Chapter Text
He was teaching them about punnet squares when the school speakers crackled to life. That wasn’t unusual. Announcements were made all the time.
“Teachers check your emails.” The message was short and clipped. Grace looked up from drawing his latest punnet square on the board. He pushed his glasses up from where they sat around his neck. He turned toward his desk, opened his computer and opened the email in question. This felt slightly more unusual. Usually, if there was an email sent out, the principal would just flag it as important and wait till the teachers had seen it.
He started reading.
Subject line: Student with Suspicious Object
“Faculty and Staff, we don’t know for sure but several teachers saw student Daniel Miller with a suspicious object concealed in his jacket. He has been skipping classes and dodging teachers. We don’t know yet if what he has is dangerous but he on guard. A lockdown will be issued shortly. It will be called a drill. He will be found and the object will be removed.
Signed, Principal Everett”
That didn’t sound good, not at all. Hopefully, things would go over well and they could move on with the day.
He turned to the whiteboard with a breath. Things would be fine. They’d had worse in the past, one kid with something that maybe wasn’t even dangerous- they could handle it.
After a moment the speaker crackled to life again. The students started to whisper. He ignored it. This was part of the plan.
“This is just a drill, this is just a drill lockdown. Teachers lock your doors and resume teaching.”
The kids started to murmur to each other. Grace took a deep breath. This would be over soon.
“Ughh,” Julian groaned. “Stupid Lockdown- what if I have to pee,”
“Julian you can go after it’s over,” Grace replied, quickly locking the door and turning back to the punnet square he’d been working on. Julian could wait a few minutes, he’d be fine.
But then he heard it. His kids heard it too.
A loud bang that echoed down the hall. Then- Screams.
The room immediately erupted into chaos. Grace’s breath caught into his chest. This wasn’t a part of the plan.
Suddenly, the speakers came back to life. “This is no longer a drill- active shooter in the hallways near 7b.”
7b was two doors down from their classroom. This was real. He wanted to break- wanted to freak out, but he couldn’t because then his students would freak out too. And right now, they needed to be calm.
Kids started to cry. “We’re going to die” Rehka whimpered.
“I want to go home,” Thomas sobbed quietly.
Grace immediately quieted them, his heart thundering in his chest. This was happening. “Shh- shh, it’s okay, don’t cry. Into that back corner- all of you,” he said, directing them to the only corner of the classroom without windows.
“Backs agaisnt the wall, it’ll be alright,” he whispered shakily.
He took his desk and started shoving it in the direction of the door. It made a loud noise. He winced at the sound.
Several students cried in alarm.
Footsteps echoed down the hall.
This was happening. Someone was coming. He needed to protect his students. He picked up the desk so that it wouldn’t scrape the floor and slowly brought it closer to the door.
Pounding on the door. And then- the door shuddered and the whole door came away from the frame- wood shattering and flying everywhere. The desk flew into the side wall, slamming loudly.
The kids screamed in terror. Daniel walked through with a gun in his shaking hands.
A gun. He had a gun.
“Don’t move,” Daniel screamed. But Grace wasn’t listening- moving forward without second thought. The gun going off was louder than he expected.
Pain bloomed in his shoulder and he cried out nearly falling over but he continued to rush foward. His only thought was “I have to save them. I won’t let the kids get hurt”.
He threw Daniel into the wall, trying to knock the gun out of the boy’s hands. He just needed to get the weapon out of his hands and maybe his kids would stay safe. He threw his body weight forward. He wasn’t heavy by any means, but he had height on Daniel.
After a few minutes of snarls and hands flying, Grace managed to knock the gun from Daniel’s hands. He wasn’t sure how he managed it, his whole body was trembling, but somehow the gun wasn’t in Daniel’s hands anymore.
Daniel scrambled to get it- but-
“Throw a trash can over it,” Grace shouted at his kids, “I’ll sit on it,”
Samuel shakily ran over tossing the trashcan’s contents on to the floor and haphazardly putting the van over the gun.
Daniel shrieked in frustration, moving towards Samuel.
Grace instantly got in the way. His shoulder was on fire, but he ignored it. He could feel the blood pouring down his sweater but he ignored that too. Had to ignore it. Had to ignore the way his vision was going fuzzy at the edges. Because if he didn’t his students would be in danger.
“Daniel- stop,” Grace breathed harshly. His hands were spread wide, blocking Daniel from the other students and from the trashcan with the gun.
“You don’t want to do this,” Grace said softly, hands up in surrender. He stepped backward slowly until he was sitting on the trashcan. He felt relief flood through his body. The gun was out of Daniel’s hands and Grace was in the way of him getting access to the gun again.
Daniel’s face was bright red and he was breathing raggedly. He knew that he’d been caught- and that wasn’t good.
Grace sat down hard, his head spinning. He needed to focus for just a little bit longer. He felt weightless, his whole body buzzed with nerves.
“You don’t know what I want,” he shouted, teeth grit together.
“This isn’t it- this isn’t what you want. I promise you. It won’t fix whatever problem you have,” Grace’s breathing was going ragged now, blood still pouring down his shoulder.
His students were sobbing, clinging to one another. It barely registered in his mind.
Sirens started wailing nearby.
Someone had called the police. Thank god.
Then everything suddenly went dark. His last thought was- “I can’t leave my students with him,”