We travelled downtown on the bus, cursing the slowness and the constant stopping, but seeing no other way to get to where we needed to be.
The excruciatingly long trip was made worse by Angel – her spirit, anyway – mumbling in irritation beside me, and making it harder and harder for me not to show my own worry and look like I was talking to an empty bus seat.
The stops passed by slowly, time dragging on until finally we arrived at the stop nearest the school where Angel had seen Jesse being taken.
Piling out of the doors before they had fully opened, I ran and Angel kind of floated down the road to where we could already see police cars gathered by the main gate of the school.
“Look, Mrs. James is over there,” Angel suddenly said as we neared the gate, pointing to where Mrs. James was huddled, teary-eyed and terrified with a policeman who, with his air of authority, could only be Sergeant Vicks.
“Jay, what are you doing here?” she called as we approached, obviously surprised to see me (for of course she couldn’t see Angel, I reminded myself).
I was about to answer, just as soon as I worked out how I could have found out what was happening, but she interrupted me as suddenly as she began.
“The police got a tip, and they saw Chris’ car inside – so we came down here, and they’re trying to talk to him…” She glanced across at the van where a loudspeaker was being carried out, and once again, she had tears in her eyes.
On the other side of the van, though – the activity Mrs. James hadn’t noticed – I could see about twenty guys in flak jackets piling out of a SWAT van, guns at their sides.
The very possible idea of the negotiations escalating into a gunfight gave me a chill, but I resolved not to say anything about it to Mrs. James or Angel, who had disappeared while I wasn’t looking.
Suddenly a voice echoed around the busy carpark, as the loudspeaker started working, and all the police, and Mrs James and I turned towards the sound.
“This is the police!” The loud voice of the Sergeant called into the abandoned school amid the fizzing of static, “Chris Fallon, you are to release the hostage; if the girl is released unharmed, the police will take that into account and your charges will be revised.”
There was a pause, and the only sound was the crackling of the static from the speaker, as the police watched the building carefully to see if anyone was coming out in response to the negotiation.
After a minute, Sergeant Vicks sighed, raising the announcer microphone again.
“You have five minutes.” His voice boomed around the grounds, “If the hostage is not released by that time, we will have no choice but to use force.”
Once again there was no reply, and we waited, holding our breath, for three long minutes.
Then came a noise from the front of the main hall building, and all of the police and special forces had their guns aimed at the door before it slowly creaked open.
The crowd of police was silent, determined, but I heard Mrs. James let out a muffled gasp behind me as Chris slowly shuffled into the open, a look of triumph on his cruel features and Jessie before him like a shield with a knife at her throat.
Her face was white with terror, but she seemed determined not to show him her fear, and didn’t stumble even when he pressed the knife hard enough to draw a bead of blood and warn the police away.
“Now,” Chris called when he was about five metres from the building’s entrance, an ugly smirk on his face “I’m going to walk to the car, and drive away. No one is going to move until I’m gone, because if they do, I kill her.”
He stated it with such certainty that I didn’t doubt he would, and even the police didn’t move, though I could see the frustration and anger building on the Sergeants face, and the desperation on Mrs. James’.
It was then that I finally saw where Angel had got to – my eyes widened as I noticed her standing behind Chris, fury mixed with tears in her eyes.
As he started walking again, heading for the van parked just metres away, no one dared to move, but I watched in amazement as Angel desperately tried to pull Chris’ knife arm away from Jesse – time after time she tried to pull him away and failed, her hand passing through his in a frustrating display of her ghostliness.
Then suddenly something changed, and Angel’s fury channelled through her spirit, suddenly allowing her to wrench Chris away from Jessie, who fell to the ground as the knife moved away.
Chris was staring around in confusion, wondering what had happened – finally glaring at Jessie with hate, obviously deciding she must have attacked him again.
He let out a bestial growl, raising the sharp and deadly looking knife above his head as he prepared to exact his revenge on the people who had humiliated him – but he never got the chance, for the second before he could plunge the knife down, the scene seemed to go into horrifying slow motion.
First I heard a hoarse scream and a wail of terror; a moment later, I realised I was the one who had involuntarily yelled, and Mrs. James had let out the keening cry before falling to her knees on the asphalt.
Then a resounding crack echoed around the parked cars, and Chris stopped where he stood, Angel standing, shocked, right behind him where no one else could see.
Then he looked down, a look of utter surprise etched on his face, soon replaced by terror and pain as he looked down and saw the splatter of blood that was seeping out through his shirt.
As his blood slowly left his body in a seemingly never-ending stream and dripped to the ground, he looked up again with already glazed eyes and fell to his knees, staring around at the police officer who had fired the shot and caused the fatal bullet wound.
Then he slumped, no longer breathing, having lost the capability to inflict terror, and suddenly the noise and colour returned to the scene, as the chaos started.
Jessie had scrambled to her feet by then, and was leaning, sobbing, against the side of the van.
Mrs. James had run over to be with her daughter, and the police were scrambling to see if Chris was really dead and find the other men who had kidnapped her; but in the middle of everything, I noticed Angel.
She was standing by Chris’ body, staring down defeatedly – but that wasn’t all, for I noticed as she stood there that she seemed wavery, looking for the first time like a ghost, ready to disappear at any time.
I was about to call out, the icy feeling of apprehension growing in my stomach enough that I didn’t care who heard, but before I could, she just disappeared.
For a minute I thought it ought to be fine – Angel had done enough disappearing by then – but I still felt like something was wrong, terribly wrong.
But just then, I heard the buzzing ring of a mobile phone, not loud enough to break into my thoughts until I felt a presence at my back and I turned to see Mrs. James and Jessie looking at me with surprisingly excited expressions, especially given the circumstance.
“What?” I asked numbly, completely incapable of working out why they could look so worried and happy at the same time, when the danger was over and yet something truly terrible had just happened.
“It’s Angel,” Mrs. James said immediately. “She’s waking up.”
