In which three brothers panic.
They wanted him.
Virgil's heart pounded in his chest. The bad guys wanted him. His brothers.
They were in trouble.
Virgil tried not to visibly react as Ritter continued spouting off about how the students were in his control and what would happen to them if they refused to give up the brothers. Virgil could see Mark eying him up with a nervous expression on his face, knowing that his friend was in danger and not knowing how to help him. A few of his other classmates also shot him worried looks but to his amazement, none of them audibly gave him away. Most were too scared to even say anything anyway.
As of right now, he was just another student.
Ritter gazed down at the trembling children and smirked, knowing he had the upper hand. If he could just get one of them to crack, they'd soon reveal the Tracy brothers, no problem. It would have been easier from the get-go if they'd been able to find recent photographs of them. He silently cursed the Tracy patriarch for culling every single photo of his children out of the media, leaving only stills from the avalanche during which the boys were much younger. It was because of the accident that Jeff had decided to have all photos removed in the first place. The invasion of the press after the accident had been an awful burden to the Tracy family. The news reporters had been continually trying to snap pictures of each of them - especially the injuries Jeff's children had sustained. There had been a constant bombardment. During Grant's funeral there had been another attempted press invasion and that had been the last straw for the grieving businessman. He did everything possible to get them removed.
And it worked.
Ritter chuckled at the image of a frazzled Jeff Tracy. He'd be even more frazzled when he knew he was missing three sons. He was frantic enough losing his wife. The criminal chuckled. The plan seemed to be going well so far, but none of the kids were being obedient. He figured one would instantly squeal and give up the Tracy boys but so far they were all being brave. He knew that couldn't last long.
He jumped off the table and started creeping towards individual students. They shied away from him when he got close and he made sure to glare daggers at them all. He wanted to intimidate them. He rested his body weight against his gun and stared them down.
"So, who wants to talk?"
Gunshots?
John's eyes widened as the muffled gunfire continued to sound off in short intervals. It sounded like it was coming from the corridors downstairs as the shots seemed to have a fluctuating echo. Acting on pure instinct, John pounced across the room and bolted the door shut, yanking down the blind to cover the door window. After securing the door he pranced back delicately across the room and landed hard on his chair. The seat momentarily span around and John pushed his legs against the desk to still its movement. He froze on the chair, heart pounding in his chest. He couldn't believe this was happened. Was this actually happening? Or was his imagination getting the better of him again? That often happened in lesson - he was an avid daydreamer. But this? This seemed real. Too real. He let out a ragged breath and tried to snap himself out of his growing panic.
Think John, think! Gunfire! Gunfire! This is actually happening right now - you have to focus!
He shook his head and swallowed down his fear. He couldn't fall apart. He wouldn't allow himself.
Gunfire. Okay? Gunfire. That was definitely gunfire, you've seen enough Westerns to know the sound of gunfire. Okay. Okay. Step two. Why would there be gunfire? Think logically about this. Ex-student going on a rampage? What else could it be? Oh gosh, this is ridiculous! Okay, calm down. You're going all tense. Calm it down. Okay. You're in a room on your own. You're probably safe for now. Probably... Oh boy, what do I do? Think, John! What would Scott do? Scott...
His eyes widened and he gasped loudly. His brothers were out there!
Scott! Virgil! Protect them, mom!
John knew he had to do something. He couldn't leave his brothers out there alone with some crazed gunman. He needed to know where they were. He needed to know they were safe.
What lessons do they have now? It's Week A, Monday, Period 2. Virgil has Biology, right? What about Scott? Oh wait! He has his exams!
More gunfire sounded off downstairs, ricocheting through the school. It seemed more muted than before, suggesting the gunman was heading towards the back of school, towards the science classrooms. They were obviously targeting every single room. What if his brothers were hurt? Or worse!
