Tony fell as soon as the bullet hit him. He crumpled back against Danny, who caught him by him under the arms. A small, strangled gasp came from his throat as he fell, and I could immediately see where I had shot him from the spreading red stain on his chest. His eyes seemed to shut quickly, not like Elle's had. His silent body fell to the linoleum tile floor with a heavy thud.
I stepped back, shaking. In my fifteen years, I had done many things. I'd stolen, I'd done drugs, I'd shoplifted and vandalized and I once cut a boy up so badly he had to go to the hospital. I had run from the cops, cheated, and lied. But never in my life had I killed someone.
I dropped the gun back into my bag. Christina looked at me in shock, Gemma in fear, Lacie in awe and triumph, and I stared back for a few seconds. My mind was a jumbled mess of thoughts, racing like cars and crashing into each other. I was frozen, my body in slow-motion, and then through the fuzzy thoughts and panic, two words appeared in my head as sharp and clear as cut glass: get out. Get out. Get out.
"Lacie!" I yelled breathlessly. She had her truck, and I needed to get out fast. Her eyes widened and she seemed to snap out of her haze of awe. And we ran. I ran to the door, shoved the bolt to the side. It was locked. Lacie kicked it open and the lock snapped. We ran into the dark, cold parking lot, heels making hard noises on the uneven pavement.
"Get in the car, get in the goddamn car!" I yelled. I yanked open the drivers seat door and jumped in. I grabbed the keys from her bag and twisted them in the ignition and felt the old truck rumble into life.
Lacie got into the passenger seat and slammed the door, and I floored the gas pedals, spinning out into the parking lot and speeding out to the main road. I didn't look back, just stared straight ahead at the road, hands clenching the steering wheel and turning my knuckles white. The truck swerved around cars on the road. My driving wasn't great in general, and now I could barely stay within the lines of the road. Several drivers honked angrily at me, and normally I would have flipped them off, but I kept my hands anchored to the wheel, breathing heavily and staring straight ahead. The neon lights of restaurants and stores flew past, nothing but blurry, bright light lines in the dark.
I didn't know where I was going, but I was getting away. Because I had just killed a kid and it wasn't just the Columbus gang who would be after me, it was the police.
Hadn't I always said that all this gang fighting would be over someday? That someday, it would all come to a head and something would happen. That one of us was going to have to go down; either us or them. I had killed their leader. Tony Davis was dead. That meant we had, in a sense, won. Funny, how I didn't feel victorious. I just felt sick.
I didn't want to think about Gemma or Christina, if they were okay and if they had gotten out of that hallway alright. I didn't want to think about what would happen when people came to see what the noise was about and see a fallen gang leader lying dead in the hallway. A defeated king in a leather jacket, shot through the heart.
Even the strongest fall someday, I thought. Being the toughest guy, the king of Columbus, the boy we were all subliminally scared of, hadn't meant a damn thing when he was staring down the barrel of that handgun. Power is not what position you hold. Power is a joke.
"Alex?" Lacie asked. I realized I was still shaking and my eyes were blazing and I was grinning wryly at the sick irony of it all, and I must have looked insane to her.
"Yeah?" I asked gruffly.
"You killed Tony Davis. He's dead." She whispered.
"I know." I said coldly.
