Bliss

Chapter 17

 "Don't!" Margo shouted, covering her face with her arms.

The woman behind the gun didn't press the trigger. Instead, she gripped Margo's arm and dragged her inside.

The curtains that used to divide rooms had fallen down. People were lying on the floor; most of them were bloody and wounded. Margo figured some of them were dead. She was sickened to see some kids, some mothers sobbing while clutching the bodies of their children.

"Here," the gunned woman said, thrusting Margo bandages.

"I don't—"

The woman sped away, back to her position at the door with her gun. Margo was swept away in a division of "doctors"—who were mostly middle aged women and men with bandages. The absence of teenagers reminded Margo that the attack had been aimed on the Hemlock dorm.

Margo was ordered to wrap a man's leg in gauze while he screamed his head off. It caused a stirring amongst the other injured, but most were still and oblivious.

After helping one person, Margo would try to dart up the stairs, shouting for Kiori, but someone would drag her back down.

"Help Tami," somebody would say.

"Get more bandages for Gerard," another person would order.

So until the sunrise that morning, Margo was rushed around to help people. Six had died while being taken care of in the Sequoia, and after hearing everyone talk about them, Margo could name each one. Darlena, Olive, Ulysses, Axel, Jovi, and Silas. All of them were under forty—the youngest being Jovi, who was only sixteen.

Margo ran up the stairs when she had the chance. Most of the wounded had been confined to the first floor, but the people who had minor injuries were upstairs.

Kiori wasn't there.

Margo's heart dropped like a lead ball to the pit of her stomach. Kiori couldn't be . . .

No.

Margo refused to believe it. She ran out of the dorm despite the shouts for her to come back. She wasn't even afraid if the woman chose to shoot at her. After all they'd been through, after all the near-death experiences—Kiori couldn't be gone.

"Have you seen Kiori Nakamura?" Margo asked a teenage girl, who was scanning over the bodies on the street. "She's twelve, straight black hair. Long legs, really skinny. Please."

The girl looked up. "She was at the Hemlock last night, right?"

"No—"

"I saw her at the party, I swear. She was bragging about her swimming skills. She said she could hold her breath for ten minutes, but I said—"

Margo clutched her head. "No no no no no no."

"Is she dead?"

"No!" Margo snapped. "Are you sure she was at the party?"

"Yeah. I mean, I was a bit out of it last night but—" The girl met Margo's frantic eyes. "Yeah, she was there."

Margo almost collapsed right there on the sidewalk. Her mind seemed to click into reality, but she refused to believe it. Kiori was twelve. She couldn't be gone.

Her world blurred with tears, Margo staggered to Zack's porch, where she threw open the door. Someone gasped, but Margo had never been more desperate for a hug in her life. She ran into the house and threw herself at Zack.