it.
Robby had only gripped the steering wheel tighter, lips pressed into a thin line beneath his beard, and stared at the road ahead of him. Your shoulder sank, just like Dana’s had a moment ago. Sadness flashed across your face for a split-second just to instantly be replaced by renewed rage. You turned on the spot and marched away.
Robby watched you go.
Robby watched you go, knowing he’d made a mistake, but not doing anything to rectify it.
And he drove away. Just like that, he drove away.
I didn’t tell her that I love her.
Robby shook his head. It wasn’t true. If he didn’t accept it then- then it wouldn’t come true-
“Hers.”
The sound that left his lips was that of a wounded animal, raw and bleeding, wrenched from the very depths of his being. His knees gave out under him, and if it weren't for Jack next to him, he would have collapsed on the ground like a puppet whose string had been cut.
Jack barked orders that Robby didn’t hear over the buzzing in his ears. People around him moved, gathering supplies, moving patients, calling in support, and all Robby could do was clutch his phone to his chest, the taste of bile on his tongue and slowly slip to the ground with his back to the nurses’ station.
You almost missed the first shot.
You’d been buried deep in your own thoughts, the hallway pass - a ridiculously big rubber ducky your history teacher found hilarious (he was right, it was iconic, not that you’d admit it) - tucked under your arm as you leaned against the sinks in the girls’ bathroom.
It didn’t sit right with you how you and your dad parted ways that morning.
Why didn’t he say it?
He always said it!
Had you finally gone too far? Pushed too hard?
You didn’t even really want to wear the stupid shirt! Mira wanted you all to match, including the guys in your group, to make a statement against the stupid, sexist dress code. Robby was going off on you before you had any chance to explain and then… well fuck him. What happened to sorting out your issues like adults? Which he talked about just last week. What about innocent until proven guilty? He made you feel like a stupid little girl who couldn’t be trusted to dress herself, and you- you just closed up. Like a clam deciding this shit wasn’t worth her time.
You got defensive and bitchy and then froze him out, refusing to talk or even look at him. A part of you was pissed because you told him how difficult it was to find a shirt that wasn’t cropped lately. Even sweatshirts! Who wanted a cropped sweatshirt?
What right did you have to feel upset now because he didn’t say I love you after you acted like a bitch?
You hated that you’d have to sit with this pit in your stomach until this evening. You even contemplated visiting him at work after school, but that would probably not go over well, not with how angry he must be if he didn’t even tell you that he loved you.
He always did.
You of course knew that Gloria had been hounding Robby more than usual and budget cuts were affecting the staffing of the ER, which led to him doing more overtime. He’d been barely sleeping since PittFest too, not that he’d ever admit as much to you, but you could hear the TV in his room at night, and you overheard Jack trying to convince your dad to go to therapy more than once.
You knew he was struggling, and you understood it when he was more exhausted or a little less patient than usual with you - but to not say I love you? Over a stupid shirt?
The shot tore through your thoughts.
You flinched and almost dropped your phone you’d pulled out of your pocket as you considered just texting your dad, just clear all this shit up instead of carrying it with you for the rest of the day. It wasn’t worth it. This stupid argument wasn’t worth any of the stomach ache it had given you.
The door to the bathroom was pushed open, and a frantic, harried-looking Mira stumbled in.
“What’s going on?”
Mira flinched so violently at the sound of your voice that you knew, you just knew something terrible had happened. Mira rushed towards you without explaining, hands trembling- was that blood?!
“Shh-” Mira hushed you, one hand pressed to your mouth and dragged you towards the stalls.
“Mira-”
“He’s got a rifle. A fucking rifle!” She hissed through her teeth. Tears were running down her cheeks in thick rivulets, spreading her mascara over her skin.
The words sent a chill down your back. You grabbed Mira’s wrist and got her to climb up on the toilet seat with you.
“We have to lock- lock the-”
“No.” You whispered and shook your head. “We lock it and he knows we’re in here. Just be- just be quiet.”
With trembling hands, you tapped your code into your phone. Your fingers were too sweaty for the sensor to recognise your fingerprint. It always did that in summer, but your father refused to get a newer model for you while this one was still working.
You barely saw the chat with your father through the tears clouding your vision.
I’m sorry.
You’d been so stupid. So silly. You didn’t even want to wear the damn shirt. It was just Mira’s idea to make a point against the dress code, which you knew wouldn’t even work. It would just get you in trouble, and your dad couldn’t come pick you up from school in the middle of the day. And the guys chickened out anyway.
I love you.
The bathroom door hit the wall hard from the force with which it was thrown open. You pressed your hand to Mira’s mouth and forced yourself to be quiet. You pressed your forehead to Mira’s, her trembling arms slung around your shivering body, clutching you as tight as she could. Tears burnt in your eyes. You missed the send button by a hairbreadth, but you didn’t know that. You thought you sent it.
Steps sounded heavy against the tiles, the noise amplified by the tiled room. You heard the mechanical click of the assault rifle. You knew that sound. You knew that kind of weapon. Your godfather Jack took you to a shooting range a few times, something your father didn’t know.
It felt like hours passed, hours of standing there, mere inches away from death, from some person who decided to bring a fucking gun to school and shoot up the place. And not even some stranger, you thought bitterly. It was never a stranger, was it? Or rarely. Too rarely to matter in this moment as you stared at the closed stall door and wondered which of your fellow students had been planning to run fucking amok in your school.
Your school wasn’t the greatest. It was a school. It had shitty lunch and a shitty dress code and some of the teachers acted as if they hated kids but- but it wasn’t awful.
You couldn’t make sense of this.
This couldn’t be real- couldn’t be happening.
