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The sun shone into the classroom and Jay bit the top of his pen as he stared at the board and tried to follow what the teacher was saying about the lesson.
If it had been almost any subject besides human anatomy, Jay would have been able to focus, at least he normally could.
The nine-year-old normally loved science classes, but once the teacher had started talking about guts and explaining what the intestines did.
He turned his head and started to stare out of the window at the older class doing an outdoor Phys Ed lesson. He squinted as he saw his brother, Will chasing a soccer ball; obvious because of the bright red curls, fair skin and the taller and lanky figure.
Jay’s hair had been an auburn colour but now it was starting to move closer to brown, unlike Will, his hair was mostly straight, there was the hint of a curl at the ends as they hung around his head. His mother had cut his hair last and left it a bit longer than it normally was.
Will kicked the ball and looked up, smiling as he saw Jay and giving him a small wave before joining the fray of his classmates.
“Jay?” The hissing of his name almost made him jump before his head swung around to look at his friend sitting beside him.
Betty tipped her head slightly to the front and Jay froze.
Miss Thomas was sitting on the chair at her desk, something she hardly ever did and Jay followed the direction of her face to see a man standing in near her with Lacy in his arms and a knife to her throat. Jay caught a gasp in his throat and looked at the rest of his class.
What had he missed while daydreaming?!
“Look, Mr Skees, you don’t have to hurt the kids, please let them go.” Miss Thomas asked with a small smile, gesturing with one hand to the desks of children.
There were half the number of students in the class today because a bad virus had been going around and a lot of the kids were off sick.
“D-D-Daddy, please…” Lacy whimpered as the man pulled her back against his body.
“I’m not stupid, Miss T, I let anyone go and I know help will be sent.” The man snarled and Lacy started to try and hold back sobs.
Miss Thomas looked around the room of nine- and ten-year-olds with worry and Jay swallowed a lump as he turned his head and tried to figure out if he could get a signal to Will for help.
“Kids, if everyone does what I say, this will be over really fast and nobody will have to be punished for not following instructions. Everyone understand?” As the room filled with quiet, out-of-sync yesses or silent and scared nods, Jay carefully turned to a clean page in his exercise book. “Good.” Lacy’s Dad nodded and Jay started to carefully write on the piece of paper.
His plan was to hold the paper up to the window, or try and get it to stay there if he couldn’t, as he wrote he began looking for something that could make it stay on the window.
“Everyone get up very slowly and quietly and go sit on the floor over in the corner.” He was tall as he used his head to point with his chin to the mat on the carpet in front of Miss Thomas’ chair. Jay hadn’t even finished writing ‘help’ on the sheet of paper as his friends started to get up from behind their desks.
Jay took a quick look at Lacy, who now had some tear streaks on her cheeks and started to write faster. He’d been over to her house for a party or two before her mother had divorced Lacy’s dad and he could remember her father being so loving and adoring to her, seeing him look so upset and holding the knife to Lacy’s throat made Jay’s stomach feel funny.
Jay finished writing ‘help!’ and started to write the word ‘knife’, with the plan to also write Mr Skees to let them know who had the knife.
“Hey! Kid in the back, aren’t you Pat and Moira’s kid?” The yell made Jay drop the pencil and try not to shake as he looked up and saw Lacy and her dad standing just a few desks away from him now.
There were two more students that were almost on the floor when Lacy was shoved into the chair in the middle of the room, and the desk was kicked away, crashing with others before several landed on the floor with their legs tangled. Lucy was shaking and whimpering as she cowered at the noise.
Jay jerked and stood up quietly. “You’re scaring her!” Jay said angrily, trying to hide the fear he had.
“Answer my question!” The knife pointed towards him and Jay stumbled and fell backwards with his chair. The landing on the floor was hard and sent a strong jolt through his body from his behind, the surprise winding him.
“Yes!” He answered as he put his hands on the floor behind him to push himself up to a sitting position Jay didn’t get far before he felt a large hand and its sausage fingers grab hold of his hair and pull upwards.
“Ahh!” He cried out in surprise, rising quickly and trying to grab the fistful of hair to relieve the pull.
“I used to work with your father.” The man snarled, pulling Jay close to him, still holding his hair. “Hated him.”
“Please, let me go, it hurts!” Jay tried to keep the tremble from his voice as he looked from Lacy drying to her father.
“Sir, there really is no…”
“Shut up you bitch! My family is only broken because of your big mouth calling DCFS and telling them I hit my baby.” Jay was yanked towards the front of the room as the fist holding his hair pointed towards his teacher.
“Please, let me go.” Jay tried again and thought about kicking the man’s foot until he was pulling up straight and almost off the floor. He almost screamed in pain and then a few moments later his ears were actually assaulted by a chorus of screams and his name.
He felt the sting as glass cut through the skin on his face and the sound of the smash caught up with the blinding pain. There was a piercing feeling that started from his lower back and he cried out Will’s name.
