“Was that Xavier Dillon?” the girl asked, swiveling her head to look at his ass. Not that I blamed her. It was a nice ass.
“Yeah.”
“Did you and Brant break up? I heard he’s with Reagan Summers now,” she fished.
I didn’t bother answering her. It was none of her business, and somehow she seemed to know anyway. I didn’t even know her name and she knew the details of my personal life. Or lack thereof.
Speaking of the devil himself, Brant and his band of loyal followers sauntered out of the gym and passed my table. His hazel eyes found mine and I might have imagined the look of regret, but I was okay with that. He should feel bad for being just like his father, the man he said he hated and could never respect because of how he treated his mom.
I fought back the urge to flip him the middle finger.
My lunch hour was almost over and Kes was still missing in action. I squeezed my throbbing temples, wishing the girl, her fajitas, and this splitting headache would go away and that time could stop for a few minutes so I could sit in the fresh, cool air just a little while longer.
The students of Ashburn High were divided into tragically stereotypical cliques. A group of goth kids lingered near the corner of the building trying to hide the smoke billowing and strong, sweet scents from their vapes. Jocks tossed a Frisbee over the small crowds huddled around each table, purposely landing the disc in the center of the cheerleaders. I rolled my eyes as the girls flipped their hair and crossed their arms over their chests to make their cup sizes seem bigger. Not that the guys didn’t take the bait every time. They couldn’t see past their…
The girl across from me began hacking, her eyes watering behind her thick-framed glasses. “Are you okay?” I managed to croak.
She nodded, coughing into her fist. I was glad she was breathing, because I was in no shape to perform the Heimlich on this chick. After a minute, her coughing calmed and she caught her breath.
She was an underclassman. Ninth, maybe tenth grade. And she was serious about highlighters and neon or white, lined and unlined index cards. Her textbook lay open and I saw that every sentence had been highlighted. Probably evidence of a last-ditch effort to study for finals. Still occasionally hacking, she flipped between it and her cards, the neon of which made me want to peel a layer off my corneas.
At the table to my right, some girl gushed to her friends about some school she’d been accepted into that was halfway across the country. I couldn’t help but be jealous. We were all beyond ready to graduate, head to the closest beach for senior week, and then figure out what to do next. This girl knew where she’d be at the end of summer, which was miles ahead of me.
Mom and Dad were pushing me (and Kes) to go to college. And I would… I just wanted to wait a few more weeks to see if I received any more acceptance letters – preferably one with a scholarship attached. I had been accepted to two in-state schools, but was holding out to see if any of the colleges I applied to out-of-state might be interested. Especially those with running programs. My personal records were among the best in the country.
My cell phone buzzed on the concrete table, lit up by a news alert. I ignored it.
But I couldn’t ignore the fact that phones all through the common area began to ding and rattle. When the vibrations and rings stopped, despite the mass of people and the din that filled the air only seconds ago, everything went silent.
If anything was a harbinger – of change and of bad things to come – it was silence.
“This has to be some sort of hoax,” the girl sitting across from me breathed, clutching her rose gold device in her palm. Her glossy black hair hid her expression, but not the fear in her tone.
I finally looked at my phone’s screen and read the alert. Then I blinked and read it again to be sure of what I saw. My brows pinched painfully together.
President has declared a state of emergency. Attacks of an unknown origin are occurring throughout the country. No matter where you are, if you are in the open, seek shelter immediately. Shelter in place until emergency services personnel inform you that it’s safe. This is not a test. Shelter in place immediately.
“Aliens?” Brant joked from across the yard, earning obligatory but forced chuckles from his cronies.
“Terrorists?” the girl across from me mused, glancing from her screen to me.
My heart dropped. We’d learned about the attacks of September eleventh, two-thousand-one since we were kids, but there hadn’t been another attack on that scale since. The report said attacks of an unknown origin. How did they not know what was happening or where the attacks were coming from? Or were they just afraid to give details? Maybe the vagueness was an attempt to prevent mass hysteria. The thought freaked me out.
The loudspeaker buzzed. “Shelter in place,” our principal announced. “This is not a drill. Get inside now!”
Guys and girls, alone and clustered in groups, gathered their belongings and filed into the school. Some groaned as they slogged inside, while others walked quickly. We would all be directed toward our homerooms where attendance would be taken so they’d have numbers. Who was here. Who wasn’t. Who’d been here this morning and cut when they got the alert.
Still, I wasn’t sure what was so urgent. We weren’t anywhere near a major city. I mean, Huntingdale was thirty miles away, but with a population of only thirty-six thousand, it didn’t qualify as a target on anyone’s list. Right?
What if it was biological?
Dad’s number lit up my phone as it vibrated in my hand. “Dad?” I answered.
“Larken. You and Kes go—” The line went dead.
I tried dialing him back, but it wouldn’t go through. I couldn’t even get a dial tone.
Another round of murmurs suddenly flooded the Common. “The satellites must be down. I have no signal.”
Neither did anyone else. The stragglers held their cell phones to the sky in a feeble attempt to get their devices a few feet closer to the masses of metal orbiting the earth. The whole thing screamed The Lion King. You know the part where the baboon holds Simba up to present him to the pride lands? The cell phones were the equivalent of Simba to every teen left in the Common. Including me.
I brought the device down and checked my screen. No bars. No signal. No way to call Dad back, or call Kes for a ride home. I think that was what Dad was trying to say – for me to get Kes and go home now.
Ignoring the lack of service, I typed a quick text to Mom. It failed to send.
A shadow settled over me and the warmth from the sun evaporated. Kes was here. “It isn’t safe here. You have to come with me.”
My heart began to pound. I took in the worry lining his forehead and his pinched-tight lips. “Do you know what this is?”
He gave a grave nod.