Tate pushed himself back from the dinner table, his chair making a loud screech, breaking the silence. Before he took off, he gave a fleeting glance to the woman he was disgusted to call his mother. Then he turned to the man who had become her puppet, the spineless scum that had murdered his poor innocent brother. He didn't dare look at Addie, into those brown eyes that were so much like his own and yet so different, for fear he'd lose his resolve.

He ran up the stairs to his room and locked the door. He scrambled to his drawer, to his secret stash, knocking over many things in the process. Fuck this, he thought. Fuck everything. He took out the cocaine he'd scored a few days ago from the sketchy dealer who ran a business behind the school. That's Westfield for you. Fucking idiots spent half the budget on drug workshops and shit to keep kids from doing drugs, but they can't even notice there's a dozen kids selling and getting high as fuck behind the school every day. Or at least they pretended not to notice. Idiots.

Tate looked down at the plastic bag filled with what he so desperately needed. He opened it and did the only thing he knew how to do in these situations to deal with this shit. He usually didn't do this much, didn't go through his entire stash in one sitting, but tonight's dinner was particularly bad. He couldn't fucking believe his mother had looked him in the eyes and told him that his brother had died in his sleep when she knew she'd killed him. Or at least forced Lawrence to.

And then she'd compared Tate to his siblings, which was unfair in every way possible. Tate loved his siblings more than anything. He'd put up with shit at school for them his entire life, but he didn't mind it because those ignorant high school assholes don't know anything about his family. But hearing his own mother tell him that he wasn't even able to use the gifts his siblings didn't have was different.

The high kicked in right away. Fuck, it was strong. He found himself blinking a million times a minute, then staring blankly, seeing nothing. The visions were starting again, and the voices got louder. He banged at his head a couple times, willing them to get out. That was the thing about the drugs - sometimes it stopped the voices, sometimes it made them worse. Today it just so happened to be the latter.

Usually, the drugs didn't have this effect on him - didn't make him envision himself drowning in a pool of blood, waves crashing over him. Usually they just blurred the lines of reality. Tate liked that. He liked pretending his life was different than it really was. Of course his father hadn't left without a word when Tate was six. What kind of cruel, heartless person would abandon their children? No, no, his father was downstairs waiting to take him to a baseball game or whatever it was fathers did with their sons. Tate liked living in a world that was not reality, and drugs allowed him to do that.

Except now they were having a different effect. His visions varied depending on the dosage and the quality of the drugs, but now he was experiencing a different kind of high. Thoughts raced through his mind, visions blurring and flashing too quickly for him to keep track. Tate's fists closed around his bedspread as he tried to steady himself.

Soon he started thinking about how pointless high school was. What idiot had thought it was a good idea to put teenagers - who are so lost, so confused in this stage between childhood and adulthood - together in an institution for 8 hours a day with the purpose of learning? The only meaningful thing Tate had learned in high school was that most people were idiots, and there was nothing he could do about it. Or was there?

He sat there for a few more minutes, letting the visions take hold. There he was, in full skeleton makeup, like the grim reaper, walking through Westfield's halls, wielding a weapon. It just felt right. Like it was his destiny or something.

Tate knelt down and felt under his bed for the guns he'd stored there. They were his father's. His mother had kept them in a closet in an unused room a few years ago, but Tate had taken some of them for himself. For what purpose, he didn't really know. He supposed he just wanted to have some connection to his father. Constance hadn't seemed to notice anyways.

But now he had a purpose.

Tate entered the school. There was no turning back now. His trench coat hid the deadly weapons he was carrying. Pieces of hair hid his bloodshot eyes. He looked like any other kid - for all his classmates knew about him, he wore this coat every day. Tate opened the door to his first period history class, which he was approximately 17 minutes late to.

Tate's teacher looked at him, obviously irritated. "Mr. Langdon," she said, looking down to write "tardy" next to his name on the roster. "How nice of you to join us."

Tate reached inside his jacket. She was still looking down.

"Mr. Langdon?" she asked, looking up at him still standing in the doorway. "Take your seat plea-" and then the sound was cut off, drowned out by a gunshot.

He shot her right between the eyes.

There was an immediate yelp from a mousy girl in the front row. When the teacher swayed forward and her head hit the desk, frantic whispers started spreading throughout the room. Some girls started screaming. Tate heard one girl whimpering, which then grew into a sob.