The door opened again. Closed again. Silence. Stretching long like taffy, suffocating, drowning. Then - gunshots in the distance.
“Oh my god.” Mira whispered after peeling your hand away from her mouth. “Oh my god!”
“Calm down.” You muttered, panicking yourself but already unlocking your phone again. You closed the chat with your father without looking at it, your brain running on autopilot.
You dialled 911.
“Fucking reception!” You hissed and, tentatively, fearing an attack despite knowing the attacker had moved on, pushed the door of the stall open. Nothing. The room was empty, aside from the bloody boot prints on the ancient tiles.
You ignored them.
Forced yourself to ignore them.
“Give me a lift.”
Mira, and you really had to hand it to her because she didn’t have a lowkey crazy uncle who liked to use your weekly laser tag date as active shooter drills (he thought you didn’t notice, but you did), managed to gather herself quickly and rushed over to you. With her help, you managed to pull yourself up on the narrow ledge beneath the small window. You cracked it open, back bent at a painful angle to accommodate the ceiling right above you and tried again.
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Oh thank god.” You exhaled through your teeth. “My reception is crap, but- fuck, there’s an active shooter at my school. He- he has a rifle- Mira!” You looked down. “What did he wear?”
“What?”
“What did he wear!?”
You passed along Mira’s description to the 911 operator. Jack always said that precise information was the most useful thing a witness could contribute. Anything could become important, and often people held back important details because they thought they were unimportant.
“It was Jeremy.”
“What?”
You stared down at Mira, stunned.
You knew Jeremy.
You caught yourself when the operator said your name, asking whether you were still there.
“Jeremy Connors. The shooter is a boy called Jeremy Connors. But I don’t know whether he is alone.” You gave them his address. You didn’t remember the exact house number since you’d never been at his place, but you figured it was better than nothing, though you weren’t sure how it would be helpful.
“Can- my dad works at PTMC. Dr Robinavitch, and- and my godfather, Jack Abbot, he works there too, but he’s a SWAT medic as well. Can- can someone-” tell them I’m alright, was what you were going to say, before you realised that by the time any message would reach them you might, with increasing probability, not be okay. How many students were killed at the school shooting in Arkansas last week? Three? With ten mortally wounded? How many people were injured during PittFest?
“These things get recorded, right?” You sniffled. “Because- because I had a big fight with my dad this morning and I- I just want to tell him I love him.” You bit back a sob that threatened to choke you off. “I love you, Dad. I love you, Jack- fuck- I’m sorry I was being such a bitch, daddy. I’m not mad at you. I’d never really be mad at you. I love you-”
The line beeped. You wiped away your tears to glance at your phone.
No reception.
“Fuck.”
You jumped down onto the ground and shoved your phone into your pocket before pulling it out again to turn it on silent. Mira did the same.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s not mine.” She whispered, sounding hoarse. “Should we- stay here?”
“I- don’t know.”
“He shot Dwayne.” Mira sniffled. “He just- he came out of nowhere and shot him. I ran as fast as I could, but- how could I just leave him there?”
You shook your head. “You did the right thing.”
“He’s probably still lying there! And I left.”
“We-” You licked your lips. Your chest tightened with the thought. It wasn’t wise. You probably shouldn’t. Jack would want you to find a place to hide and wait for the police to arrive. You called 911, now it was time to hide, but you couldn’t.
The thought of Dwayne lying somewhere out there, wounded, maybe already dead-
“I have a- I have a med kit in my locker.” You whispered. You had one in your bag too, but that was still in the history classroom because your teacher didn’t let anyone take it to the bathroom. “Come.” You took Mira’s hand into yours, and together you crept out of the bathroom. The bloody boot prints led away from the bathroom and in the opposite direction of your locker.
“He’s heading deeper into the school.” You whispered to nobody in particular. “Probably the cafeteria.”
Anything the shooter drills the school did every once in a while tried to teach you was gone, evaporated from your brain the second you realised what Mira’s terrified expression meant. You weren’t supposed to be running around in the hallway, you thought, very distantly and not for very long, not when there was someone bleeding out and needing medical attention.
Were you medical attention? Barely, but you watched all seasons of Grey’s Anatomy, Scrubs and ER, your father and godfather were emergency physicians, and you practically grew up at PTMC after your mother abandoned you.
You knew how to stop some bleeding.
In theory.
You thought you could stop some bleeding, in theory.
You miraculously reached your locker and peeled the med kit out from under your books. You closed the door of your locker as quietly as you could and turned-
“That’s Jeremy’s locker, isn’t it?”
Mira followed your gaze.
“I think.”
You bit your bottom lip, contemplating for a moment.
“Give me a bobby pin.” You were already on the way towards the locker in question. Mira, the true ride-or-die that she was, handed you the pin without asking questions. You picked Jeremy’s lock with relative ease - thanks to Jack - and inhaled a sharp breath when you opened the door.
“Knew it.”
“Is that-”
“Ammunition.” You nodded. “Help me get that shit out. We’ll- fuck it, we’ll put it in my locker. Just- just away from him. Let him run out, right?” You glanced at Mira, hoping for an answer that would put your own anxiety at ease.
“He probably has more on him.” She whispered. “He always wears those hoodies with the big pockets.”
“Yeah, but- we can’t leave this here?”
As quickly and as silently as you could, you gathered the boxes of ammunition and brought them over to your locker. It felt illegal to put so much ammunition into your (however technical) possession, no matter how good your intentions were.
“Is that a gun?”
Mira whisper-called from Jemery’s locker. You joined her.
“Yep.” You picked up the handgun and checked the magazine. “Probably a back-up or something.” You put on the safety and shoved it into the waistband of your trousers.
