Bang (12 page)

Saturday dawns clear, sunny, and unseasonably warm and all I can think about is that we’re running out of time, and there’s nothing I can do. I have no job

for the first Saturday in years and I don’t know how to

occupy my time. I hawk over the weather report, put on

my wellies, and sneak out for a walk, studying tree buds

and pining for Sawyer, closing my eyes as I slosh through

puddles in the elementary school playground nearby,

remembering the melty feeling I get when he touches me.

But every time my mind goes there, reality slams me in the

face and I remember all the shit we’re in.

And I think it’s so ironic that as grounded as I supposedly am right now, I have never felt freer to wander around and not tell anybody where I am. After I test out all the

swings, I start walking, trying to figure out what we have

to do. What I have to do to solve this mystery, to finish the

puzzle. Because it still feels like it’s my fault—or at least

my family’s fault for passing down the crazy gene—and I

can’t
not
take responsibility for it.

By the time I’ve walked an hour, I realize I’m not far

from the Humane Society. I hesitate at the door and go

inside, look around, but I don’t see Sawyer. The employees are busy with adoptions, so I wander into the dog room and look at all of them, some begging for love, others having given up, still others faking it, pretending they don’t need anybody. And I see myself in all of those dogs.

Five weird thoughts I’ve had in my life that I would never

admit to having:
Um, that one
That I’m not really me, but I’m sort of just floating

above myself watching my body do things
That there’s something really stable and comforting

about hoarding
That there’s probably an opposite me somewhere in

a parallel universe doing everything right, and my job on

earth is to make her look good by messing everything up
That monster spray secretly invites more monsters to

hide under the bed rather than repels them
•••

And while I’m standing there thinking weird thoughts and

watching this sweet-looking boxer mutt named Boris, and

all the dogs are barking as loud as they can at me and the

other people walking through, I feel somebody’s gaze boring into my skull. I turn around, and there’s Sawyer watching me through the wire-mesh window to the cat room.

He’s got two black kittens crawling up his sweatshirt,

and he’s just standing there with this amazingly sweet,

kind look on his face. I raise my hand in greeting, and he

mouths the words “I love you.”

I smile and blush, and weave my way back through

the dog room to the lobby and into the cat room, because

when a boy with two kittens says he loves you, you do

whatever you can to get to him as quickly as possible.

“Hey,” I say.

“You found me,” he says. He pushes a lock of hair out

of my eyes and looks away quickly.
My heart sinks. “Still with the vision in my eyes?”
“Yeah. And all the kitties’ eyes too.”
“Dude,” I mutter, because I never had that. It was

never that bad. “How did you get here?”
“Took the bus. I—there’s no way I can drive.”
I study his face, and even excluding his black eye, he

looks exhausted, and I know he’s been keeping the intensity from me. “Sawyer . . . I just don’t understand. The times when it got really bad for me were when I had things

wrong or the crash was imminent. I just don’t know why

it’s not letting up on you when we’re making progress and

figuring things out.”
And then we both stare at each other. Sawyer says it

first. “Maybe we have things wrong.”
My heart clutches. “Or maybe it’s imminent.”
“Shit.”
“But it can’t be. There are hardly any students on campus. It’s spring break.”
“Yes, but they’ve got to come back sometime before

classes start Monday.”
“You mean, like, today and tomorrow? But who would

be using those buildings?”
Sawyer puts the kittens back into their cage and goes

to the next cage, pulling a single gray kitten out and handing it to me. He reaches in for another one—a blue tortie, according to the label on the door—and cradles it. “I don’t

know. But colleges aren’t like high schools, are they? I

mean, they might have meetings. . . .” He strokes the kitten’s back and it mews and tries to bite his thumb. Sawyer readjusts the kitten and gazes down at it, then back at me.

“Can you try a search to find out? I’ve got my laptop with

me, but I’m scheduled here until two today.”
“Sure. There’s got to be Wi-Fi around here somewhere.”
“Meet me back here at two?”
I nod. We put the kittens back in their cage and he

whispers, “I’m scared.”
My spine tingles, and not in a good way. “Me too,” I

whisper back.

I return at two with no information on any classes meeting

this weekend but with a lot more info about U of C and

a possible clue to the actual motivation of the shooters. “I

think we need to go back to the campus,” I say. “Like, now.

There has to be a clue. Something.”

“What’s Trey doing today, working?”
“He and Rowan are at that food truck festival.”

Sawyer washes his hands at the sink and says good-bye

to the other volunteers and employees. We walk out. “I

have to work tonight,” he says. And then he frowns and

shakes his head. “No I don’t.” He pulls out his phone.

He dials and waits. “I’m taking the weekend off,” he

says in a dull voice, a voice I’ve never heard.
“Yeah, well, if you make me come in, I’m telling everybody who asks how I got this black eye.”
He listens for a second, and then, with no emotion,

says, “Fire me, then. I really don’t care.” He hangs up.