A large boy in a letterman jacket got up from his desk. "What the fuck, man?"

Tate didn't turn to him. He titled his head, his eyes still on the teacher. Blood was gushing from her head at an alarming rate, faster than he would've ever expected. Tate couldn't even remember her name.

The boy spoke again. "What do you think you're doing?"

With that, Tate spun around and shot the boy in the chest. He was so big he didn't really move at first, so Tate shot again. And again. And again. Finally the boy fell.

That's what he got for thinking he had the power to stop Tate.

The whimpering girl let out a wail, and Tate turned to the sound. Her boyfriend, who had his arm around her shoulder, put a hand over her mouth and led her to the back of the room, where all the students were beginning to retreat.

Tate started shooting randomly, thinking of the times he was bullied for having Addie as a sister. For the times guys would come up to him and inquire about his "retarded, fucked-up brother that lives in the attic". For the times he'd seen these boys' fathers cheer for them at football games, with big signs and huge that's-my-boy smiles, while Tate stood behind the bleachers buying drugs because his father was probably somewhere in Mexico for all he knew. For all the times the same boys would shove him out of the way in the halls, muttering about his greasy hair and the permanent scowl on his face.

But it wasn't just that. Tate knew that he had never really talked to most of these particular kids before. He knew, as he shot a tiny redheaded girl in the head, that most of these people had never done anything to him. She probably didn't even know his name. But he also knew that the world was a filthy place, a filthy goddamn horror show. The voices in his head told him that by shooting, by killing these people, he was taking them away from this horrible place. He was taking them somewhere clean and kind. Somewhere even he didn't belong.

The screams continued to reverberate throughout the classroom. People hid underneath desks. Girls whimpered and moaned in fear while guys pushed each other forward, urging each other to "do something!" People who had been shot but hadn't fallen were clutching their wounds, willing the blood to stop flowing.

When Tate stopped to reload - already 5 or 6 bodies lay motionless on the floor - a guy started walking forward, palms up in the ancient sign of surrender. Tate almost chuckled.

"Look, man," the guy said, speaking slowly and deliberately. "I don't know what's wrong with you, but put the gun down. I think you've done enough." He looked down briefly at the bodies - 2 girls and 3 boys, now that Tate really had a good look at them. They looked peaceful. And still he didn't feel anything.

"There's nothing wrong with me," Tate almost growled. He almost believed it. He aimed the gun at the idiot's big mouth, and fired a single shot.

Bullseye.

The boy fell to his knees, clutching his throat, gurgling on his blood.

"Josh!" a girl screamed from under a desk. She started sobbing, wailing really, and the sound grated at Tate's ears. Tate walked, calm and collected, towards the desk, stopping a few feet away, much closer to the other students than before. He fired a few shots in her general direction, still unable to see her. Some bounced off the desk, some hit other kids, but eventually the noise stopped with her breathing.

The classroom was in pandemonium. Now that Tate wasn't blocking the exit, all hell broke loose as kids tried to leave the classroom. One kid dove for the phone on the teacher's desk, and Tate shot at him a few times, but only one grazed the boy's shoulder, and he started dialing. Tate knew that if he turned his back for a split second, ten of those jerk jocks would jump on top of his back and disarm him quickly. That kid was already calling the police. They'd catch him, he'd be sent to jail for the rest of his life. He couldn't handle that. That's not how he planned for this to end.

But he wasn't done yet.

These kids had gotten boring anyways. They all looked the same really. The girls, some in cheerleaders' outfits with the same perfect ponytail, the boys with their perfectly gelled and combed hair, nothing like Tate's greasy disheveled mess. The whole grunge movement hadn't really touched Westfield High. Tate decided these kids weren't worth saving. They deserved to live in this hellhole.

Firing a few shots back into the crowd, Tate backed away towards the door. He shot once more at the kid on the phone - he had to save ammo - and hoped he'd hit him somewhere critical. Even buying a few more seconds before the cops arrived would help. He slammed the door on his way out and starting walking towards the library. His steps were still calm and purposeful, even as the fire alarm went off and kids started piling out of classrooms, screaming. They knew what was happening.