Mira hissed your name. “Are you insane?”
“No. But my godfather is.” You closed Jeremy’s locker. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You can’t take that!”
“Why not? Why should he be the only one who gets to shoot at us?!”
Mira looked like she wanted to argue, but you were already making your way down the hall, following the bloody trail, med kit clutched in your hand. She ran to catch up with you.
“Do you even know how to use that thing?”
“Yep.” You let the p pop. “Told you Uncle Jack is lowkey insane.”
“Does your dad know?”
You emitted a nervous chuckle. “God, if my dad knew everything I do, I’d already be grounded until I’m sixty.”
Despite your casual conversation, both you and Mira were hypervigilant of your surroundings. Mira used her handmirror to peer around corners ("What? Saw that in a movie"), and your hand never strayed far from the handgun digging into the small of your back. You weren’t sure whether you’d actually be capable of shooting at another person, but that gnawing pit in your stomach was at least slightly eased by its presence.
“Dwayne!” Mira hissed through her teeth and, forgetting all previous caution, ran towards the closed door a thick trail of blood led to.
“It’s us.” You said, knocking softly against the door. The curtain covering the window in the door was pulled back, revealing Oliver’s terrified, pale face. You waved. The faint click of the door echoed through the silent hallway, and you were ushered inside.
While Mira and Oliver worked to block the door again, you rushed towards Dwayne, who sat in a corner of the room, pallid, trembling, so very weak.
Your eyes roamed over him quickly, assessing his state as best as you could. Your head felt as though wrapped in cotton. It was difficult to reach through the fog and find the information you needed, but you knew it was there. Pounded into you by your father and Jack and growing up in the ER.
You knew your first aid.
“Okay.” You murmured and wiped the back of your hand across your forehead. “Come on, Jack doesn’t call you Robby jr for nothing. Come on…” You grabbed your med kit and quickly slipped on gloves before searching the depths of the once-organised kit for some gauze. Hemostatic gauze specifically.
Dwayne’s lips and fingertips were already turning blue, you realised with increasing panic. His breathing was shallow and strained. His skin was cold and clammy, and he was barely conscious at this point.
“He’s in shock, I think-”
“You think?” Mira squeaked.
“I’m not a paramedic!” You hissed back. “Here, put this in his mouth.” You gestured towards a thick wooden ruler. “Oliver, hold him down. His shoulders aren’t injured, dunce! Hold him down. This’ll hurt like a motherfucker.”
You loosened Dwayne’s belts and any other tight clothing before grabbing a pair of safety shears from the kit to cut open the hole the bullet tore through his pant leg. Beneath lay the gunshot wound, deceptively small but bleeding continuously.
“The bullet is still in, but I can’t do anything about that.” You whispered, more to yourself than your friends. You knew you had to keep a clear head now or Dwayne would not make it to the hospital. Who knew when police would arrive. How much time had passed since you made your call? What was the response time for these things? You thought to remember reading once that it was 20 minutes, but was that applicable to downtown Pittsburgh too?
You ripped open the gauze package and started pushing the gauze bit by bit deep into the gushing wound with your fingers. Mira wrinkled her nose and looked away.
“Shouldn’t we- I don’t know, put his belt around his thigh or something?”
“A tourniquet?” You muttered. “Do you know how to safely use a tourniquet? Because I sure as fuck don’t, and I think this is way too far up anyway. This gauze is hemostatic, don’t ask me what that means, but it helps with clotting or something.”
Dwayne groaned softly and tried to move away from what you imagined must be excruciating pain, having someone shove gauze into an open gunshot wound without any meds, but Oliver did as you had told him and kept his hands firmly on Dwayne’s shoulders, keeping him from twisting out of your grasp.
“There.” You wrapped a bandage around his thigh, over his pants and over the packed wound, before pressing your palms down on the now covered wound to wait for the clotting agents to - hopefully - do their job. “Can you get the sharpie from my kit, please? Don’t worry, I think Dwayne is unconscious.”
“Is that bad?”
You shrugged. “He can’t feel the pain now?” You took the pen and wrote down how much gauze you used. You pressed your fingers into his neck and stared at the watch by the door while counting his heartbeats. You wrote his heart rate down on his leg as well, next to the current time.
“He’s lost a lot of blood.” Mira whimpered.
“It’s difficult to estimate liquids on the ground. It’s probably not as much as we’re thinking.” You didn’t even convince yourself with that one. “Fuck.”
“Jeremy blocked the doors.” Oliver said. “I was hiding in here after he hit Dwayne. Saw him do it.”
“What did he use?”
Oliver shrugged. “Mostly zipties, I think. And bike locks.”
“One with numbers? Or a key?”
“Key, I think.”
You and Mira exchanged a look.
“You’re crazy. We’re never gonna make it!”
“We have no idea how long it’ll take the police to start their sweep! If Jeremy locked all entrances or if he’s taken hostages, it could be hours, you do realise that, right?”
“This isn’t happening-” Oliver muttered, burying his face in his hands and smearing blood onto his cheek in doing so. “You were hanging out with him, why didn’t you realise this-”
“Oh, it’s my fault he’s shooting up the fucking place?” You hissed. “I barely hung out with him! I- fuck, I took pity on him, okay? He’s always alone and kinda weird, I figured- jesus, I figured he was autistic or something and people just couldn’t handle it. I was just being nice! And no! I didn’t realise he was going to do this. He barely even fucking talked to me.”
