The Essence by Kimberly Derting Page A

with my weapon,” she said, grinning at Zafir.
    Zafir ignored her as he dragged me to a stop. Brook followed his lead, hauling the children into a nook at the end of the storage lockers. He lifted his hand, and we all understood what he meant: Be silent.
    It was several seconds before we heard what he had, and I felt the boy’s fingers tangle into the hair at the base of my neck. I could hear his breathing—tiny, wheezing gasps—and I worried that he might cough again, might inadvertently give away our location. I steadied my own breathing, hoping his lungs might follow my lead, hoping my calm might somehow filter into him.
    Rubble crunched coming from behind the heavy screen of smoke. It sounded like a thousand boots pulverizing the broken ceiling tiles beneath them.
    Zafir gazed down at me, and I knew what he was looking at. With my skin the way it was, there was no way we could remain hidden. . . . Even if the boy didn’t cough. Even if we remained completely silent.
    He stripped off his jacket then and draped it around me, covering as much of me as possible. . . . My arms and my hands. He buttoned it around the boy, too, closing it all the way to my neck. Then he took off his shirt and wrapped it around my head, concealing my hair and part of my face, until only my eyes were still visible.
    He was camouflaging me.
    And then he stood in front of me, using his body to barricade mine.
    We waited like that, listening for more screams or shouts. For gunfire or another round of explosives. But instead we heard only the sound of approaching feet. Inside the fabric that swathed my face, it grew harder and harder to breathe, but I didn’t complain. I didn’t even shuffle my feet. I simply kept my eyes wide and alert, straining to see.
    “Commander Maier?” A woman’s voice finally cut through the dense smoke, using Brooklynn’s formal title. “Are you in here?”
    Brook released the children’s hands. “I’m here. We’re all here.”
    Behind the woman—one of the guards who’d been in front of the school that morning—there were several more soldiers, all wearing the same uniform. All standing at attention, awaiting word from their leader . . . from Brook.
    “The army arrived shortly after the first bomb was detonated,” the soldier stated as she stepped forward, her stance formal and stiff. I released a breath and hugged the boy, relief swelling through me as I unraveled Zafir’s shirt from my face as I listened. “We lost a lot of civilians in the blasts, even more in the gun battle.”
    The use of the word “civilians” made my stomach tighten. Children, I thought. She meant children.
    “Once the terrorists realized they were outnumbered, they fled. The ones our forces didn’t get, the snipers took care of on their way out of the buildings. Unfortunately, we didn’t take a single one of them alive, so we have no way of knowing who, exactly, was responsible for the attack here today.”
    Brooklynn sighed, and there was nothing rigid about her posture. She looked deflated, defeated. “Yes we do,” she said simply, running her hand through her tangled curls. “It was my father.”

     
    When we exited the building, the sunlight nearly blinded me and I had to shield my eyes until they’d adjusted.
    I heard a woman screaming, but not in the same way the students inside the walls of the Academy had screamed. Her voice, the woman’s, was filled with so much relief it nearly undid her. The little boy in my arms wiggled and struggled against me, and I had no choice but to release him the moment his feet hit the ground.
    I glanced up in time to see the woman break free from the crowd, still shouting, and I realized she was calling out a name: “Phoenix!” she cried as the boy raced down the steps and jumped into her outstretched arms. She swallowed him up, hugging him ferociously. “Phoenix . . . Phoenix . . . my sweet baby Phoenix . . . ” Her last words trailed into Parshon, and I