Black Bird of the Gallows by Meg Kassel

Author:Meg Kassel [Kassel, Meg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: blackbird;paranormal romance;first love;first crush;first kiss;best friends;music;electronic dance music;danger death;high school;bees;crows;harbingers;shootings;car accidents;murder;suicide;
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Published: 2017-07-16T18:30:00+00:00

21- the connection

School is closed Friday, the day after the shooting, and so is The Strip Mall. It’s a good thing, since my dad isn’t letting me out of his sight. We spend Friday and Saturday hanging out on the couch, playing video games, eating ice cream straight from the container—yes, Dad decided that life was too short to live without dairy after the awful events at school—and watching the news. The ice cream is glorious. The news is not.

The shooter was a twenty-three-year-old guy with no previous problems with the law. The network flashes his picture on the screen every five seconds and really, you couldn’t find a more everyday-looking guy. I mean, he really did not look like a psycho. He wasn’t from Cadence, but from a rural town farther east in Appalachia. The shooter’s red-faced parents cry to the reporter that their boy was a good boy. They never saw this coming. And no, they didn’t know about any guns. They don’t know why their son tried to kill all those people. None of the smart people on the news know why, either.

The sad thing is, there is no why. The shooter probably was a good boy before he was stung.

Dad shakes his head, drilling his spoon into a pint of rock-hard mint chip. “I don’t get what makes people do these things,” he says. “I’m just so glad you’re safe.”

The number of times he has told me how glad he is I’m safe this weekend is in the double digits. I pat his arm. “Me, too.”

I’d been trying to find the right time to bring up a possible temporary exit from Cadence. To get myself and Dad out of town, in case that really bad thing happens. With the recent violence, now seems to be a good time to try. “Hey, Dad, what do you think of taking a trip?”

“Hmm.” He nods. “I could see about taking some time off in April. When’s your break?”

“I was thinking like, next week? We could check out a few of the colleges I applied to. In Philadelphia and New York? We could make a road trip of it.”

“Can’t do it. I’m closing a huge sale of equipment to the hospital and will be in Pittsburgh part of the week to train the techs on it.” His brows knit. “Besides, you can’t miss school for a road trip. Don’t you have midterms coming up?”

“Right. Okay. Just a thought, with all the stuff that’s been going on around here, I thought…”

He shakes his head. “You’re not missing school. I understand what happened scared you, but Cadence is still a safe place, Angie.”

Nope. He’s not biting. A trill of panic traces up my spine. I’m not getting out of Cadence, but my dad will be in Pittsburgh. That’s something. I could get really hysterical, tell him a catastrophe’s coming and we’re going to die, but I suspect all that would do is make my dad cancel his appointments in Pittsburgh and stay home with me.

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