Chapter 22: Battle of Anchor Beach.

Disclaimer: I do not own the Fosters.

AN: Please leave reviews. The idea is from a dream I had a couple of nights ago. It's kind of dramatic, but I think it reads well. Warnings for violence.

Connor's POV:

It's been a week since the park incident, and Jude and I had returned to Anchor Beach at the request of our parents. They figured that after what happened, it would be best for Jude and I to go back to our regular routines of school, homework, and maintaining our relationship.

We were sitting in Chemistry together, at the back of the room, and I was staring at the board in a daze, not understanding a single thing the teacher was saying. I nudged Jude's ankle with my own to get his attention.

"What?" He whispered.

"Are you getting any of this?" I asked.

"Barely." He said, "I'll ask Callie for help later if she's home."

"Yeah, I'll have to ask my Uncle. He's good at this sort of thing." I said.

"Your Uncle is good at everything though," Jude pointed out, "It's kind of scary. He's like a demigod."

"Haha." I laughed, "I'll be right back, I gotta go to the bathroom."

I raised my hand and got the teachers attention. She signed a bathroom pass and I left the room. I meandered down the hallway at my slowest pace, purposefully taking as much time as I could possibly could to avoid spending as much time being bored to death in class.

Then I heard a scream.

BANG! Thud.

I jumped.

"No." I muttered.

BANG!

I turned around and bolted for the farthest bathroom from the noise.

There was no mistaking what the sound was.

It was gunfire.

"Attention staff and students, the school is now in lockdown. We have multiple armed intruders in the building. Code red. The police have been notified."

I barely paid Lena's voice any mind as it filtered through the PA system. All I knew was that I had to find a place to hide. I ducked into the bathroom and ran for the biggest stall. I slammed the door and locked myself in. I backed up against the wall and sunk to a sitting position. I pulled my knees up to my chest and started to cry softly.

I checked my watch.

It was only 9:36 in the morning.

Somebody was shooting people in my school.

I heard somebody get shot.

"I can't believe this is fucking happening." I whispered.

I hoped Jude was okay. He was probably scared to death right now.

My mind drifted to everybody else I cared about. Jax and Daria, who were in Calculus on the other side of the school. Lena, who was probably barricading herself in her office, talking frantically on the phone with Stef. Jeremy, Austin, Taylor, Wynston, Ritchie...

"Please let them be okay."

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The shots were too close.

They were right outside the door.

"Please. Please god?" I whimpered, "I've never begged you for anything before, but please let them be okay? Please let us all be okay?"

That's when I hear the voices.

"I don't give a fuck." One voice said, "I want the little queer dead. This is where he goes to school. Jeremy can't hide forever. Kill as many as you want, as long as the little bastard I call my nephew is one of them."

A couple of other voices answered in the affirmative. I realized who the main shooter was.

It was Jeremy's psycho uncle.

"One of you go in there." Jeremy's uncle said, "Kill anybody inside."

And then the door to the bathroom opened. I tried to stifle a whimper, but it was too late.

"Ooooh, somebody's in here." The new voice said in a singsong voice.

The first stall door flew open with a bang.

"I wonder which gun I should use. I brought three." He continued to singsong.

The second stall door flew open with a bang.

I thought about what he had just said. Three guns? If I could get one of them... I could fight back? I shook my head to clear the thought. In the distance I heard more screams and gunshots. I would probably be killed before I could get anywhere close to the gun.

"Hiding in the cripple stall huh? Too easy."

Tears streamed down my face. I knew I was about to die.

The stall door flew open with a bang, the lock breaking.

The man stood there, towering over me, and evil grin on his face. He was short, but had a ton of muscle, and he had a pistol on each hip and one in his hand, pointed right between my eyes.

"Well, well, well. Look at what we have here." He sneered, "Little baby cryin in the cripple stall. Any last words?"

I glared defiantly into his eyes.

If I was gonna die, I wasn't gonna cower. I felt my common sense fly out the window.

"Do it."

The man raised an eyebrow.

"I SAID DO IT!" I screamed, "YOU SON OF BITCH!"

"With pleasure."

His finger was on the trigger, and I continued to glare defiantly.

He pulled the trigger...

...But not before something plowed into him, knocking him against the wall.

The bullet only missed my head by an inch. My ears were ringing, and my eyes were hazy from the flash. I could make out a struggle, but I couldn't tell who was winning. After a few seconds, I heard an almighty thump and something heavy hit the floor..

"Thank god, you're okay."

I knew that voice anywhere.

"JUDE!" I screamed and launched myself to my feet and into his arms.

He was holding a very thick chemistry text book in one hand, and a rock in the other.

"I thought you were the one who got shot." He said, "Right after the left the first shot went off."

"I'm okay. I promise." I assured him shakily, "If you hadn't showed up when you did..."

"I know. Let's not think about that." He said, looking over at the unconscious man.

"What are we gonna go Connor?" He asked, "The police are on their way, but it's taking too long. I counted eleven of them, Connor."