Some kids turned around in their rush for the exits, seeing Tate with his gun. They yelped and bolted for the doors, pushing kids out of their way. They really had no shame. Tate shot at these kids, the selfish ones, disgusted at how they thought their life was more valuable than someone else's. He left the others alone, only shooting the ones that got in his way. Teachers stood motionless, unsure of what to do. Tate was sure the police were already called. But he was also sure that the cops were cowards and wouldn't really try to stop him, too worried they'd be harmed themselves. He'd be the one to decide how this whole ordeal ended.

Tate shot one kid who was tiny and awkward just because he felt bad for him. High school is really tough for kids like that. He deserved to go to that better place, wherever it was. Tate started moving more quickly, as he was far from done. He was fulfilling the quest of the noble war. Finally he made his way to the library.

The door was locked or barricaded in some way. This made Tate angry. The kids who spent their time in the library, those were usually the kids Tate liked. The ones who didn't deserve to endure this horror show. He needed to get in there.

He walked around to the other entrance, but it was blocked too. But this time he thought maybe someone was standing in front of the door, so he shot through it. He heard a moan and someone falling, and then he tried the door again. He was able to open it this time.

At first it seemed like there was really no one in there, but Tate knew that couldn't be true. The door was barricaded. Someone had put something in front of the door, someone had stood in front of the door, to prevent him from coming in. To protect whoever was in here.

Tate knew there were at least five or six people in the library aside from the teacher, who was now slumped on the floor in a pool of his own blood. He could feel it. He resisted the urge to walk over and drown in that blood and focused on drawing more. Tate walked up and down the aisles between the bookshelves, his steps slow and purposeful. He whistled, and the sound cut through the silent room like a knife.

Tate stopped briefly and put his finger on a book - a quick glance informed him it was about serial killers, ironically enough - as if to pull it from the shelf, and then knocked it over. This elicited a scream from the other side of the bookshelf, and there she was, the blonde goth girl Tate had seen a few times before. She was on the verge of tears now as she saw him, her shallow breathing the only sound in the library. Tate fired before she started to beg him.

Tate didn't wait around to see her fall to the floor or to watch the blood pour out of her head. He kept walking, whistling the same tune, down the aisle in search of his next victim.

It wasn't long until he saw a poorly hidden figure behind a chair. He realized it was Kevin, a kid known for being a "bad boy" that usually hung out with the stoners and had a girlfriend whose hair changed color every week. Tate might've gotten along with him well, if he got along with anyone. But he didn't.

Kevin looked up and saw Tate standing over him with the gun. A look of recognition came over his face, like he knew this was it. All there was left to do was beg, and that's what he did.

"No, no, p-please don't -"

And the gun went off again.

Tate walked further across the library, listening for giveaway noises. After a few seconds he heard the rattle of a telephone chord and saw a kid looking down, dialing a number. Tate didn't need to look at the three digits to know what they were.

The kid - Tate quickly recognized him as Amir - looked up, mouth agape. Tate didn't give him a chance to say anything. He shot him in the mouth.

Tate continued through the library, looking under tables and listening for the sound of quiet breathing. This was getting to be his favorite part, the anticipation. It was more exciting to him than pulling the trigger. Finally he heard some muffled whispers and then a loud, commanding voice.

"Hey!"

Tate turned to the sound and saw Kyle, a typical Westfield jock. He aimed the gun without thinking.

"It's enough, get out of here," Kyle said, like Tate was just another kid to push into lockers and take money from, even with a gun in his hands. Kyle was one of those people who always thought they were in control of the people around them, like he had authority over other people.

But Tate was the one with power this time. He shot him between the eyes before he could say anything else.

As Kyle fell onto the desk behind him, a moan escaped from under a table. Tate walked deliberately over to the sound, flipped over the table - eliciting more whimpers - and a cheerleader came into view. Tate thought her name was Chloe, Kyle's girlfriend. Most guys thought she was the prettiest girl in school, and Tate could see why, though girls like Stephanie were more his style. But now as Chloe sat cowering beneath him, shaking in a pool of her own urine, he felt almost bad for her, even if she had probably made tons of girls cry in the locker room before P.E. There was a moment's hesitation as he pointed the gun at her chest, a moment where he thought maybe he should spare her, that one person getting away wasn't so bad, but then she started asking him why over and over again.

Tate pulled the trigger because he didn't know how to answer.

