Staying Alive Read Online Free PDF Page B

children screaming.

Chapter 3
    “S tep away from the weapon!”
    Claire huddled behind her desk, Peter in her arms, as three men dressed in SWAT gear faced off with the only terrorist left standing. As soon as SWAT had stormed the classroom, she and Peter took the closest form of cover.
    The children were crying on the other side of the room. God, she needed to get to them. But she had been ordered to stay put. She understood that the one remaining terrorist was still armed.
    She peeked around the corner of her desk. The smoke was slowly clearing. Two other guys inSWAT garb were trying to see to the children. But as far as Claire was concerned, the kids needed their teacher.
    Moving wasn’t an option. She couldn’t risk getting in the way of the ongoing standoff. Staying put was the hardest thing to do, but reason told her that any distraction could have devastating consequences. So she resisted the desperate urge to go to the children.
    The three men suddenly converged on the lone terrorist. When he was cuffed, Claire scrambled to her feet. “I need to go to the children now,” she said to no one in particular. Her heart pounded so hard she could scarcely hear herself think.
    “Go ahead, ma’am.”
    She waited until they had ushered their prisoner to the door and then she reached for Peter. “Come on, Peter, let’s go see about the others.”
    “You are dead!”
    A chill rushed over Claire’s skin at the savage sound of the prisoner’s voice. She turned toward the man who had issued the threat. He resisted being ushered out the door. His mask had been removed and he glowered at her with sheer hatred.
    “You are dead!” he repeated, his tone imbued with violence.
    Claire knew in that instant that, if given the opportunity, this man would kill her where she stood.
    SWAT muscled him out of the room.
    The children’s cries dragged her attention back to the matter at hand. She shook off the creepy feeling the man’s threat had evoked. He was going to prison just like his friend Kaibar. He wouldn’t be giving anyone else any trouble.
    As Claire made her way past the nearest terrorist, lying in a pool of blood on the floor, a SWAT team member, in an effort to check ID, tugged off the dead man’s mask. Claire froze. Her gaze riveted to the face of the man she had killed.
    Definitely Middle Eastern and probably no more than twenty or twenty-one years old.
    Not much more than a kid himself.
    A sick feeling churned in her stomach.
    She had killed this man.
    Her gaze moved across the room to the other two downed terrorists. It had scarcely been more than an hour since this horror began and four men had lost their lives. She looked back at poor Mr. Allen and she felt her own tears well up all over again.
    Such a horrible, horrible way to die.
    The sobbing pleas of the children continued to fill the air. They were shaken and afraid, they wanted their parents. She couldn’t let her own distress hold her back from providing the support her students needed.
    Claire sucked up her courage and hurried across the room, weaving around chaotic fallout. She had to be strong for the children. She couldn’t think about anything else right now.
    During the hour or so that followed, paramedics examined the children. Thankfully they were all fine. A few had received cuts from the flying glass and minor scrapes and bruises from having fallen or jumped off the window stool when the smoke canister blasted through the window above their heads. Some were treated for mild cases of smoke inhalation, but otherwise they were all amazingly unharmed and ready to go home.
    “Ma’am, I’ll need to examine you now.”
    Claire looked up as the paramedic approached her. “Don’t bother. I’m fine,” she argued.
    She might have some bruises come tomorrow, but otherwise she was okay.
    “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he coaxed, “but I have orders. I have to take a look. Make sure you’re uninjured. Sometimes a mild case of shock will veil other