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Reed Quartermaine hated working weekends. He wasn’t crazy about working in the mall either, but he wanted to go back to college in the fall. And college included this little detail they called tuition. Add in books, housing, food, and you had to work weekends at the mall.

His parents covered most of the freight, but they couldn’t manage it all. Not with his sister heading off in another year, and his brother already three years in at American University in D.C.

He sure as hell didn't want to wait tables the rest of his life, so college. And maybe before he donned another cap and gown he'd figure out just what the hell he did want to do for the rest of his life.

But summers, he waited tables, and tried to look on the bright side. The restaurant's mall location worked okay, and the tips didn't suck. Maybe waiting tables at Mangia five nights a week with a double shift on Saturday killed his social life, but he ate well.

Bowls of pasta, loaded pizzas, hunks of Mangia’s renowned tiramisu hadn't put much meat on his long, bony frame, but it wasn't for lack of trying.

His father once had hope his middle child would follow in his football-star cleat-prints, as his oldest son had—resoundingly. But Reed’s complete lack of skill on the field and skinny frame dashed those hopes. Still, standing on a yard of leg by the time he’d hit sixteen, and a willingness to run all damn day, had made him a minor sort of star on varsity track, so that balanced it out some.

Then his sister took the heat off with her fierce talent on the soccer field.

He served a table of four their starters—insalata mista for the mother, gnocchi for the dad, mozzarella sticks for the boy, and fried ravioli for the girl. He flirted harmlessly with the girl who gave him long, shy smiles. Harmless because he figured she was maybe fourteen and off the radar for a collage man heading into his sophomore year.

Reed knew how to flirt harmlessly with young girls, older women and pretty much all in between. Tips mattered, and he'd honed the charm for customers after four summers of waiting tables.

“He covered his section—families, some old couples, a scatter of date-night thirty-whatevers. Probably dinner and a movie, which made him think he’d see if Chaz—assistant manager at GameStop—wanted to catch the late showing of The Island after their shifts.

“He ran credit cards—chatting up table three had bagged him a solid twenty percent--turned tables, swung in and out of the insane kitchen, and finally hit break time.

“Dory, taking my ten.”

The head waitress gave his section a quick scan, gave him the nod.

He stepped out of the double glass doors and into the Friday night mayhem. He considered texting Chaz and taking his ten in the kitchen, but he wanted out. Plus, he knew Angie worked the Fun In The Sun kiosk on Friday nights, and he could take four or five of his ten for some not-so-harmless flirting.

She had an off-and-on boyfriend, but the last word he heard said off. He could try his luck there and maybe score a date with somebody whose miserable schedule matched his own.

He moved fast on long legs through shoppers, through cliques of teenage girls and the teenage boys who scouted them, around moms pushing strollers or herding toddlers, through the incessant brain-numbing music he no longer heard.      

He had a mop of “black hair—his mother’s Italian half. Dory didn’t bug him about getting a trim, and his dad had finally given up. His eyes, deep set, pale green against olive-toned skin, brightened when he saw Angie at the kiosk. He slowed his pace, slipped his hands into his trouser pockets—casual—and sauntered over.

“Hey. How’s it going?”

She flashed him a smile, rolled her pretty brown eyes. “Busy. Everybody’s going to the beach but me.”

“And me.” He leaned on the counter with its display of sunglasses, hoping he looked smooth in his uniform of white shirt, black vest and pants. “I’m thinking of catching The Island, it’s got a ten-forty-five last show. It’s almost like a trip to the beach, am I right? Want in?”

“Oh … I don’t know.” She fussed with her hair, a beachy blond that went with the golden tan he suspected she got from the self-tanner in another display. “I do kind of want to see it.”

Hope sprang, and Chaz bumped off his list.

“Gotta make some fun, right? ”

“Yeah, but . . . I sort of told Misty we'd hang after closing.”

Chaz jumped back on the list. “That’s cool. I was heading down to see if Chaz wanted to catch it. We could all go.”  

“Maybe.” She flashed that smile again. “Yeah, maybe. I’ll ask her.”

“Great. I’m heading down to see Chaz.” He shifted to give more room to the woman waiting patiently while her kid—another who hit about fourteen—tried on a half a zillion pair of sunglasses. “You can text me either way.”

“If I could have two pairs,” the girl began, checking herself out in a pair with metallic blue lenses, “I’d have a spare.”

“One, Natalie. This is your spare.”

“I'll text you,” Angie murmured, then shifted to work mode. "Those look awesome on you.”

“Really?”

“Totally,” Reed heard Angie say as he headed off. He quickened his pace—he had to make up time.

Game Stop buzzed with its usual crowd of geeks and nerds, and for the younger geeks and nerds, the glazed-eyed parents trying to move them along.

Monitors previewed a variety of games—the PG variety on the wall screens. The less friendly ones on individual laptops—for use with ID over eighteen or parental supervision.

He spotted Chaz—king of the nerds—explaining some game to a confused-looking woman.

“If he’s into military-style game play, strategy and arc building, he’d go for it.” Chaz shoved his coke bottle glasses up his nose. “It’s only been out a couple weeks.”

“It seems so . . . violent. Is it appropriate?”

“Sixteenth birthday, you said.” He gave Reed a quick nod. “And he’s into the Splinter Cell series. If he's good with those, he'd be good with this.”

She sighed. “I guess boys are always going to play war. I'll take it, thanks.”

“They’ll ring you up at the register. Thanks for shopping Game Stop. Can’t hang, man,” he told Reed as the customer walked away. “Slammed.”

“Thirty seconds. Late show, The Island.”

“I’m all about it. Clones, baby.”