There was one more person in the library. Tate could sense it. It was like he was a dog, able to sniff out the fear of those around him. He took long, deliberate steps around the tables, past the bodies of the people he'd killed. Past Kyle, who Tate just remembered he had overheard saying he was going to play football for Georgia Tech in the fall. Past Stephanie - or was that even her name? - who was quiet and hated everyone but Tate secretly liked because he once saw her wear a Nirvana shirt, and she didn't seem like the type of girl who just liked them because Kurt Cobain had pretty eyes or whatever. Past Amir, who was easily the smartest kid Tate knew. He was jealous of him sometimes. Jealous that Amir would probably amount to something, that he'd probably make something out of himself when he found the cure to cancer or something, while Tate was sure he'd snort coke and be between jobs for the rest of his life once high school ended.

It suddenly occurred to Tate that these kids might've had a future. It occurred to him that he took that away. But he shook the thought from his mind. No. He wasn't taking their future away. He was taking them away from this cruel world, the world that didn't give a shit if you were valedictorian and had your whole life ahead of you, the world would still throw shit your way and fuck you over. The world that had taken his dad away, that had made him feel so lost and out of place his entire life. But not anymore. This was his place. This was his time.

Tate had promised himself he'd be done once he left the library, but he couldn't stop now. He didn't care if the cops were on their way, or if people thought they could stop him, he was going to keep going, keep saving these kids from this filthy horror show of a world. He would find that last poor soul in this godforsaken library, and then he'd -

A whimper escaped from someone's lips behind the only bookcase Tate hadn't checked. The sound became muffled when someone covered their mouth. But as adrenaline rushed through Tate's system, it was as if his all of his senses were heightened. He could hear the the person's accelerated breathing, the heart thumping a mile a minute. He could feel the blood pumping through their veins. And again, he could smell their fear.

Tate was impatient now. He knew he had limited time with the police on his tail - they'd be on campus by now for sure if that kid had been able to get a call through - and he wanted to get out of the library so he could finish the job elsewhere. He lunged at the bookcase, tearing it away from its position on the carpet, revealing a petite girl with her legs hugged to her chest, one hand over her mouth. He aimed the shotgun, ready to shoot. Tears welled and spilled over her eyes as Tate came into view, realizing her time was up. She had been discovered. It was all over.

Except.

Except she was beautiful. Tate was sure he'd seen this girl before - he'd have had to, the school wasn't that big and he had been going here for four years - but he had never really noticed her. Her silky hair fell like curtains over her face, but they did not conceal her stunning caramel eyes, piercing even as they welled with tears. As she removed her hand, Tate noticed she had beautiful lips, full and red with color. Tate blinked, momentarily stunned.

Of course he had seen pretty girls before. He had fucked pretty girls before. So why was this any different? Chloe was pretty. He was sure half the guys in his school probably whacked off to her yearbook cheerleading photo. And aside from a brief hesitation, he hadn't stopped himself from sending a bullet into her heart. But now his shotgun lay limp at his side as he stared at this girl.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked Tate up and down. His black trenchcoat. His messy hair. The blood splattered on his face. Her mouth opened slightly, and she said one word.

"Tate?"

Tate gulped. She'd said his name. He wanted to tell her to say it again. And again. And again. But instead he just stood there unmoving.

"Tate, why are you doing this?" the girl asked, her voice raspy and thick with tears. Tate blinked. All his rage had disappeared.

The girl dared to move her eyes around the room, as if trusting he wouldn't raise the shotgun and shoot the second she looked away. She took in the five bodies scattered across the room, the carpet red and warm with blood. She whimpered again.

Tate looked too. He hadn't really cared to look before, but now it was as if he had to, like something deep within him was compelling him to look at what he'd done, to take in the damage he'd caused. He hadn't noticed before that Amir wasn't dead, not yet. A faint gurgling noise continued to escape his throat. Maybe Tate should've aimed at his head instead of his mouth. Maybe that was the merciful thing to do. Tate didn't know.

"Tate," the girl said again, and Tate almost jumped, though his eyes were still across the room, taking in the battlefield, the casualties. "Tate, look at me."

And he did. Again, like he had to, like there was no way he could disobey.

"You don't need this," the girl said, and her eyes burned holes into him. "You don't need to do this. It's over. You've done enough. Go home."

