(Look to description for trigger warning)

…

“Well,” my customer service voice flipped on to full force to combat my discomfort, “welcome again.”

The kid, he must have been a freshman, was practically shaking and doing everything he could to avoid making eye contact with me. He reminded me of the chihuahua waiting at home for me and it made me want to comfort him. “Hon, go ahead and swipe your id card here, or tell me your student id number.”

He swiped his card, revealing his name to be Trent. Seeing classes like ENG 101 and MAT 117 confirmed my suspicions of him being a freshman. “So Trent, what class are you here for, hon?”

“Umm,” he barely spoke above a whisper. “Math?”

“Okay,” he finally made eye contact and I smiled. “You can go ahead and sit anywhere you like. When you need a tutor, there is a link at the table: fill it out and as soon as there is a tutor available for your class, they’ll come on over.”

“Thanks,” Trent mumbled as he walked around the front desk toward the student tables. There were already quite a few students in the center, so finding a seat would be difficult.

As he walked away, I couldn’t help but notice how nervous he still was, his shoulders tensed practically to his ears.

“Oh,” I turned around to add, and as I did, my breath was stolen out of me. Barely sticking out of his backpack was the tip of a gun. And not the concealed-carry type. No, this looked to be a semi-automatic rifle. I turned back to Karen and hissed. “Call 9-1-1 from the work phone, that kid had a gun.”

Before she could respond, I bolted up from my seat and walked towards where Trent was going. “Hey, Trent!” He turned to look at me. “I just wanted to let you know that if you had any logistical questions, you could ask me.” I tried to appear as calm as possible. Trent clearly wasn’t nervous because he needed help with his math homework.

He grunted and turned, tucked his head down, and continued on his path. I was trying to stall while Karen called the police. At least I hoped she was; I left too soon to confirm. I needed to do something, and fast.

“Trent!” It definitely came out more panicked than I intended. “Are you okay? Is there anything we can do to make this tutoring situation a little easier on you?” I had slowly edged my way around him as I was talking, essentially blocking his path to the rest of the tutoring center.

His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates. It looked like he was truly contemplating my offer. “No,” his wide eyes narrowed, shifting from a fearful glint to a stare that incites fear. “But getting out of my way would help.” Trent smirked and reached his hand back to his bag. At that moment, I knew that I had a chance to stop him from whatever it was he was aiming to do. So, without hesitation, I ran forward, body slamming Trent to the ground, right as I heard a loud pop.

Everything was fuzzy, but slowly coming back into focus. I looked down to see Trent’s face right under mine. His eyes were closed, and he finally seemed to be at peace. The pop I had heard must have been his head colliding with the floor. I didn’t mean to hit him THAT hard, but it was what I needed to do to stop him from doing something crazy. Who knows how many people he could have killed if he opened fire in the tutoring center- there were at least 40 people in this room and 200 more spread in the classrooms next door. I sighed, knowing that I had made the right decision, even if it meant giving the kid a concussion.

Realizing that Trent could awake at any moment, I tensed my body to hold him down. Trent wasn’t a big dude, but I found it increasingly difficult to use my strength to push him down. And before I knew it, I felt my body being lifted. It felt like I was floating, until the warmth of a hand on my sternum and legs caused me to turn. As I did, I had just enough time to see Rex and Jace pounced on Trent’s arms and legs before Jared cradled me to himself.

Jared slowly sat down on the ground, shifting me to be sitting on his lap. In doing so, he shifted one arm behind my back, helping to keep me up right, and the other to my stomach, where he was pressing his jacket. I met his eyes and saw something that I wasn’t expecting: they were misty with tears.

“What the actual hell, Violet-Rose,” Jared coughed in a soft voice.

I smiled up at him. “He had a gun, I couldn’t very well let him go around shooting people.”

“Yeah,” The mist in Jared’s eyes precipitated into tears. "But…”

Before he could go on, I lifted my hand to his face to wipe away a tear, but instead of removing a tear, I left a smear of red.

My face went white as I let my hand fall. I glanced down at my stomach and saw red seeping through Jared’s jacket. “Welp,” my voice cracked. “That could have gone a lot worse.”

Jared’s arms began to shake. “Yeah, but it could have gone a lot better.”