Page 24 of Beyond Redemption

Tears slid down Livvy’s cheeks again, this time in quiet devastation.

Bodhi straightened, turning to me. “I haven’t heard much about the shooter. Only that he acted alone.”

I nodded. “Twenty-one-year-old male student. Poli-Sci major. No criminal record. Campus police say he’d been posting concerning things online in the last few weeks. Anti-establishment, pro-free-everything, anti-anyone-who-had-what-he-didn’t. They’re pulling his hard drive now. Looks like he’d been planning it since fall.”

Livvy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and looked up at me, suddenly hurt. “Did the FBI know? Have they been watching him?”

“I’m not sure yet. I hope not,” I said, and I meant it. We’d let too many of these kids slip through the cracks. “He’d been on academic probation and lost his scholarship. Some manifesto crap about systems and justice. That’s all I know for now.”

Livvy stared at the table, her expression hollow. “He killed people over tuition?”

“Some people just… break,” Bodhi said quietly. “Some get so filled with hate, so lost they try to take others with them. There’s no explanation. It’s just evil, Liv. That’s the only explanation. Evil.”

She turned to me, eyes raw. “I keep thinking… what if I hadn’t gone to the basement to check the activity flyers to pass the time before class? What if I’d been upstairs in the hallway? Or on the Green with Keisha? She invited me out there. What if—”

“Stop,” I said gently but firmly. “Don’t torment yourself with hypotheticals. You survived. You protected yourself and eight other students. That’s all that matters.”

“Eight others?” Bodhi said, light returning to his eyes.

Livvy shook her head. “I only did what Liis told me to do.”

“You could’ve froze,” I said. “You didn’t. You gave them instructions, kept them calm and quiet until help arrived. You saved their lives and yours, Livvy.”

“That’s brave as hell,” Bodhi said. “I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

She shook her head, more tears spilling. “It didn’t feel brave. It felt like being alone in the wilderness at night, hearing branches snap around you without knowing what was hunting you in the dark.” Her voice shook, but she pushed through it. “That’s what it felt like, the pure terror of being hunted. I was standing in front of the cork board, looking over the stupid flyers. Then, I heard it. The… pop.” She pressed a hand to her chest. “It didn’t sound real. My brain didn’t want to believe it, so I ignored it at first. And then more pops, and they echoed. People started to scream. Sneakers running past the windows. I just… stood there for the longest time. It felt like I was underwater, and the world was screaming somewhere above me.”

Bodhi’s jaw flexed, his eyes burning with helplessness.

“I ran into the nearest storage room,” she continued. “In the corner, in the back. The other students in the basement followed me inside. The lock didn’t latch, so I pushed a box against it and curled up in the corner behind stacks of chairs. It smelled like dust and chemicals, and I kept thinking… this is where I’m going to die. In the dark. With strangers.” She broke off, shuddering. “I kept hearing doors slamming. Distant screams, more gun shots. I couldn’t do anything to help them. I… I gripped my phone until my hands cramped. Then I realized I had it, could use it… That’s when I called Liis.”

She took a breath that seemed to barely fill her lungs. “I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I just held my phone against my ear, focused on Liis’s voice, and tried to make myself small enough that he wouldn’t see me if he opened the door.”

Bodhi quickly wiped his eyes.

“When you found me,” she whispered, “I wanted to move, but I couldn’t. I was screaming inside my head to move, but I just… couldn’t. I felt like if I moved, I’d die. One of the guys in therewith me had to help me stand. I couldn’t make my legs work for what seemed like an eternity.”

Her face crumpled again, and Bodhi pulled her against him, holding her while she cried into his shoulder.

I watched them, a heavy ache settling in my chest. Livvy felt safe with him in a way that she didn’t with anyone else, not in the last two and a half years. In that moment, everything became clear. I didn’t need to be her father to feel protective of her. I didn’t need to share a bloodline to want her safe. Trenton had felt the same about a little girl once, and before now, I’d never understood it.

Livvy drew back, wiping her cheeks. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Never apologize for this. We want to help.”

Bodhi brushed a tear from the corner of her eye with his thumb.

She leaned her forehead against his. “I thought I’d never see you again. And I felt so awful, thinking about what it would feel like to lose you and not have you there to help me get through it… the one person who could. I hated the thought of putting you through that.”

He closed his eyes, seeming to war with that thought in his mind. “I couldn’t think about it. Losing you isn’t an option I could consider, not even for a second.”

I looked away then, giving them a moment. It was in that instant I felt something ease inside me; some worry I hadn’t even admitted was there. Livvy was loved—fully, fiercely, faithfully. And would always be.

The front door opened, and Liis’s voice drifted down the hall. She was talking to Stella softly, in the tone she used when something delicate needed protecting, likely trying to explainthat Livvy needed quiet and tender handling, but translated into terms a toddler could grasp.

Stella’s backpack thumped against the wall near the entry; the door closed with care.

“Okay,” Liis said, gentle but firm. “We’re going to use inside voices today. Livvy’s had a hard afternoon.”