He'd heard this before. The two guys in the classroom had said something close. Chloe had asked why. But again this was different. She didn't think she was better than him. She didn't think she had the power to outsmart him or be the hero. She just wanted it to be over. What Tate was doing her made her upset. It made her sad.

Tate didn't want to make her sad.

He stared at her a few more seconds. Amir's gurgling became more faint and then stopped altogether. Tate blinked again. The girl blinked back, her eyes pleading.

"Go."

And that was enough for Tate. He ran, almost bolted to the exit, the door that took him to the back of the school. He heard sirens, but they were towards the front of the school. The police had just arrived, or maybe they'd been here a while and were just too stupid to secure the perimeter. Idiots.

He ran faster than he'd ever ran before - even back in his track days - to where he'd parked his car a block away from school. And then he punched the accelerator and never looked back.

Constance had gone to the grocery store and was not home when Tate returned, but he was sure she'd be back any minute. Tate was looking at last year's yearbook, the page turned to the freshmen pictures, and there she was.

Violet.

Her hair was a little shorter, and her cheeks were a little fuller, but it was definitely her. Her caramel eyes burned even through the glossy paper, and every time Tate closed his eyes he saw her, legs hugged to her chest, pleading with him. He closed the book and put it away, and went back to sit on his bed. He heard the door open downstairs. It was his mother. He could hear the paper bags crinkling as she put the groceries in the fridge.

Bursts of the day's events flashed through his mind. A lock of Stephanie's hair, drenched in blood. Kevin's voice hitching as he uttered his last words. Chloe jumping as Tate cocked the gun. Kyle's failed last stand. Amir's gurgling that eventually stopped. And Violet.

What was it about this girl that had stopped him? He still wasn't sure. He still didn't know how he ended up in his room, the same room he'd had since he was a little kid, everything unchanged as if nothing had happened in the last few hours. As if there were fifteen people still left in this world. Like it was just another day.

He was still thinking about this when he heard the sound. Was that... a siren? Then came the telltale footsteps of men in boots, coming up the porch stairs. Constance's questions as she let them in. Their hurried steps up the stairs, thumps almost as loud as gunshots. Tate heard his mother wailing, begging the SWAT team not to hurt him, that he was just a child. How far that was from the truth. Tate may have only been seventeen years old, but having seen and done the things he had today, in reality he was much older. He was an old man, having seen and caused death and sorrow and pain in so many people's lives.

His door swung open and twenty or so men in bulletproof vests pointed their guns at him. Red lasers dotted Tate's white face and black clothes, and he absentmindedly thought this would make a pretty picture if it weren't so morbid. He thought it was so funny, so ironic, that now he knew what it was like to have a gun pointed at you, to have your life in someone else's hands, to know everything could end with just the pull of a trigger, and it was all too little, too late. Tate didn't want to die like that, by someone else's hands and having nothing to do with it. He also didn't want to sit in a grimy prison for the rest of his life surrounded by criminals who were so different and yet so much the same as he was. He didn't want to be haunted by the kids' faces, the redheaded girl whose name he wasn't able to remember though he was able to put a bullet through her head. No, he couldn't handle that. He had to die.

But if he was going to die, he wanted to be the one to do it.

First it was all hypothetical. If Tate just used his first two fingers to form a fake gun and pointed it at his head, like kids do all the time as a sick joke, it would be symbolic enough. But the men didn't shoot. Then Tate had an idea.

The bag that held all of his father's guns was still on his bed. They still looked lethal enough. So Tate reached over quickly for the gun that he knew had no more bullets in it. He knew because he had taken them all out as a sort of cleansing exercise, hoping it would quiet the voices and make the whole thing less real (it hadn't worked). He reached for the gun, and the SWAT men reached for their triggers, and seventeen bullets - one for each year he'd been alive, though he didn't feel alive anymore, not really - found purchase in his chest, stomach, shoulders and everywhere else.

And he still wasn't dead.

One man, the man in charge, ran over to Tate as he fell down onto the bed and then slid onto the floor, all feeling in any part of his body lost. His body's instincts kicked in, trying to breathe though his throat was filled with blood.

"Why'd you do it?" the man asked, and Tate's vision began to blur. He took a final breath and closed his eyes, and all he saw was Violet's face, legs pulled to her chest and still hiding behind that bookshelf.

Her eyes were forgiving.