“Jesus,” he says as we reach the bus stop, his face gray and

dead. “I can’t deal with this. I really can’t.”
“I know.”
“I mean it, Jules.” He rakes his fingers through his

hair and cusses under his breath. “My family is a mess.

The visions and the gunshots are killing me. I don’t have

anything . . . left. . . . Shit.” He jams his fingers into the

corners of his eyes and lets out a shuddering breath, and

he turns toward me. I wrap my arms around him, feel his

shoulders tremble.
He can’t stop. “I mean, what the hell are we supposed

to do? We’re teenagers. We have no weapons or magical

powers here. What are we going to do, Jules? Can you tell

me, please? Because we’re going to fucking get our heads

blown off.”
“No, we’re not. And today is the day we figure it out.

Right now. You and me. And we’re not going home until

we know what’s happening.”
He sniffs and clears his throat, like he doesn’t want me

to see his emotion. But I understand tears, especially about

this. Hell, I wish all guys could just cry and not have it be

such a big stupid deal. Shed a tear. Be a man. Whatever.

But I guess when you live in a house where your father

and grandfather beat the crap out of you, maybe you have

a different mind-set on that topic.
We get on the bus, trying to figure out where to pick

up the transfer that will take us to U of C, and then I

open Sawyer’s laptop and click on one of the tabs of the

web pages I left open. I show Sawyer the history of the

school and its beginnings, involving John D. Rockefeller,

Marshall Field, and—what I think is the most interesting fact that I didn’t know before—the American Baptist Education Society.
I point out the highlights. “So it’s this private college with that big Rockefeller chapel we saw, started by Baptists, yet totally secular from the beginning, I think.

The dorms have coed floors, and there’s a strong LGBT

community.”
Sawyer looks puzzled. “I’m not getting why any of this

matters to the shooting.”
“Rowan said something off the cuff the other day—she

wondered what the motivation of the shooter might be.

I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And if you think about

what happened here this week with the graffiti and what

the workers told you about a protest over equal rights,

and the defaced stop sign that Trey found, it’s pretty obvious that somebody’s upset with this school or some of the organizations in it, and it has something to do with equality. Since the slur “fag” was used, I’m guessing that it’s gay rights that are being protested.”
“Okaaay . . . but . . .”
“Hang on,” I say, looking up, realizing it’s time to

transfer.
We change buses and keep reading. Sawyer sets his

phone up to be a Wi-Fi hot spot so I can get online on his

computer and he can search for more news on his phone,

but it’s no use for him. His screen is just a medium for the

vision. He leans back and closes his eyes. “I don’t know

how many more piles of dead bodies I can see before I lose

it completely, Jules,” he says. “What are we doing wrong?”
I pull up the Wikipedia page for U of C. Normally

I don’t trust Wikipedia, but this page has a bunch of

great photographs, so I browse through them. I locate

several of the buildings we saw on the main quadrangle

and study them. There’s a ton of great detail about the

insides of the buildings too—stuff I never expected to

find. “Hey,” I say, looking over. But Sawyer’s eyes are

closed, his head nodding against the window. Sleeping.

Thank dog. I have a feeling he’s going to need it. I go

back to scouring headlines.
What I find next stops my breath.

and looks around, like he forgot where he was.

“I found something,” I say, jiggling my foot impatiently.
“Whoa,” he says. “Power nap.” The sleep confusion

clears, and his face grows concerned. “What is it?”
I turn the computer screen toward him. “Can you

see?”
“Yeah. At the moment.”
“Cool. Look here, where I researched other local news

and protests,” I say, clicking over to another tab. “There’s

that local cult preacher dude who always hangs out by

Water Tower Place—you know the one, right? Same guy

as always. Anyway, he’s been shouting about gays taking

over the government again, and he’s been ragging on U of

C lately because their rights groups have been picketing

the guy.
“See this article, ‘A Call to Arms Goes Too Far: Free

Speech at All Costs’? The dude has been riling up his followers, saying God wants his cult to rid the country of homosexuality, and that the local Chicago universities are

the heart of the nation’s problem and the leaders of the socalled gay uprising.” I look up. “Isn’t that insane?”
Sawyer takes it all in. “There’s a lot of insanity these

days,” he mutters. “So you think our shooters are some

outsider cult followers of the raging lunatic, coming to

campus to . . . do God’s will.”
“I don’t know. But seeing that, plus the graffiti, and the

timing of this . . .” The whole idea of it turns my stomach.

Who would want to believe in a God like that? If God is

not, like, totally in love with
all
the people he created, why

would anybody want to believe in him?
Five things a real God should be:
Not a hater
That about sums it up

After a minute Sawyer nods. “It fits. It’s fucking sad, but

it fits.” He looks at the window for a long minute. He’s

watching the vision again.