You thought you were extending a helping hand to some loner, some bullied kid the whole school had already forgotten about. You didn’t like seeing him sit all by himself every lunch and recess. He looked sad. So you- you just started sitting next to him. You tried talking to him, not that he ever replied much. He didn’t leave either, or told you to fuck off, so you figured he didn’t mind? Dwayne, Oliver and Mira eventually started to join you because they were tired of you always missing from their conversations.
You never thought being nice to the weird kid would end with this…
“Dwayne can’t wait for help.” You decided as you fumbled with the packaging of an emergency blanket.
“I’ll go check if the coast is clear.”
You left, instructing Mira to lock the door behind you. You crept along the deserted hallway, blood pounding in your ear, Dwayne’s blood sticky against your bare legs.
You found the closest door. Oliver had been right, though the bicycle lock was one of those cheap ones and easy enough to pick. You cut the zip ties with your emergency shears.
Time acted strange, warping and shifting around you. The way to the doors had felt like it stretched on forever, but the way back was over within the blink of an eye.
Dwayne wrapped in the thin, silvery film of the emergency blanket, you and Dwayne all but carried him to the door. You heard sirens in the distance, and relief washed over you.
One foot already out of the door, you stopped.
Oliver whispered your name. His panicked eyes flicked from you to the dark hallway behind you. “Come on!”
“I-” Your mouth felt dry. Shots and screams echoed behind you, had for the whole time it took to scout the hallway and then bring Dwayne here.
It was how you knew Jeremy wasn’t anywhere near you.
“I can’t.” Your voice came out small and pained. You winced at your own words, even as you felt them reverberate through your chest and heart.
“What the fuck do you mean, you can’t?!” Oliver snarled. “There’s a fucking shooter in there! He isn’t going to care that you offered him some chips during lunch!”
“Who knows how long it’ll take them to go in? What if- what if more people are hurt?”
“And what- you are the only one who can save them? Are you shitting me?”
You licked your lips and gave a small shrug. “Who else is there? Look- you go. Take Dwayne, get him help, but- but I can’t leave.”
“You’re insane.”
“Yeah.” You sighed, because he was right. Common sense was screaming at you to run, to save yourself and never look back, but you’d watched your whole life as the two most important adults in your life threw themselves into madness over and over to save lives.
How could you walk away now?
“If you’re staying, so am I.” Mira stepped forward. She interlaced her fingers with yours and did her best to put on a brave face.
Oliver shook his head slowly. “I don’t know whether you guys are dumb or hella fucking brave.”
You shrugged again, grip tightening around Mira’s hand. “Depends on whether we survive this, I guess.”
The chaos of the Pitt was different today.
A collectively held breath pressing in on all sides. Tensed, as if waiting for the first punch to land but not knowing when or how hard it would.
Nobody knew how many patients to expect. One or two? Or another PittFest? How many shooters were in the school? The school was on lockdown and surrounded by police forces, but information was scarce.
Robby could not take his eyes off the TV playing the new broadcast. A helicopter shot footage from above. There was no audio, but his head supplied the gunshots all on its own. Somewhere in there were you. Somewhere in that building he drove you to for years, you were fighting for your life.
And Robby wasn’t there.
He couldn’t do anything. He felt like the greatest fucking failure. Wasn’t a father supposed to protect his child? Not that Robby knew much about fathers…
He thought he knew how to be your father. He thought he had done a decent job at it, for the most part. You were the only thing besides his work here that still mattered in his life. The only good thing. The only thing Robby ever even left the hospital, because he knew you’d be waiting for him at home, eager to tell him the latest school gossip or internet drama.
But, he supposed, he was always bound to mess it up.
Everything he touched caught fire sooner or later, and Robby had never had a woman in his life who wasn’t worse off after having the misfortune of being important to him.
His mother, his grandmother, your mother, Janey, Heather… even Mohan he had managed to fuck over…
“My SWAT commander just called me.” Jack said softly, stepping up next to Robby. “Robby jr called 911.”
Robby inhaled a sharp breath.
“Shortly after texting you. She was in the bathroom at the time the shooting started.”
He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, hard. White spots danced before his closed lids. This couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening. This wasn’t right. She should be in a classroom that could be locked down. She should be in a school that was safe! She should never have had to partake in a goddamn active shooter drill just to get her education, much less be dragged into an actual shooting!
“He told me she was with a friend. She- Robby she left a message. She said she loves you, and that she’s not mad. That she’s sorry.”
Tears crept past Robby’s hands and rolled down his cheeks, disappearing in his beard. You used to find it hilarious to pull and tug on it when you were little… He felt the sudden, overwhelming desire to shave it off. To be rid of every reminder of your affection, remove you before the world could take you because if he had some semblance of control over the decision, maybe it wouldn’t hurt so bad.
“She gave a description of the shooter and even his home address. She did really well.”
“Don’t you dare.” Robby hissed through his teeth.
“She is a smart girl, brother. She’ll-”
“What?!” Robby snapped, swirling around to stare at his best friend he could not recognise at this moment. Was he truly standing there and telling him you would be fine?! “Last I checked, bullets don’t give a rat’s ass about how smart someone is! This is going to scar her, Jack! Even if she miraculously makes it out physically perfectly fine, she’ll be scarred for life!”
“Losing ourselves in worst-case scenarios isn’t going to help her.” Jack said with infuriating calmness. It pissed Robby off all the more. His daughter, his little girl, was trapped in a building with a monster who wanted to maim and kill as many as he could before cowardly ending his own life - optimism felt like a fucking slap in the face.
“Easy to say about another man’s child, isn’t it?” Venom dripped off every word. That finally cut through Jack’s iron composure that had once been forged in desert dust, IED explosions and bullet rainstorms.
