Author's Note: Again, thank you all so, so much for your continued patience and support. I'm so sorry for the late update after that mean cliffhanger, but this was AP exam week, and things were just crazy, so again, I apologize to all of my readers! This is a shorter chapter, but a substantial one will come by the end of the weekend, I promise, and I will be answering all questions from my reviews there. :) Enjoy!
Tony stood frozen, mouth open in shock, as Barry stood across from him, the knife still tightly clenched in his hand. His eyes seemed to bulge out of his head as he choked out a sputtering gasp, before spasming away from Barry and landing on the hard tile floor.
Barry watched him uncomprehendingly. The entire lunchroom had fallen absolutely silent, with every set of wide eyes on him, and on Tony.
No one moved.
Barry thought he could hear his own heart beating- but it was a relief. Before, it had been pounding as rapidly as a hummingbird's wings, each thump striking him like a hammer blow- now, he could tell it was starting to slow down.
That was ridiculous. He should be afraid now.
But he wasn't.
Roy was the first to cry out- not a piercing scream, but a choked wheeze as he fell back and away from Barry, trying to put as much distance between them as he could.
And that's when all hell broke loose.
The room erupted in a chorus of screams and panic, the entire crowd of children scrambling for the doors. It was like an enormous pot had been brought to a heated, chaotic boil.
It was startling for Barry to realize that they were running because of him.
They were terrified of him.
Barry stood in the center of the lunchroom as the crowd began to dissipate, still gripping the knife, staring down at Tony, who had stopped convulsing and now lay still with glassy eyes, a gaping wound in his chest.
Barry knew he was dead. He had aimed for his heart.
Ms. Amelia was sitting in her office when she heard the shrieks and screams begin to echo from the lunchroom. She paid it no mind- if there was a fight, there were teachers on standby throughout the cafeteria.
But the cries coming from the lunchroom weren't eager and excited, the sounds of a fight being cheered on. They were panicked screeches and the sound of an entire cafeteria of unruly children stampeding the hallways.
She stood up quickly, closing her computer and walked to the door of her office, staring out the rectangular window in astonishment. There were at least two hundred kids spilling out of the doors of the cafeteria, which she could see at the end of the hallway from her door.
As the crowd of children began to thin, she could see a lone boy standing in the middle of the cafeteria, staring down at the floor.
Oh, God, what had he done this time?
Ms. Amelia swung out her door, no longer afraid of hitting the massive herd of children- they were all down the hallway, with the exception of a few stragglers struggling to keep up with the group .
She walked briskly down the tiled hall, her short heels click click clicking against the floors. They were the only source of noise in the deserted corridor.
The heels screeched in protest when she came to a sudden halt at the door of the cafeteria.
Ms. Amelia's hand slowly rose to her mouth, her eyes like moons as she stared at the scene.
Barry Allen was standing over a dead body, a knife in his hand still coated in crimson.
Nothing could have prepared her for this. There had been fights at the school. There had been broken noses and arms, bleeding cuts, knobby bruises, any injury imaginable. Some of the children were disturbed, after all.
But Barry Allen, not even fourteen years old, was standing over a dead body. A student she didn't recognize was on the floor.
He looked up at her, just noticing her standing in the doorway, and, realizing he was still clutching the weapon, quietly placed it on the table where he had been sitting.
What disturbed her the most was the calm, placid look on Barry's face. He didn't look horrified, or beg for forgiveness. He didn't look insane or unreasonable.
He looked, Ms. Amelia thought with a shudder, like an naive, angelic child.
That didn't stop her from fumbling in her pocket to reach her phone. She held it up to her ear with trembling hands, her eyes never leaving Barry.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"
Barry had a lot of time to think that night. They put him in solitary confinement ("For now"), as a mentally disturbed delinquent.
How they determined that, he didn't know. They asked him questions- about how he felt. Why he did it. If he had ever thought of doing this before.
He felt fine. His anger was gone, as if the knife had somehow been a bridge for him to release the hot, liquid anger into Tony, anger that had overflowed and spilled forth in dark red drops. The pressure behind his eyes and in his chest was gone.
Why did he do it? Because Tony deserved to die. Barry weighed the crime and his given punishment even some time later, and yes, it was true. The pain Tony had caused Barry was equivalent to his fate. He had no doubt about that.
Had he ever thought of doing this before?
I'm thinking of doing it right now.
The interviewing officers were not the same first two who had come to him after his mother's murder. They were not nearly as kind. But they looked uneasy after his responses.
They wrote on their clipboards for what seemed like hours.
Then he was taken to a small, windowless room. No movie-style cages and locks. It wasn't what he had imagined it would be.
What had he imagined it would be?
He had imagined breaking out. Freeing his father. Running away. But to where?
He didn't belong anywhere anymore. He hadn't belonged at the foster home, and he certainly didn't belong here, with only the shrinks to talk to.
He allowed himself to feel a wave of self-pity. He didn't deserve this. He deserved to be free to do what he wanted. To be able to do what every other child could.
"You'll only be here for a while" turned out to be a stretch. Barry wasn't sure how much time had passed. There was a clock on the wall, but no calendar. He was allowed paper, but no pencils. No pens. Only a chair bolted to the floor, a bed in the corner, a restroom to the side.
He spent most of his time asleep. It was better than reality. But while he slept, he saw only gold and red light, crackling like a roll of thunder, webbing across his eyelids to form the face of a man in a yellow costume.
Sometimes he lost track of what was a dream and what was reality. Iris called him. His father broke out and found him. The foster home decided to take him back. He had a life sentence. Joe was there one day, but he probably imagined that. Joe would never come.
But the worst dream came in the form of his mother walking through the door, a wide smile on her too-pale face and her red hair falling down to her chest, where a shard of glass protruded.
Barry could feel himself getting older. There were no mirrors. But he figured he was several years older than he had been. The life before his confinement seemed distant and foggy, lost in the spiral of dreams and nightmares and dark thoughts.
To keep him focused, Barry formed escape plans, each one more outlandish that the previous. He couldn't comprehend the thought of staying the for the rest of his life.
He vowed to himself that he wouldn't.
He was going to get out.
Powers will be coming next chapter, so stay tuned! Please r&r if you enjoyed. A huge thanks to all of my readers, again!