“Solid. I’ve got Angie on the hook for it, but she wants to bring Misty on.”

“Oh, well, I—”

“Don’t let me down, man. It’s the closest I've got to a date out of her.”

“Yeah, but Misty’s a little scary. And . . . do I have to pay for her?”

“It’s not a date. I’m working on turning it into a date. For me, not for you. You’re my wing man, and Misty’s Angie’s. Clones,” he reminded Chaz.

“Okay. I guess. Jeez. I wasn’t figuring on—”

“Great,” Reed said before Chaz changed his mind. “Gotta book. Meet you there.”

He rushed out. It was happening! Group non-date could clear the way for a one-on-one let’s hang out and that opened the door to the possibility of a little touch.

He could use a little touch. But right now he had three minutes to make it back to Manga or Dory would scorch his ass.

He started to lope when he heard what sounded like firecrackers or a series of backfires. It made him think of Game Stop's shooting games. More puzzled than alarmed, he glanced back.

Then the screaming started. And the thunder.

Not from behind, he realized, from up ahead. The thunder was dozens of people running. He jumped out of the way as a woman careened toward him racing behind a stroller where the kid inside wailed.

Was that blood on her face?

“What—”

She kept running, her mouth wide in a silent scream.

The avalanche rolled behind her. People stampeding, stomping on discarded shopping bags, tripping over them, and as some fell, over each other.

A man skidded over the floor, his glasses bouncing off to be crushed under foot. Reed grabbed his arm.

“What’s happening?”

“He’s got a gun. He shot—he shot—”

The man shoved to his feet, ran in a limping sprint. A couple of teenage girls ran weeping and screaming into a store at his left.

And he realized the noise—gunfire—came not only from in front of him, but behind him. He thought of Chaz, a thirty second sprint behind him, and his restaurant family, double that ahead.

“Hide, man,” he muttered to Chaz. “Find somewhere to hide.”

And he ran toward the restaurant.

The cracking, popping sound went on and on, seemed to come from everywhere now. Glass shattered and crashed, a woman with a bloodied leg huddled under a bench and moaned. He heard more screams—and worse the way they cut off, like a sliced tape.

Then he saw the little boy in red shorts and an Elmo tee-shirt staggering like a drunk past Abercrombie and Fitch.

The display window exploded. People scattered, dived for cover, and the kid fell down, crying for his mother.

Across the mall, he saw a gunman—boy?—laughing as he fired, fired, fired. On the ground, a man's body jerked as the bullets tore into him.

Reed scooped up the kid in the Elmo tee-shirt on the run, hooked him under one arm like the football he'd never been able to handle.

The gunfire—and he'd never, never forget the sound of it, came closer. Front and back. Everywhere.

He’d never make it to Mangia, not with the kid. He veered off, running on instinct, did a kind of sliding dive into the kiosk.

Angie, the girl he’d flirted with five minutes before, a lifetime before, lay sprawled in a pool of blood. Her pretty brown eyes stared at him while the kid hooked under his arm wailed.

“Oh God, oh Jesus. Oh Jesus, oh God.”

The shooting wouldn't stop, wouldn't stop.

“Okay, okay, you're okay. What's your name? I’m Reed, what’s your name?”

“Brady. I want Mommy!”

“Okay, Brady, we’re going to find her in just a minute, but now we have to be really quiet. Brady! How old are you?”

“This many.” He held up four fingers as fat tears splashed on his cheeks.

“That’s a big guy, right? We have to be quiet. There are bad guys. You know about bad guys?”

With tears and snot running down his face, with eyes huge with shock, Brady nodded.

“We’re going to be quiet so the bad guys don’t find us. And I’m going to call for the good guys. For the police.” He did his best to block the boy's view of Angie, did his best to block his own mind from the idea of her, of her and death.

He yanked open one of the sliding doors for storage, shoved out stock. “Climb in there, okay? Like Hide and Seek. I’m right here, but you get in there while I call the good guys.”

He nudged the kid in, got out his phone, and that’s when he saw how badly his hands shook.

“Nine-One-One, what is your emergency?”

“DownEast Mall,” he began.

“Police are responding. Are you in the mall?”

“Yeah. I’ve got a kid with me. I put him in the stock cabinet in The Fun In The Sun kiosk. Angie—the girl who worked it. She’s dead. She’s dead. God. There are at least two of them shooting people.”

“Can you tell me your name?”

“Reed Quartermaine.”

“Okay, Reed, do you feel you’re safe where you are?”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“Sorry. You’re in a kiosk so you have some cover. I’m going to advise you to stay where you are, to shelter in place. You have a child with you?”

“He said his name’s Brady, and he’s four. He got separated from his mother. I don't know if she’s . . .” He looked around, saw Brady had curled up, eyes glazed as he sucked his thumb. “He’s probably, you know, in shock or whatever.”

“Try to stay calm, Reed, and quiet. The police are on scene.”

“They’re still shooting. They just keep shooting. Laughing. I heard him laughing.”

“Who was laughing, Reed?”

“He was shooting, the glass exploded, the guy on the ground, he kept shooting him and laughing. Jesus God.”

He heard shouting—not the screams, but like war cries. Something tribal and triumphant. And more shots, then . . .

“It stopped. The shooting stopped.”

“Stay where you are, Reed. Help's coming to you. Stay where you are.”

He looked down at the boy again. The glassy eyes met his. He said, “Mommy.”

“We’re going to find her in a minute. The good guys are coming. They’re coming.”

That was the worst part, he’d think later. The waiting with the air burning with gunfire, with the sounds of calls for help, of moans and sobbing. And seeing the blood of the girl he’d never take to the movies on his own shoes.

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