“She’s my goddaughter. You made her my goddaughter, Robby. She isn’t mine, but I love her as if she were. Don’t stand there and pretend that isn’t true. That this isn’t tearing me apart just like it does you.”
Robby knew he’d gone too far, just like this morning, but he couldn’t stop.
“What the fuck are you even still doing here?!” His voice boomed through the department. It enraged Robby how much everyone was moving like this was just another day, just another fire waiting to be put out. How they were tiptoing past him like he was a loose canon they were afraid of setting off and not a father experiencing the worst pain he’d ever felt.
“If you insist on being a fucking self-martyr with your goddamn SWAT hobby, at least make yourself fucking useful and save my daughter!”
“I am leaving.” Jack said softly. “As soon as Al-Hashimi is here.”
Robby scoffed. “You think I can’t take care of my department without a babysitter?”
“Not right now, you can’t. You shouldn’t be here, Robby.”
"Where else am I going to be?” Robby whispered, rage and hurt and terror deflating, leaving behind an empty shell, exhaustion and deep, gut-wrenching fear. “My baby is out there-” His voice broke.
“I know.” Jack put his hand on Robby’s shoulder and ducked to catch his gaze. “And we’ll get her back, brother. We will. Losing faith now solves nothing.”
“I told her-” Robby inhaled a trembling breath. It stung in his throat, burning with the aftershock of the words he hurled at you this morning with such unjustified anger. It was just a shirt.
Just a stupid fucking shirt!
Robby grasped at Jack’s arm as if that would stop him drowning. As if anything could right now while those words played in his head on a loop, followed by the expression on your face. The anger, the disgust, the pain.
“I told her she’s just like her mother.”
Robby tilted forward precariously, colliding with Jack who stood firm and unmoving, even as Robby’s arms curled around him, hands grasping helplessly at his scrub top. He sobbed, suffocated, broken wails filling up his throat until he couldn’t breathe.
“The last thing I said to her- I don’t why I said it- I didn’t even fucking mean it.”
“She knows that.” Jack soothed, holding Robby. “She said she’s not mad. She loves you, Robby. She’ll be fine. Come on, brother. Your kid is one tough nut.”
“GSW to the upper thigh, two minutes out.” Dana called over to them.
Robby bristled. How many gunshot wounds had he treated in his career? More than he could ever begin to recall, though every single one treated in the Pitt during PittFest would be forever seared into his brain.
This was worse.
“Do we know-?”
Dana didn’t need him to finish.
“Male, seventeen. That’s all I know.”
He nodded weakly. He felt awful for even having asked. As if a patient that was not his daughter was any less of a fucking tragedy. He kept thinking about Jake and his girlfriend. Kept thinking how he couldn’t save her and the almost debilitating fear he felt knowing Jake was at PittFest all alone, when Robby had been supposed to be there with him.
Why was this worse?
It shouldn’t be.
Was he a horrible man? That the threat to the life of his daughter terrified him more than the threat to his quasi-son had?
He raised Jake for several years and stayed a fixture in his life even after the breakup with Janey. Robby just never managed to commit to a woman the way he’d committed to your mother again; Janey came closest to it though. You and Jake were as close as siblings. He used to come over every Sunday for basketball well after the separation, while you usually went out with friends or planned something with Jack.
Robby had been afraid you could be jealous to share your dad with another kid, but you just shrugged it off.
Janey would do the same for you in a heartbeat, and Jake would ‘share’ his mother with you just the same, without hesitation or jealousy, but you just never managed to trust another female caregiver figure again.
In school, you’d always been wary of female teachers, especially the passionate, devoted kind every other kid adored. It had taken years for you to be at ease around Dana again, and perhaps you only managed that because you’d known her before. Before your mother left.
Whenever you came into the Pitt to do your homework in the break room or drop off some baked goods when you were experimenting with recipes again, you did your best to avoid Baran. You were cordial with Perlah and Princess, but you’d never be more. You didn’t get along with Santos at all. Whenever you two were in a room together for too long, it ended in disaster.
Something about her personality and your trauma just didn’t mix.
Out of all the residents, you got along best with Mel. Perhaps that wasn’t surprising. Everyone got along with Mel.
“You should be sitting this one out, brother.” Jack muttered as he fiddled with his safety goggles. “Nobody would think less of you.”
Robby sniffed, arm tightly crossed in front of his chest, swaying restlessly on the spot. “I have to do something. I can’t- I’ll lose my damn mind if I just sit around.”
The ambulance bay doors opened. The brief moment of silence crumbled under the calls of the EMTs and the stench of blood and panic.
“Male, seventeen, GSW to the right upper thigh. Reported signs of beginning shock, but his condition has been stable since he’s been with us. First aid was administered on scene by another student.”
“Oliver?” Robby had noticed the blood-stained boy trailing behind the EMTs.
“It’s Dwayne.” He sniffled. “Jeremy just fucking started shooting at him out of nowhere. And- and- she- she patched him up and picked a lock so we’d get out-”
“Where is she?” Robby craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse of the ambulance bay, waiting for you to stumble in and crack one of your jokes you always used as a shield against all the heavy shit of the world.
But you didn’t come.
Maybe you never would again…
Oliver swayed precariously, and Robby reached out to hold the trembling boy by the shoulders to steady him. The shock of the day clung to him like a thick, heavy cloak.
A weight far too heavy for such a young man to carry.
He knew Oliver. He knew him well. Robby knew his parents and his pizza order. He could recognise his shoes when they were blocking his door when Robby came home after a long shift just to find you, Oliver, Dwayne and Mira lounging on his sofa, your homework long forgotten. He was a good friend. The kind of friend a father would want for his daughter. He picked you up at the door when the whole group went out and made sure handsy guys stayed away from you. Once you’d gotten shitfaced at a house party and Oliver called Robby. He stayed with you by the curb and didn’t leave your side until you were strapped into the seat next to Robby.
