Surrender at Dawn by Laura Griffin Read Free Book Online

instructions.
    “What’s your setup?” Lieutenant Reynolds demanded.
    Jonah was already leaning over the backseat to do a quick inventory of the cargo space. “Two shotguns, a rifle, and a couple of flash bangs.” His pulse started to pound. “How many shooters?”
    “We don’t know.”
    “What kind of weapon?”
    “We don’t know that either. We don’t know shit! All I got is a bunch of hysterical 911 calls, someone’s gunning down people on the lawn. Some kid just got shot off his bike. ETA?”
    Jonah glanced through the tinted windows as a blur of storefronts raced past. “Two minutes, tops.”
    “Okay, then you’re it, Macon. I’m fifteen minutes out. You guys got any Kevlar?”
    “Three vests and a flak jacket.”
    “Take all of it. And call me when you get there.”

    Crack.
    Another burst of cement on the nearby sidewalk. Sophie huddled tighter and looked back at the howling little girl.
    “Get down! ” Sophie shouted.
    From the pavement, an arm reached up and tugged weakly at the girl’s shorts. The arm was attached to a hugely pregnant woman who was lying in an ever-expanding pool of her own blood.
    Dear Lord. Someone had to get them out of here, but there was no one. The campus that had been crawling with students just moments ago was now a ghost town. Sophie darted her gaze around. Where was the shooter? Had he entered a building? Sophie eased up slowly and peered around the base of the bronze statue.
    Crack.
    An agonized scream behind her. Sophie recoiled. She peeked beneath her quivering elbow and saw a man hunched at the base of a flagpole, clutching his ankle with a bloody hand.
    Sophie’s gaze was drawn behind her, where a corpse was now baking on the sidewalk. At the edge of the grass, another man lay sprawled across the ground, a backpack beside him. A student. Sophie’s heart jack-hammered against her rib cage as she watched the flies already buzzing around him.
    This can’t be happening.
    The crying intensified. Sophie glanced again at the child, who was hunched over her mother, sobbing uncontrollably. She had to be only two, maybe three years old. The woman twisted onto her side, probably trying to shield the girl with her body. They were behind a large oak tree, thank goodness. But if the child moved too much--
    Crack.
    Glass shattered on a building nearby.
    Crack. Crack. Crack. One by one, the second-story windows exploded, and she thought of those shooting games at carnivals where the targets were little yellow ducks.
    Sirens grew louder as Sophie scoured the rooflines for any sort of movement or muzzle flash. She went from building to building all around the quadrangle, searching the red tile roofs and the highest row of windows.
    Her gaze came to rest on the white limestone monolith that sat atop the hill, overlooking the entire campus like a giant Sphinx.
    And suddenly she knew. The gunman was on top of the library.
    And from there he could see everything.

    Copyright 2011 Laura Griffin