It happened the last day before Spring Break.

I was working in the front office when one of the teachers brought in a sixth-grade student. He wore shabby clothing and carried a backpack that barely hung onto one shoulder. Usually, the kids who are dragged into the office look angry or annoyed, but this kid just had a blank expression on his face.

"I caught him lighting matches in the hallway," the teacher said. He put an open matchbook on the desk, half of the matches already ripped out. "I've already written him up, I just need him to see Mr. Henderson." Mr. Henderson was our vice-principal and was generally in charge of suspensions and expulsions.

My coworker Nancy, the one who owns a Glock, got up. "Mr. Henderson's busy right now," she said, "but I'll keep on eye on him until he can see him."

The teacher sat the student down on the hard yellow plastic chair beside Nancy's desk and said, "Thanks. I need to get back to my class."

"Sure thing," Nancy said. She sat back down and looked at the student. "So what were you trying to do? Burn the school down?"

"Yes," he said. His voice was flat, unaffected.

Nancy shook her head. "Why?" she asked.

I knew that was the wrong question. No good ever comes from asking why. I was right.

"She told me it would be good," he said.

"'She'?" Nancy said. "Who told you?"

"She told me she would purify this place," the student said. "She told me that this place would burn and everyone who ever hurt me would burn with it. All I had to do was one thing."

"Right," Nancy said. "I think we're going to have to call child services, too. It's obvious-"

And that's when he pulled the gun from his backpack. He shot Nancy before she had time to speak. A hole blossomed in her head and blood and brains splattered her computer screen. Then he turned the gun to me and said, "She's going to purify this place. She's going to burn all those who burned me. All I have to do is kill you. All you have to do is die."

Mr. Henderson opened his door at that moment and he saw the student with the gun and Nancy, dead at her desk, and he backed away, but not fast enough. The gun went off two more times and I saw blood on his jacket, blood on his tie.

I was paralyzed. I couldn't handle this. This wasn't a dream. I couldn't will the gun into my hand. I couldn't do anything. I just stood there and waited for death.

The student looked at me and then raised his gun and pulled the trigger. At the sound of the click, the world around me froze like a still image. Nothing moved, not even the air. Everything was silent and still.

The man in the gray suit was behind me, but I couldn't turn to see him. He said, "This is one of the ways they will try to avoid their own fate. The child of ice imbued a lonely pain, but the bride burns into them a pain that wants to be shared, a pain that needs to be given away on the point of a knife or the tip of a bullet. But you have will. You have momentum." I felt the weight of the gun in my hand. Had he handed it to me or was it always with me? "Use it," he said and then he was gone.

The world unfroze. The student pulled the trigger and I moved out of the way. I felt something go by my ear. I fell sideways onto the floor and when I looked up, he was there, holding his gun with two hands, pointing it at me. "I just want it to stop," he said.

"Me too," I said and raised my gun and shot him.

I don't know how there was a bullet in the gun. I hadn't made one, but then again, a special bullet wasn't needed. Just a regular one, a small piece of metal, then pushed its way through his soft tissue and into his heart. He looked surprised as he died.

I didn't know what I was supposed to do next. This wasn't like before, with the boy in my kitchen. That boy had been a monster and he had vanished afterward. But this...this boy was real. His body lay on the floor, his blood pooling beneath him. I had killed him. I had ended his life.

I looked at the gun in my hand and at the boy on the floor and I stood up. I stood up and walked out of the room. I walked and then I ran.

I ran until I couldn't run anymore.