“I told her to come with us!”
Jack reappeared at Robby’s side. Robby barely noticed.
“But- but she said she couldn’t.” Oliver wiped his snotty nose with the back of his hand. “That she had to stay and help the others who got shot. There were so many shots. Just- the entire time. In the background. Bang bang bang- and screaming- she- she stopped the bleeding. Said she used something- hemo-something and just shoved it in.”
“Hemostatic? Did she use hemostatic gauze?” Jack asked.
Oliver nodded weakly. “Said it would help clotting. Will Dwayne be okay?”
“We gave him blood, and now he’s going straight up to the OR. He’s in good hands.”
Jack gestured for Perlah, who swooped in with a warmed blanket she put around Oliver’s shoulders before gently pulling him away to get checked over by Whitaker.
“She could have left…” Robby murmured, hands trembling again now that there was no patient to focus on. “She could have gotten out, but she went back in.”
“I call her Robby jr for a reason.” Jack replied dryly, earning a glare from Robby. Jack shrugged. “You’re not known for turning your back on people who need help, brother.”
“I am not one to run towards bullets!”
“Yeah.” Jack shoved his hands into his pockets and shot Robby an apologetic look. “I might not set the best example there.”
“Stupid.” Robby hissed under his breath and crossed his arms again. “Stupid, brave- wonderful girl. Fuck! Why- why can’t she just have some common sense?”
“She has plenty of that, brother. But she also has your heart.”
“I wish she didn’t.” Robby whispered, because when had his stupid, ever-bleeding heart ever not brought him pain?
Yes, you were just like him, and most days… most days Robby tried to figure out how he could ever ask your forgiveness for that, because Robby could not think of a worse fate than to be Robby jr.
Jack never told you that the worst part wasn't the bullets or the screams.
It was the silence.
Silence so consuming it felt like it was a living, breathing thing. A creature born of terror and darkness that knew nothing but to feed to stay alive. Feed on your resolve, your hope, the very essence of your person.
It was deafening, stretching on and on and on until you thought it was finally over, just to be interrupted by a new wave of bullets and screams.
Mira was clutching your hand as tightly as you were hers. The cuffs of her blouse were stained pink from blood, the same blood that coated the bare skin of your legs. You wished you had put on a pair of jeans instead of these shorts, just so you would have to feel it.
The situation seemed to grow more bleak by the second. You could hear the sirens outside and helicopters whirring above. Occasionally the light of the police cars and spotlights fell through the windows, but it felt distant and cold.
You’d patched up four more kids with Mira’s help. Two terrified freshmen, one junior and another one of your classmates. Every deserted hallway you carefully made your way through was littered with bullet holes. In the walls and the lockers, bullets stuck in the bulletproof glass in the doors…
You wondered whether Jeremy had already noticed he had no backup ammunition…
You still could not wrap your head around any of this. Jeremy was quiet and weird, and at this point it was almost a meme that the weird loner kid was secretly a psychopath, but Jeremy?
He never even made a strange comment that would reveal something darker, more sinister lurking under the surface.
What could drive a person to do something so horrible?
You had a couple of teachers try to make you stay with them and their class, stay behind a locked door, hidden from sight, and a part of you wanted to do nothing more than that. Just… find a blanket and hide under it like you did when you were five years old, and you were still waiting for your mother to come home, but you couldn’t.
How would you ever live with yourself if people died here today and you hadn’t tried what you could to help?
You weren’t an idiot. You knew your fragmented knowledge of medical emergency measures would not guarantee anyone made it out of here alive, but to stop bleeding was better than to not stop bleeding! You could pack a wound. Robby and Jack showed you how and let you practise on the training mannequins the hospital had for the interns and residents when you were stuck at the hospital and bored out of your mind. You knew the signs of shock and what to do until paramedics arrived. You knew more than your classmates and probably more than most teachers, so did you not owe it to them and their families and yourself to try?
You hoped Dwayne was okay.
“Why aren’t they coming in?” Mira whispered next to you, glancing at the flashing blue and red lights filtering into the hallway. “Aren’t they- I don’t know, supposed to come in? Engage the shooter as quickly as possible?”
You shrugged. You really had no idea what the protocol for these things was. “If he’s taken hostages, they wouldn’t, right? Like… to not put them in danger? Hostage situations take forever, Uncle Jack said that once.”
“Do you think he has?”
“I don’t know?! How would I know?”
“Don’t snap at me!”
“Sorry.”
You kept walking. There hadn’t been another shot fired in a while. You wanted to feel relieved, but something in you couldn’t let go of that tension, that anticipation.
You bit back a laugh. Mira looked at you as if you’d lost your mind.
“I just realised we’re just like Yang and Mer in that episode of Grey’s Anatomy with the shooter. Where they just causally stroll through the locked-down hospital.”
“Oh my god, you’re right.”
“And Derek finds them and can’t believe they thought it was just a drill.”
“I feel like that’s exactly how your dad is going to react.”
You winced. “And Uncle Jack… though… yeah, no. Not Uncle Jack. He’s more likely to give us a high-five.”
“He’s such a bad role model.”
“The worst.” You couldn’t help the smirk sneaking onto your lips despite everything.
Both of you fell silent the moment you saw the thick, bloody drag mark leading towards the cafeteria.
Faint noises grew louder the further you followed the bloody trail. You crept forward slowly, staying pressed against the wall and out of sight. Through the windows set into the cafeteria doors, you watched movement - Jeremy, pacing frantically. He looked unstable, physically. He was swaying and muttering to himself, clenching and unclenching his hands around the rifle strapped to his chest. Unraveling.