•••

The bus stops near the college and we walk to campus.

There are more people wandering around today than yesterday. The stop sign has been replaced, all the snow piles are melted, and the tree buds are just noticeably more in

bloom than yesterday. The grass is sodden and the botanical gardens on the property look pretty bedraggled, but spring is clearly on its way. And the vision clock is ticking.

“How do the buds and ivy compare today?” I ask. We

wander around the quad, really looking at each building

now that we have a good feel for the lay of the land.

“Really close,” Sawyer says.

We go to the other end of the quad to make sure

we haven’t made any mistakes, and sure enough, there

are old, ivycovered buildings, streets, little stop signs,

and sidewalks on this side of things too. Sawyer stops in

front of a gorgeous ivycovered building as a few people

come out of the wooden door. He stares at it. I read

the words above the door. It’s a dormitory—Charles

Hitchcock Hall.

After a minute, Sawyer looks all the way down toward

Cobb Hall, and then he looks back at the dormitory in

front of us. “I wonder if I have the wrong building,” he

murmurs. “I mean, just because I see the stop sign in the

vision doesn’t mean it’s near the scene of the shooting—

they’re different frames.” He puzzles over it some more.

“No. It can’t be a dorm room. There’s a whiteboard and

tables.” He shakes his head like he’s reprimanding himself.

We start walking.

A cute guy wearing funky glasses comes out of the

dormitory and sticks a flyer to the building wall. He

walks into the quad, heading toward us, handing out

more flyers. He looks at us, hesitates, then holds one out

and smiles brightly. “GSA is teaming up with the Motet

Choir for our final spring food drive and fund-raiser.

Meeting in the Hitchcock green room tomorrow night.

You should join us.”

I reach out and take it, and the guy moves on, heading toward the next dorm. I read the info. Eight o’clock tomorrow night. “GSA. Gay-Straight Alliance,” I say,

looking up.

Sawyer nods, his voice taking on a trepid tone.

“Sounds like this could be the group we’re looking for.

Plus the time is after sunset, which would make the room

naturally darker. Though they’d have lights on, presumably.” He frowns.

“I wonder where this green room is.”
“Let’s go find it.”
We walk into Hitchcock Hall and to our right is a

large room with brick walls, portraits, couches, and a

piano. “Green room?” I guess. I see one of the flyers with

“HERE” written over the location in black marker.

“That was easy,” Sawyer says. “But it’s not the room in

the vision.” He looks all around, as if hoping to find the

items from the scenes. “I mean, I guess they could bring

tables and chairs in here, and a whiteboard, but . . .” He

looks at the windows and shakes his head. “No. This isn’t

it. The walls are wrong.”

I flop down in a chair, suddenly weary of it all.

Nothing is lining up. “How are the visions,” I say, barely

even a question, just a repetition of every other time.

“Bad.”

I lean forward and rest my face in my hands. And for

the first time, I feel like we’ve completely run out of ideas.

“And there’s nothing new?”

Sawyer sighs sharply and I know I’ve asked him that

once too often. I cringe, not that he can see it, and follow

up with a muffled “Sorry” before he says anything. We go

back outside to wander aimlessly around campus again.

Before we can figure out what to do next, my cell

phone vibrates in my pocket. I look at Sawyer to see if he’s

screwing around, but he’s not. I pull it out and look at the

number, and it’s Trey. I answer. “What’s up?”

“Um, like, where the hell are you?”

I look at my watch, and it’s after six. No wonder my

stomach is growling. “Sawyer and I took the bus to U

of C.”

“Mom and Dad are freaking out. They keep calling me

and Rowan and we’re trying to run the stinking truck. It’s

a nightmare. We could actually use your help . . . if you

hadn’t quit, you know.”

I shrug. “Maybe if they buy me a new cell phone they

could get ahold of me. You may want to mention that.”
“I’m going to tell them that you called me from . . .

shit. What do you want me to tell them?”
I look up at Rockefeller Chapel and see a door open,

inviting in the spring air. I step inside and see a group of

adults wearing choir robes, rehearsing. “Tell them I took

a really long walk, looking desperately for a pay phone.”
“Whatever. Did you figure anything out?”
I glance at Sawyer, who is sitting on the chapel steps

with his head in his hands. “No.” I pause, and then I say,

“Tell Mom I’m coming to help you. We’re only about

twenty minutes away.”
I hear Rowan utter a muffled swear word in the background. Trey sighs. “Thanks, Jules.”
We hang up and I go back outside and hold my hand

out to Sawyer. “Hey,” I say with fake enthusiasm. “Wanna

go run the giant truck o’ balls with team Demarco?”
He looks up at me, and despite the situation, a slow

grin spreads across his face. “That actually sounds awesome,” he says.