He was pulled back in through the broken window, still being controlled by his hair and then flung to the floor near Lacy, who despite her crying got off the chair and helped him sit up.
“I’m sorry, Jay…” She bit her bottom lip and pulled her sleeve over her hand, gently dabbing it on his face.
He looked around in confusion as he felt a tickle slice down the side of his face. When Lacy was pulled up from the floor next to him, she cried out in shock and Jay saw red staining the fabric over her sleeve.
“Daddy, please!” She squealed as he pulled her back against his body.
Jay groaned and moved a hand to the part of his back that ached; he felt something warm and wet soaking into his shirt and frowned. He pulled his hand back around to his front and saw blood.
Why was he bleeding?
The glass had only cut his face, right?
Seeing it made him feel a little dizzy and a few moments later he heard Will say his name.
“Daddy, please let me go… You’re scaring me.” Lacy’s sobs barely reached Jay’s ears as he looked at the broken window and the top of Will’s head trying to get a better view.
Jay frowned and blinked, feeling the dizziness get worse as he put his hand gingerly back on the sore spot. He grunted in pain and his upper body swayed.
“Lacy, you’re coming home with me, baby, OK? Everything’s going to be alright now…” Mr Skees started to walk towards the classroom door.
“Mr Skees, please… that isn’t the…”
“I said shut up!” Lacy screamed as the knife moved from her throat to point at her teacher.
Jay blinked slowly and swallowed a lump, it was getting harder to follow what was happening and he looked from Lacy and her Dad to the board behind his teacher.
The anatomy drawing on the board made him wonder which organ he was bleeding from.
He saw Mr Skees pulling Lacy to the door bit by bit and then started to fight the urge to lay down on the floor.
He groaned quietly and decided he would feel better if he did actually lie down on the floor. The movement made him whimper in pain from his back and when he was down, he closed his eyes, trying to focus on words.
“We’ll just be going now,” Jay heard the door to the classroom start to open and then a few moments later there was a scream from just outside and some angry shouts he knew belonged to Mr Skees.
“Lace…” He muttered as he felt the heaviness pulling his body below the floor, even if it was realistically impossible.
“Help! We need help in here!” Miss Thomas was putting a hand to his cheeks and he barely opened his eyes. “Hang on, Little Jay, medics are coming…” She said gently, her eyes wide with worry.
“Hurs... M’s T…” His mouth felt thick and he let out another low groan.
“I know, honey, don’t worry.” She forced a smile and Jay gave her a small one in return before closing his eyes again.
Jay groaned as the beeping greeted his ears. “Shhh…”
“Jay?” Will’s voice sounded scared and worried and he felt his big brother’s hand squeeze his. “Can you open your eyes for me, bud?”
He swallowed, trying to get some moisture into his dry throat, but it didn’t work. He blinked his heavy eyelids open and frowned when he saw Will’s wide, brown eyes barely inches from his face.
“Oh thank goodness.” Their mother’s voice came from behind Will and Jay’s eyes moved up in confusion.
“Where am I? What happened?” He asked croakily.
“You don’t remember?” Will moved back and looked up at their mother with a frown.
“I was at school, and I know it had something to do with Lacy…”
His mother’s face appeared beside the bed and she stroked his head. “Oh, baby, Mr Skees came into the classroom and tried to kidnap Lacy.”
“Is she OK?” Jay tried to sit up and cried out in pain when he felt his back send a shooting feeling up his back.
“Oh, oh, honey, no, you have to stay down…” His mother gently pushed him back down into the bed, shaking her head.
He looked up and saw the bag of clear fluid next to a bag of blood and followed the tubing down to a needle in his elbow.
Suddenly he felt sick. “Why am I in hospital?”
“Mr Skees used your head to break a window and stabbed you,” Will said.
“Why?” Jay’s hoarse voice quivered.
“Because you were trying to write a message for help.” His mother’s hand stroked his head again. “And Lacy is OK, a bit scared, but there were police outside waiting for her Dad.”
“Good, Lacy is nice,” Jay remembered her being on the floor beside him, using her pretty sleeve to wipe his face after the window and groaned. “I don’t like needles, when can I go home?”
“The doctors say it might be a few days, you lost a lot of blood, honey…” She tilted her head and Jay felt his face pinching.
“But, mum, please? I wanna go home…”
“Jay, you gotta do what the doctors say so you can get better.” Will gave him an exaggerated pout.
“Will’s right, Lil’ Jay.” She leaned down and kissed the top of his forehead. “You need lots of rest, go back to sleep. I promise we’ll be here with you when you wake up.”
Jay pouted at them both before nodding slightly.
“We love you.” Will stood up and gave Jay a kiss on the forehead as his eyelids started to droop again and his pout went away.
“Love you too.” He mumbled before he fell back asleep.