That’s not good, you thought, biting your bottom lip bloody.
“That’s why they aren’t coming in.” You whispered and nodded towards the injured pair of police officers sitting slumped against one of the tables.
“Fuck…”
Your principal knelt in front of Jeremy. His hands had been tied behind his back with zip ties. Duct tape covered his mouth. He was bleeding heavily from a wound on his forehead.
“No.” Mira hissed, already realising what had gone through your head. "Absolutely not. Do you have a death wish?”
But any chance to make a decision was taken from you when Jeremy suddenly swirled around and spotted you just as you tried to duck and hide from his gaze.
He called your name and pointed his rifle at the principal.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
An ice-cold shudder ran down your back.
You subtly made sure your hoodie - your dad’s hoodie - concealed the gun still pressing into the small of your back and gripped your medkit tighter, stepping forward and into the cafeteria.
The stench of iron bit into your nostrils.
“You!” Jeremy hissed at Mira. “Get over there.” He gestured towards a cowering group of students, lunch staff and teachers in a corner with the muzzle of his rifle.
You peered at Mira and nodded, lifting your hands to make yourself seem like you weren’t a threat. You were a meek, compliant, submissive little thing. You didn’t have a gun in your waistband. Nope.
“Jeremy, what are you doing?”
You could tell the fact that the school was surrounded by police and the constant assault of sirens was stressing him out. Whatever his plan had been, it had gone off the rails a long time ago. He now was nothing more than a wild animal pushed into a corner about to consider chewing his own limb off to escape.
“They deserve it.” He spat. “My brother went to this school. Did you know that? Five years ago.” Jeremy swirled around, shoving his rifle into the principal’s face again, who flinched. “He killed himself! He died because of you! Because you didn’t stop them! All you had to do was do your job and stop the people tormenting him every fucking day!”
Your principal flinched and squeezed his eyes shut. A muffled whimper made it through the tape stuck over his mouth.
“Jeremy.” You said, keeping your voice soft and soothing, the same way you’d heard your father comfort frantic patients moments away from becoming violent. Jeremy glanced at you from the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry about your brother. That’s horrible.”
Jeremy’s jaw clenched and unclenched. Whatever determination and thirst for revenge had led him at first, it was quickly waning, replaced by the reality of what he had done and the fear the police presence outside struck into his heart.
“I didn’t mean to hurt anyone else. Just him.”
Liar, you thought, remembering well the weight of ammunition in your hands as you removed it from his locker. Why bring so much fucking ammunition when all you wanted was to kill a single person?
If this was about revenge, about the place he blamed for the loss of his brother, then he wanted the entire school, the whole staff and county to feel the same pain he had been in.
“Of course.” You said anyway. “You’re a good person.”
“I knew you’d understand.” Jeremy muttered and resumed his pacing. “You’re the only one- the only one here who understands.”
Not that he ever truly spoke to you. Is this what you get for trying to make the weird loner kid feel included? Ending up at the centre of some nutjob’s delusion?
“This is very scary, Jeremy. Can you put the gun down?”
He whirled around, raising his rifle and pointing it at you. You felt all warmth leaving your body, blood freezing in your veins, breath stopping-
The principal screamed behind his gag. Mira emitted a panicked shriek somewhere behind you. Shock and fear rippled through the assembled group of hostages.
You kept your hands lifted, your posture submissive, but you let the fear show on your face.
“Jer?”
Jeremy blinked. As though in a trance, he lowered his weapon. “I wouldn’t hurt you.” He said it with a scoff, as if it was ridiculous you’d even think he would.
You looked at the police officers. “May I help them, Jer?”
Submissive, meek, cooperative, non-judgemental.
“They’re going to go easier on you if you let me. You’re a good man. You don’t want to hurt anyone who doesn’t deserve it, I know you don’t. Please? I don’t want them to hurt you because they are too stupid to see that.”
Jeremy gave you a tight nod after a moment of consideration. Without taking your eyes off him, you walked towards the police officers. You knelt down on the bloody ground and opened your med kit with trembling hands.
One of them was dead.
Jeremy watched you. He realised it the same moment you did. When your trembling fingers left his clammy, cold neck where no pulse thrummed beneath his skin to still the bleeding of the second officer.
Jeremy pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and cursed, pacing even more frantically than before.
The second officer had been hit on the neck. A grazing shot that luckily missed all major arteries, but he’d been sitting here for a long time and lost a lot of blood. You gave the officer a tight-lipped smile and opened one of your last packs of gauze to press to his neck wound.
“What’s your plan, Jeremy?” You asked after a while of silence, only interrupted by fearful whimpering, the sound of his boots against the ground and the sirens outside. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“I won’t.”
“If you go out now, unarmed, and with your arms raised, they aren’t going to shoot you.”
“Shut up, you dumb bitch!” Jeremy snarled. “You don’t know shit! I’m not making it out of here- I-” He stomped over to the principal and pressed the muzzle of his rifle against his forehead. He stared down at him, finger curling around the trigger-
Jeremy screamed, pent up and frustrated, and dropped his rifle against his chest before stalking away again, resuming his pacing.
It’s easier to shoot at running kids than execute a grown man, huh, you thought bitterly while bringing the officer’s hand to his neck to hold the gauze in place himself. He tried to grab your wrist and shake his hand, but you were already on the move.
