The Negotiation

There was more rustling and the sound of something slamming shut before she answered.

“We’re in—we’re inside Darby Middle,” she said, out of breath. “Only four of us here when they—when they showed up.”

Dane cut the wheel hard, turning in the opposite direction. Another shout sounded in the background.

This time the shout was closer.

“We gotta hide,” came a small voice, much closer to the phone. A student at school on a Saturday? Rachel didn’t get a chance to respond before someone else was yelling.

“Rach—” Dane started. She cut him off.

“Dane, there’re children here,” she stressed. Something made a scrapping noise.

The fear in her voice was unmistakably true and poignant. It stirred something inside Dane’s chest he didn’t have time to investigate.

“Dane, please hurry!”

Dane pressed his gas pedal to the floor. Any more force and it felt like it would have gone through the floorboard.

“I’m coming,” he promised, voice rising to show he meant it. “Just stay on the—”

A series of crashes cut him off again. There was another wave of rustling. This time it sounded violent.

On cue Rachel cried out.

“Rachel,” Dane yelled into the receiver.

“Ms. Roberts!”

“Run, Lonnie,” she yelled in response. But it wasn’t to him. Instead Dane felt like he was under water, unable to break the surface to get to her.

“Run!”

Dane heard a new voice. It belonged to a man. An angry one at that.

“Oh no, you don’t,” he yelled.

Dane held the phone away from his ear again as a loud crash reverberated out of it. “Rachel!”

But it was too late. The call dropped.

And then Dane was left alone with nothing but silence.

* * *

THE FINGERS THAT threaded into her long hair were angry. They wasted little time in pulling her backward in one violent motion. The change in Rachel’s momentum was jarring. She yelled out as she fell into the man in overalls, feet coming out from under her.

There was a moment of pause when her terrified mind let her know that she could give up right then. It would be easier to let the men take her, especially since one had her by the hair. Like trying to hold your breath under water as long as you could but having to surface and breathe in air when you couldn’t stay down any longer.

“Rachel!”

Dane’s voice coming through her dropped phone was small compared to that of the man at her back, but it heralded in her good sense. She wasn’t going to let terror seize her body; she wasn’t going to let the men, either. With both hands, she did something David had once showed her. Cupping both hands, she threw them up and behind her with all the force she could muster at this awkward angle. Her head burned where he was pulling her hair, but her hands slapped over the man’s ears with surprising precision.

He howled in response. The pain at her roots lessened as he let go.

However he wasn’t the only man in the room. No sooner had she scrambled to her feet than the sandy-haired man lunged at her. Rachel didn’t have time to ready to fend him off. Luckily she didn’t have to. A large-bristled broom swung so close to her head she felt the wind off it seconds before it connected with her attacker’s face. Instead of swinging it around again, the broom’s wielder used it like a batting ram, charging forward enough that it sent the surprised man on his backside.

Lonnie let get of the handle when she was clear. Rachel didn’t have time to thank the boy for saving her. The men behind her were a tangle of limbs but neither was hurt enough to be down for too long. She and Lonnie had to get away.

She grabbed his hand again and ran toward the second doorway leading out of the classroom. While she was seeking safety, Rachel had run in the opposite direction of the front office. She didn’t know where Jude was and didn’t want to chance having him walk out in the middle of the men.

“You bitch,” one of the men yelled from the other room. The sound of desks overturning followed. Rachel tightened her grip on Lonnie’s arm and skidded around the hallway corner. They’d been lucky that the study hall room had been open. The rest of the classrooms were not. If she’d needed any open for decorating, she was supposed to go to Gaven to unlock them.

Now?

Now she was doing the fastest recall she’d ever attempted, trying to remember which doors might be open while adrenaline had her heart thumping a mile a minute, trying to drill itself out of her chest.

Heavy footsteps echoed down the hallway they’d just left.

Rachel didn’t want to admit it, but they were running out of time and out of distance.

She just hoped they weren’t also running out of luck.

Chapter Three (#ud176ea88-1e7c-5aeb-9e2b-746adf8af128)

The heat from outside did nothing to break through the chill that had fallen in the cab of his truck. It moved into Dane’s bones and stayed there even when he screeched to a stop in front of Darby Middle and jumped out onto the lawn.

In the time it had taken to book it over to the school, he’d called everyone on the horn that could help. Local PD had a cruiser on the way. Billy was sending deputies and flooring it over, too, and their dispatcher, Cassie, had even managed to contact the principal. Gaven Martin had been given orders to protect himself and one of the children who had been at the school. He’d also confirmed that the only other people at Darby Middle were Rachel and another student named Lonnie.

It was nice to have so much communication and movement on the ground. However the time it took to get from point A to B had stretched too long. Dane’s gut dropped to his feet when he saw the parking lot was empty. No driver. No van.

Which meant the mystery men, or at least one of them, had left the premises.

Dane only hoped Rachel and the boy hadn’t been along for the ride.

He pulled his gun out and didn’t stop long enough to even think about waiting for backup. Instead he hurried to the front double doors like the devil himself was nipping at his heels.

Dane didn’t have any kids, and the ones he did occasionally babysit for friends didn’t live in Darby. Point of fact, he’d never been inside the middle school before. A wave of cool air mixed with the faint smell of cleaning supplies pressed against his face as he moved from the outside concrete to the beige tile inside. The door shutting behind him was the only sound that reverberated across the hall in front of him. For once, the quiet didn’t sit right with him.

He held his gun higher and went to the glass door closest to him marked Main Office. It was locked. Another closed door could be seen at the end of the room with the principal’s nameplate across it. Gaven and the other student were hiding on the other side.

Dane moved his attention back to the hallway in front of him. It cut to the right and was empty. Closed doors lined each side along with small lockers around the bottom half of the walls. Dane stayed alert as he hurried to the first set of doors. Both were locked. He went to the next two. They were also locked. He kept on until there was a room with a door wide open. His heart hammered in his chest. Some of the desks inside had been toppled over, a broomstick was broken in two and, in the middle of it all, there was a discarded cell phone.

Dane didn’t bother picking it up. He knew it belonged to Rachel.

This was where she must have fought the men.

Her cry echoed in Dane’s mind.