Haunted (Otherworld 5)

Three more pops. Then a scream. As Trsiel and I ran for the hall, one of the men shouted, "Someone's shooting. Oh, my God! Brooke! Brooke!"

We raced through the wall, into the women's changing area. Inside, women were shouting their children's names as they ran, half-dressed, for the door. Others grabbed their cell phones to call 911, while more raced to a rear emergency exit, only to find it locked.

"Fire alarm!" someone yelled. "Pull the fire alarm!"

A teenage girl dove into our path, racing for the alarm, but it sounded before she reached it.

The hall was now jammed with people, all trying to get to the front door. I thought I heard a shot, but the screams and shouts all around us were too loud for me to tell, much less pinpoint a direction. I soon lost sight of Trsiel. I didn't stop to look, just kept plowing forward through people.

Trsiel's hand grabbed mine, tugging me backward.

"This way," he said. "The first shots came from over here."

One of the distant screams took on a shriller note, filled with more than panic. Screams of pain.

We followed the sounds into a room of stationary bikes. A woman lay huddled in the corner, screaming as an elderly woman tied a tourniquet around her thigh, trying to stanch the flow of blood. Jaunty music played, then a man's chipper recorded voice came on, enjoining listeners to "pedal faster, but not too fast--save your strength for the big hill at the end."

/>

Across the room a woman my age still sat on a bike, pedaling erratically, stopping, then restarting, eyes wide with shock. Blood dribbled from a bullet nick under her arm. More blood, mixed with flecks of gore, spattered her face. That blood came not from her, but from the man in front of her. He lay backward over his bike, feet still trapped in the pedal straps, a hole through his eye socket.

Behind them, a young woman lay on the floor, convulsing, as a young man in sweats hunched over her, telling her, "It'll be all right, honey, just hold on, honey, help's on the way."

As I looked around the room, I remembered those newspaper clippings I'd seen in Lily's memory. Not single murders, but killing sprees. Lily said she wanted to be noticed. She wanted to be remembered. This wasn't about killing one man who ignored her. It was about killing everyone who ignored her, and that meant everyone she met, everyone she could hit.

"Savannah!"

Trsiel grabbed my arm.

"No!" I said, trying to yank free.

His grip only tightened, as firm and unyielding as the Nix's. "Go and make sure Savannah is safe. Then start hunting. If you see Lily--if you even think you see her--call me. Don't try to stop her. You can't."

"I know."

He released my arm and I tore off in the direction of the gym.

28

THE HALL HAD CLEARED AS EVERYONE JAMMED INTO the section near the narrow front doors. The panicked screams had given way to sobbing and angry shouts of "Move!" and "Get out of my way!" Through the commotion, though, the sound I heard loudest was the softest--the whimper of frightened children. I tried not to think about them, packed into that seething mob. People knew there were kids here--they wouldn't let panic override caution. Or so I told myself. It was the only way I could keep going in the opposite direction.

"Eve!"

I was almost at the gym when Kristof hailed me. I looked across the scattering of people to see his blond head cutting through them.

"Savannah," I said, rushing to him. "Where is she?"

"I can't find her."

"Here, I'll--"

He grabbed my arm as I raced past, toward the gym. "She's not there, Eve. The courts are empty. They closed for lunch hour. She must be in the cafeteria. Where is it?"

"No, Lucas just dropped her off. If her class was after lunch, she'd have eaten at home. She--Art! She has art class on Saturdays. They were downtown last year, but they must be here now. The studios are up the hall."

I turned and ran in the other direction, passing through the logjam at the front door and racing to the studios on the other side. Distant sirens blared. Then a shot. Another. More screams behind us.

The first studio door was closed, the room dark and empty. In the next, we found the remains of a class--a half-dozen adults huddled behind tables, a few whaling at the locked exit door. Unfinished sketches papered the floor. One middle-aged man grabbed an upended easel and threw it at the window, but it only bounced off the thick glass. A younger man raced for the hall.