“You can still make it out of here alive.” You said softly, keeping a deliberate distance from Jeremy. He was wearing tactical gear. Shooting him with a handgun, even from close range, would not slow him down enough. The impact of bullets on body armour still left bruises at the very least, or even broken bones, but he had his rifle strapped to his chest. Unless you aimed for his head, and miraculously hit, you couldn’t stop him.
And you couldn’t shoot somebody point-blank in the head.
Not even Jeremy, who had the object of his full hatred kneeling at his feet, after shooting down countless people, could do that.
“I don’t want you to die, Jeremy. Your mom already lost one son…”
Oh, you were not the only one with mommy issues in the room.
You realised your mistake right away, but the words had already left your mouth, and you could not stop them or take them back. Jeremy’s eyes grew hard and cold. He made two steps towards you, drawing himself up to his full height and glared down at you with all the hatred of a starved, abused, radicalised animal.
“And what would you know about mothers, huh? What makes you think mine is any better than all of them, huh?! Fucking kike bitch.”
Your jaw set, nostrils flaring as you tried to contain your rage. Your star of David necklace you inherited from your great-grandmother burnt against your sternum. It was part of a set. Its twin had been proudly worn by your great-grandfather for many, many years and now hung around your father’s neck.
You saw movement from the corner of your eye. Men in tactical gear, closing in on the cafeteria. Panic and rage surged alike inside you.
Jeremy was spiralling. He was losing it, and if the SWAT team moved in now, he’d start shooting blindly. And there were so many civilians around. Would they return fire?
Your body moved before your mind could catch up with the situation.
You punched Jeremy - square in the face, using every bit of momentum you could get to generate force and smashed his nose in, just the way Jack taught you how.
The slur he hurled at you after you’d done nothing but be nice to him all year still had your blood boiling. You grabbed his shoulders and buried your knee in his groin. Jeremy went down with a muffled groan. You were on top of him immediately, pushing him to the ground with the weight of your body. You reached behind you, drawing the gun to shove it in his face and keep him down or- something.
You had no idea what you were doing!
Your body was running on instincts, survival and primal fear.
Jeremy recovered much faster than you anticipated. He grinned at you with blood-smeared teeth.
“You’re not going to shoot me.” He hissed and, proving his words right, tried to grab the gun from you.
The problem was that you wanted to live - and Jeremy only cared about not dying before killing the principal.
You grappled for the gun. SWAT stormed the cafeteria. Shots were fired. You scrambled to get away, but Jeremy already reached out to grab you. He dragged you to your feet with him and pressed the muzzle of the handgun against your temple.
Your eyes met Jack’s across the room.
He was covered from head to toe in tactical gear, and between the mask and helmet, only his eyes were really visible, but you knew those eyes.
He stared at you intently, then, lifted his fist to stall the team. He nodded at you, once, and you knew what to do.
You widened your stance, took a steadying breath and grabbed the barrel of the gun to yank it away from your head as quickly as you could, catching Jeremy by surprise and breaking his grip on the handle. He tried to reach for the gun, but you grabbed his wrist with your free hand and slammed your elbow into his face. You scrambled away. Jeremy went after you.
Jack fired five shots, each one hitting Jeremy square in the chest. He collapsed.
It was almost comical.
As if someone had dropped a fabric doll from a set of stairs.
How could something so menacing stop being terrifying from one second to the next?
With trembling fingers, you removed the magazine and ejected the bullet from the chamber before dropping everything to the ground.
You didn’t want that thing in your hand.
You never wanted it in your hand in the first place.
You became painfully aware of all the drying blood clinging to your skin and clothes. Your father’s hoodie you’d stolen and not taken off despite your fight now ruined. Maybe he knew some tricks to clean it. He got blood on his clothes all the time despite the PPE. Sometimes there wasn’t time for PPE. Maybe Dana would know something…
A shuddering, painful sob tore through your throat, a sob you’d been holding back all day, pushing the trauma and fear to the very back of your head and ignoring all the physical symptoms in favour of helping other people.
Controlled chaos erupted around you. SWAT members helped carry the injured officer out and free the principal from the tape and zip ties. The terrified hostages were led outside. Jeremy was searched for weapons.
You stood in the cafeteria, the same place you sat in with your friends for years, complaining about the food and cracking jokes. The usual loud atmosphere of lighthearted jokes and animated chattering was now forever replaced by the sounds of bullets, shouts and screams - and the stench of blood.
You didn’t know if Jeremy was still alive as you stared at his unmoving body.
A part of you didn’t care. Another, meeker, almost ashamed part of you, the part that had honestly tried to help a lonely, excluded boy feel less alone, did care. It cared a lot, despite everything he had done and everything that had happened.
You could not consolidate either part with the other.
“Hey, Robby jr.” Jack secured his weapon and stepped up to you. He brushed a strand of sweaty hair out of your face. Finally, the tension coiled tightly around you since Mira stormed into the bathroom, covered in blood, evaporated. You sagged against Jack. He caught you with ease, keeping you upright.
I’m so glad to see you, you opened your mouth to say, your brain already having sent the order to your tongue and lips, but only a gargled noise made it out.
Blood trickled down your chin.
You watched Jack’s face shift from relief to utter terror. The strength in your legs disappeared. You were dragged down by the earth’s gravity. Pain exploded through your insides, dragging a groan to your lips that was accompanied by the taste of old, rusted iron.
Jack was calling your name, but it sounded distant. As if someone had stuffed cotton into your ears.
You felt his hands on you, tearing down the zipper of your ruined hoodie that had been concealing the blood spreading across your stomach fully.
Adrenaline truly was a remarkable thing… your brain mused as it was already powering down.
You hadn’t felt it… three gunshot wounds tearing through your insides, and you hadn’t felt them until you were safe in Jack’s arms…
Final Part
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