"Jeremy's uncle is leading them," I said, "I overheard him say that as long as Jeremy was one of them, he didn't care how many died."

"We have to do something." Jude said frantically, "But what?"

"I don't know. What are you thinking?"

He paused for a second, and then went over to the man, and picked up the gun that was laying discarded at his side. He stared at it.

"We may not live through today." Jude said, his voice thick with fear, "You know that right?"

I nodded.

"We have to fight." He continued, "We have to try."

"What's the plan?" I asked.

"I was thinking Mom's office, but it's too far to get to without being seen" He said.

"We're gonna be seen anyway Jude." I said, "You have your phone?"

He nodded.

"Can I borrow it for a sec?" I asked, "I wanna call mom and dad. Tell them I love 'em. Just in case."

Jude handed me his phone, and I dialed the number. It picked up immediately, and I put it on speaker phone.

"JUDE?" My mom's voice answered.

"It's me momma." I said.

"CONNOR!" She screamed, "Thank god! Are you okay, sweetie."

"I'm not hurt, if that's what you're asking," I said shakily, "I'm with Jude right now. He just save my life. We uh, we're in the bathroom right now, staring at one of the shooters."

"WHAT?!" My dad's voice echoed over the phone

"He's unconscious." I assured shakily, "He was about to kill me, but Jude got here in time. Beat him half to death with a chemistry book."

"But you ARE both okay?" Callie's voice asked.

"Yeah." Jude interjected, "Who all is their?"

"Everybody." Brandon's voice said.

"We're all gathered at the house." Jesus said.

"Mom is already down there." Mariana said, "What are you two gonna do?"

Jude and I shared a look.

"The guys Jude knocked out had three guns." I said, "Ton of ammo."

"We gotta get out of here." Jude said, "The others will already have got out. Taylor always said that if this kind of thing happened, bust out a window and climb out and run for it."

"But we're in an interior room." I said, "So we'll have to get to an exit. Which means we might have to defend ourselves."

"Be careful you two." Dad said.

"We will." Jude said. "We love you guys. If anything happens... just remember that."

"Stay safe." Mom said, and the line went dead.

Jude and I shared a look.

"I'm scared, Jude." I said, "I'm really fucking scared."

"Me too." He said.

I wrapped him in a hug, and gave him a kiss.

"I love you so much."

"I love you too, Connor." He said, releasing me from the embrace, "Let's do this."

We stripped the ammo and the third gun from the man's unconscious body. We cocked the guns we held, and slowly, ever so slowly, we left the bathroom, Me in front, and Jude behind me.

It was eerie how quiet it was. No screams, and no gunshots...

At least for a few minutes.

As we turned the corner, a shot rang out, and Jude and I through ourselves behind a wall as bullets flew at us.

Jude reacted first, and stuck his gun around the corner and fired blindly back.

"What the FUCK? HOW'D THEY GET GUNS?" The shooter shouted.

Jude and I ran down the hallway at full tilt. I looked back to see that one of them was chasing us. I aimed at him and fired.

"KEEP RUNNING JUDE!"

We turned the corner and at the end of the hallway there was an open classroom door.

"RUN FOR THAT ROOM!" Jude screamed.

I aimed the gun at the window in the room and fired, shattering it. We leapt through the window into the sunshine, and immediately it got louder.

People were screaming. Kids were crying. Police sirens were blaring. We approached a cop car.

"JUDE? CONNOR?"

We whipped around to see Stef and Lena marching toward us.

"MOM!" Jude screamed as she swept us both into an embrace.

"Thank god you boys are alright." She said, tears leaking down her face, "The school's been evacuated, but we couldn't find you two."

"Is everybody else okay?" I asked, "Jax, Daria, Austin, Jeremy, Ritchie, Wynston, Taylor?

"Everybody's out." Lena said, "Jax, Austin and Jeremy are on the way to the hospital right now, but the others are in the crowd somewhere."

"What happened to them?"

They went out a window like you two did." Stef said, "Jeremy was the last one out, and he got hit in the shoulder on the way out. Jax is in shock, and Austin wouldn't leave Jeremy's side."

"Dammit." Jude swore.

"The lead shooter is Jeremy's uncle." I told them.

No sooner had I said that than shots rang out and bullets hit the car. Jude and I wheeled around in sheer panic and fired back. Lena dove across the hood of the cop car to safety.

"Don't stop firing!" Stef shouted at us as she and the SWAT team opened fire too. My gun quickly ran out of ammo.

Faced with overwhelming resistance, all but one of the shooters fled back into the building.

Jeremy's uncle had broken free, and was running straight at me. My gun was out of ammo. I had no time to reload. I had no way of defending myself. Everybody I knew and cared about was safe.

I closed my eyes tight.

BANG!

I jumped and my eyes shot open just in time to see him crumple to the ground.

Everybody was staring at something to my left.

I turned, and for the first time in almost five years, came face to face with somebody who I never expected to see again.

I gasped in unconcealed shock.

My grandfather had just saved my life.

AN#2: And Connor's grandfather returns! Please leave a review.