Explosives

Finding People (Well, Most of Them)

Last Chapter:

  "Mrs. Whitaker! I found Lyla, come quick!"  

Jackie groaned a bit, but crawled as fast as she could to the voice. When she got there, she saw Alicia kneeling and blocking her view of the unconscious girl.

"Alicia, please move so I can try to wake her up," Jackie said, sighing with annoyance. The girl was getting on her nerves. This was not the way she'd sent her; she hadn't listened after all.

When she moved over, Jackie gasped quietly. Lyla was a mess; even more so than Jackie herself. She had a few still-bleeding cuts on her face, but what the teacher was most worried about was the small amount of blood under her head that (thankfully) Alicia hadn't seemed to notice. She moved closer to get a better look.

"Alicia, get out of here. Get help, from anyone who's out there," she said dejectedly. There was no way she'd be able to get Lyla out of here on her own, and she needed to focus on stopping the bleeding.

Alicia left, and Jackie sat for a moment, trying to think of a way to stop all the blood. Then she came up with an idea. She took off the jacket she was wearing and tore a sleeve off. Then she pulled the seams apart until it was just a piece of cloth. She then gingerly picked up Lyla's head with one hand and positioned the cloth under where she thought the wound was, and laid her head on top of it. Finally, she tied it tightly around the girl's head. A makeshift tourniquet would have to do for now.

Suddenly, she felt a hand on her shoulder. She shrieked and made to grab the hand, but the person behind her jumped backwards with their hands up before she could. She looked up to see her colleague, Serina Petinko.

"Are you alright, Jackie?" Serina asked, with her hands still up.

"Yeah... I'm fine," Jackie replied. She could at least try to lie and stay for more students. "But Lyla's not," she added. Serina knelt down next to her, obviously trying not to touch her again, and nodded seriously.

"Billy's on his way, he was helping Alicia," she said, referring to another teacher, Billy Karmichael, whose classroom was downstairs. He probably wouldn't have felt the main effects of the bombs. They hadn't been huge bombs, but they were big enough to blow everyone away and make a giant hole where the front of the room should have been. She strongly suspected that her desk had been demolished, along with all her lesson plans. The thought of having to redo all the lessons is what made Jackie want to cry. "We can get her out then," Serina continued. Jackie nodded.

"And you, too, Jackie," Serina said, getting Jackie's attention.

"Why me? I'm perfectly fine," she said. Serina gave her a look, then reached down and gently poked her broken ankle. Jackie had to use all her strength not to scream, but it was obvious that she was in pain.

"That's why," Serina replied. "I'm sorry, Jackie, but you need to be looked at. Billy and I will stay and look for anyone else, but I'm not sure how many more kids could've survived this," she said sympathetically. "Can you tell me who we should be looking for? Who else was here? We have Stephen, Jared, Alicia, and now Lyla. Who were the bombers? And was anyone else in the classroom at the time?" she questioned. Jackie shook her head in defeat.

"The bombers were Karissa, Katla, Keith, Kaila, Karmen, and Karen. And Rosie had run over to the other side of the room right before the bombs went off," she informed, pointing to the far side of the room. They were near the door, and Rosie would've been near the windows.

"What do you mean, she ran?" Serina asked curiously.

"Well, Keith told me to go call the office and give them a heads up, to put the school into lockdown. I said I wasn't going to leave Rosie behind, because she had been at my desk asking a question when they came in, and Karen, the closest bomber, could've overtaken Rosie in a heartbeat. So I took her with me to the phone across the room, and before we could get all the way there, Karissa grabbed her. I tried to pull her back, but I wasn't fast enough. Rosie was in front of the bomb and Karissa had an arm around her neck, with the button that would detonate it in her hand. I called the office, and they put the school into lockdown. Rosie said something, and Karissa got distracted, so I lunged at her. She was surprised, so she let Rosie go, and Rosie ran across the room. We had a struggle, and that's when all six of them pressed their buttons," she finished the terrible story. Serina just looked shocked until Billy finally made his way to them.

The three made their way to the hole in the wall that would allow them to get out, and Jackie gently sat down on the ground, grinding her teeth together in an effort not to cry form the pain. She had planned on going back in, but Serina wouldn't let her. However, just as the women started to move to the paramedics, there was a loud beep, with a shriek that followed.

"Mrs. Whitaker, there's another bomb!"