The Gunman

Chapter Thirty: Peter

When the police entered the building, Anna started running. She knew as well as I did that if the police reached us as we were walking, then they wouldn't let us go any farther. They would take us out of the building, and she would never get her revenge.

I thought about slowing her down, so we could get caught. Maybe even save her life. But then she would live her life in pain, crying every morning about her never getting the revenge she needed. She would never feel that she had gotten what she needed to move on.

So, I kept pace with her. We sprinted down the long, lit up hallways until we reached the stairs. She stopped, so I did too. "What if he is up there, waiting for us?" She said, and she must have known how stupid it sounded, because she blushed.

"You've heard the shots." I whispered, "They are no longer by the top of the stairs. Besides, he doesn't know that we are following him, so why would he wait for us?" My lips smiled reassuringly at her, and she smiled back.

"Ok," She took a deep breath in, then exhaled, "Let's go." She bounded up the stairs, skipping two steps at a time. I didn't know how she moved so fast, yet stayed so quiet. Her feet made no sound as they touched the stairs.

I however, had to move quite slower than her, so I could stay quiet. My eyes skimmed the posters, until I found one that didn't belong. It was one that was advertising a club of friendship, and happiness. But it had bullets through the faces of two people.

My whole body shivered, and I continued walking until I reached the top. Anna was looking around sheepishly, like the boy could come out at any second and shoot us. I guess he could have, if he had been there still. But the shots that sounded from many hallways away reassured us that he wasn't near.

Her game face was back on, and she grabbed my hand to lead me down the hall. The smile that spread across my face right then, wasn't for her. It was for me, my own amusement. I watched her chestnut hair fall across her face as she leaned forward, pulling me. Her bright blue eyes were squinted at the seemingly endless hallway. My smile stopped when my eyes took in her ruined clothes.

The pink blouse she was wearing was covered in dried up blood, same with the blue jeans she had on. Her shoes though, were the worst. What once must have been white shoes were red. The creaked every time she took a step, because the amount of dried blood caked on them was too great.

I looked back up to her fierce gaze, which never faltered, and her hair that kept falling down. It was then that I stopped her to ask her, "Do you really have to do this?" She looked at me, astonished for a few seconds.

Then she said, "Of course I do! I already told you, I need to. He killed my brother!" She pointed down the hall to where the last gunshots had been fired from and I sighed.

"Or you could just leave it to the police, they could kill him. That could be your revenge. Just leave while you can." I said it softly, so nobody could hear me from down stairs, or down the hall.

"It wouldn't be the same. You can go, if that's what this is about. But I need to stay." She nodded with the finality of a general going off into war, accepting his fate.

"No, if you stay, then I stay. I was just making sure that this is what you wanted. For sure." I looked at her, letting her know she could still change her mind. She just shook her head in exasperation, and began to walk down the halls again. Towards the shooter.

I stared after her for a few seconds, and then ran to catch up. Right then, looking at her, I knew that I couldn't let her die. We would just have to find a way to do the near impossible. We had to find a way to kill the gunman, without getting killed ourselves.