John rubbed his temple. This wasn't helping. He needed to stop stressing on the negatives and start acting towards a resolution. He reached over to the computer desk and pushed the computer mouse with his finger, causing the screen to flash back on. He waggled the mouse over the web page, trying to think of something to do.
Okay John, focus. You need to do... something! Anything! Wait a minute... Police! Call the police you dipstick!
John gently reached down into his rucksack and unzipped the large pocket at the back, reaching in and he pulled out his phone - which had a flat battery.
"No, not now!" he cursed quietly, tapping the screen to see if it would make a difference. His phone was completely dead. He'd been meaning to buy a new one for a while but with everything going on he'd completely forgotten about it. "Oh for the love of-"
John angrily dropped his phone back into his bag. Another idea crossed his mind. He knew he couldn't call the police, but what about emailing them? If he went onto their website, surely he could find some details for someone somewhere and they could help? He shrugged off the absurdity of the suggestion and ended up sending a desperate email to a random admin officer at the police station, hoping they'd actually pick it up and respond to the incident. He then saved his work and logged out.
The lean blonde gently stood up then crouched to the floor, trying to listen in and hear anyone speaking to gauge the situation. For a few moments he couldn't hear anyone. Then some loud gunfire startled him. He slowly made his way back onto the chair and dropped his head into his hands, completely overwhelmed by the situation. He knew he couldn't leave the room because he'd probably end up getting discovered and shot. He needed to find out what was going on some other way.
An unorthodox thought flew into his brain. Security cameras! The school had been planning on having some new cameras installed recently but John didn't know where they were actually located and even if they had been. They were tiny, high tech cameras being used as a trial to monitor behaviour in the school's public spaces. John only knew about the plans because he'd secretly been hacking into the I.T technician's school account and he'd found the plan schematics.
He felt a faint blush grace his cheeks as he recalled his slyness in actually hacking a member of staff's school account. One of his classmates had made a point of saying that John was a computer whizz after seeing him perform classwork with ease, Despite this, John had never really considered himself THAT computer literate before. At being complimented he decided to see what else he could do. So he'd pushed himself and started to learn how to code and hack things, just to see if he could do it. His test had worked.
Hack into the security cameras?
John's mouth dropped open at the thought. If he did that successfully, he could get some eyes on the situation and maybe tell the police what was going on. Or at least identify the attacker in some capacity.
'Just like John McClane in Die Hard.' he found himself thinking in Gordon's voice.
Fantastic! You can do this, Johnny-boy. Just concentrate.
With a new-found sense of hope, John began to type.
Scott was miffed.
He and his fellow students were being forced to sit against the wall with their hands behind their heads, and they'd been doing it for so long that his were aching terribly now. Furthermore, the lead hijacker who he'd found out was known as Kenyon, was abhorrently obnoxious. He kept talking about how 'he was in control' and 'this plan is foolproof' so 'you better hand over the Tracy scum or I'll blow your heads off one by one', which simply signified how much of a jerk he was.
Scott was more scared for John and Virgil. He hoped they'd managed to somehow get away from their captors, because he knew they were being hunted. He wondered if they knew too. Had they been told what was going on? Had anyone given them away? With so many students in school, Scott knew that one of them would be bound to slip eventually; primarily Brian Kendrick, the jockish bully in Scott's class. He'd been knocked out during the first invasion scuffle so had missed Kenyon's confident spiel about wanting to capture the Tracy boys. When the jock woke up Scott guaranteed he'd be given away by him. The two were practically rivals.
"I'll ask again. Which one of you losers is Scott Carpenter Tracy?" Kenyon roared, tapping the butt of his gun on the floor. "I know the other two aren't in this room at the moment because the class roster list was helpfully given to me by one of the exam invigilators whom I knocked out." he smirked at his own joke. "So I ask again. Scotty-boy, I'd like for you to come forward, please." he beamed devilishly.
Scott found himself biting on his tongue to restrain himself. The villain was calling him by the nickname his brothers gave him. His brothers...
He needed to get out of there. He needed to know they were alright.