EVENT SUMMARY & YOUR CHOICE:
At the end of Chapter 8, an unfamiliar man in a black suit holding an eagle card locked the inner latch of the classroom door, using threatening words to force Maya into handing over Mark. Thanks to her vigilance along with details from Mark's warning about those close to his father, Maya realized this was a kidnapping.
You chose [BRANCH 1]: Buy time, pretending Mark is too frightened and needs to urinate to take the boy into the restroom inside the classroom, lock the latch, and find a way to raise an alarm outside.
The air pressure inside the cramped classroom dropped to freezing point. The suffocating chemical smell mixed with the dampness of the rainy afternoon emanating from the stranger's black suit made Maya feel smothered. The fragile distance of less than two footsteps between her and him could completely be flattened with just a single reach of his hand.
Maya's heart pounded rhythmically as though wanting to burst inside her chest. But in this life-and-death moment, the stubborn toughness and survival instinct of a girl raised in the slums pulled her back to lucidity. She forced herself to swallow whole the fear surging up to her throat, hiding her trembling hands inside the two pockets of her apron.
Maya took a deep breath, lowered her center of gravity, and turned to look at the child trembling while clutching tightly onto her leg. She tried to make her facial muscles relax, her voice rising just loud enough, overflowing with the sharp irritation and practical helplessness of a teacher encountering an accident:
"Look at him! A child only five years old, you scared him so much that he wet his pants already!"
The man in the black suit paused for a beat. His sharp, snake-like cold eyes suspiciously glided down to the corner of the wooden floor where Mark was tightly hugging her leg, seeing the child's ultimate panic.
Without letting him time to think or harbor doubt, Maya added one more sentence very quickly with an annoyed yet slightly yielding attitude: "If he wears these soaking wet pants out to the car, the cold wind blowing outside will give him a high fever immediately. At that point, when you bring a delirious child back to meet Mr. Travis, go explain it yourself! Give me three minutes; I'll take him into the restroom inside to clean up and change into the backup pants in his backpack. Once finished, I'll bring him out to you!"
The man narrowed his eyes, dissecting every expression on Maya's face. He glanced at the restroom door situated in the innermost corner of the classroom — a small, narrow space on the ground floor, having no exit to the main hallway while he was blocking the only door. Seeing that the young teacher only displayed annoyance without looking as if she wanted to risk her life fighting back, coupled with firmly grasping the initiative inside the locked room, the man curled his lip in contempt, taking a step back:
"Three minutes. Don't play tricks, teacher."
"I know!" Maya snapped back, grasping Mark's ice-cold hand, pulling the child very quickly into the student restroom in the corner of the room.
Click! Snap!
The moment the pressed-plastic door closed, Maya instantly turned the inner latch lock, then her trembling hands fastened two additional safety chains above.
She knew very well that this ordinary plastic door could not withstand a few heavy kicks from an adult man, but it bought her a few dozen precious seconds. Maya's whole body felt as if it had lost all strength; she collapsed onto the cold ceramic tile floor. But she did not allow herself to give up. Maya crawled extremely fast toward the small sink meant for students.
When she first arrived at St. Jude for her internship, she had heard Ms. Beatrice complaining during a fire drill that every enclosed classroom on the ground floor was installed with a hidden alarm button connected directly to the security hut at the front gate to prevent fire or gas asphyxiation incidents, and that button was located right beneath the sink cabinet.
Maya thrust her hand into the dark space beneath the sink, frantically searching through the pile of plastic pipes. Her fingers touched a small plastic box with a raised button. Without a single moment of hesitation, Maya pressed down with all her strength on the red button!
Beep... beep... beep...
A silent signal stream was activated, transmitting directly to the security hut at the school gate.
Outside the door, the sound of footsteps — thud... thud... — of the man in the black suit began to thump impatiently around the sink area outside the classroom, the sound of knocking echoing harshly: "Two minutes are up! Hurry up your hands!"
At this time, Mark cowered in the corner of the restroom wall, both hands tightly clutching his head, tears rolling down his pale grey face. The child cried without a sound, each interrupted breath full of terror.
Maya hurriedly crawled back, embracing Mark's small body into her arms. She hugged him tightly to her chest, leaning close to the child's ear, whispering hastily a story about a brave cotton bunny, trying to make him less frightened so as not to cause loud noises that would agitate the person outside.
Wail... wail... wail...
Suddenly, from the far-off hallway outside, the emergency alarm siren of St. Jude School sounded rapidly, tearing apart the silent space!
"Damn it! Cursed bitch!" The hitman's harsh curse exploded right outside. He realized he had been trapped.
Thud! Thud!
No longer maintaining his fake politeness, the fellow began wildly using his heavy leather shoe soles to kick violently at the restroom door. The pressed-plastic door vibrated fiercely, the wooden frame creaking as hinges came loose, and net-like cracks began spreading wide.
At the same time, hasty footsteps sounded outside the classroom. Uncle Henry — the night guard over sixty years old, a white veteran with snow-white hair — had just used the master room key to kick open the main door latch and burst in! In his hands, he wielded a high-power flashlight and a pre-equipped pepper spray canister.
"Who's there?! What are you doing in the classroom at this hour?!" Uncle Henry shouted loudly in a deep, booming voice.
The man in the black suit turned around in surprise. Ruthless instinct made him reach into his vest fold intending to pull out a heavy object. But Uncle Henry was a veteran; seeing that abnormal reaction, he acted on survival instinct: spraying pepper spray directly into the hitman's face!
"Argh!" The hitman, struck suddenly by the pepper spray, roared in anger. He blindly swung the butt of a handgun around, striking the ceiling and causing plaster to fall down heavily.
Uncle Henry did not hesitate to rush forward and tackle the hitman, both crashing down onto the wooden floor in a rapid struggle. Blood from a scratch on Uncle Henry's head due to the impact flowed down, but the old veteran still gritted his teeth tightly, exerting all his strength to firmly pin down the hitman's legs to prevent him from advancing closer to the restroom, shouting as loud as he possibly could:
"Maya! Climb through the window right now! I'll hold him! Run!"
In this ground-floor classroom, the ventilation window of the restroom was situated at chest height to Maya, with the lawn in the school's backyard outside — the distance from the sill down to the ground was less than a meter and a half, extremely safe for escape.
Maya knew she was not allowed to waste a single second of the old guard's courage. She snatched open the window's metal latch, quickly lifting Mark up, pushing his two legs out first.
Mark slipped through the window easily and slid down onto the rain-soaked lawn outside. The clever child stood firm right on the muddy ground, looking up: "Ms. Maya, hurry up!"
Maya climbed onto the sink counter, squeezing half her body out the window. In that moment, she turned back to look through the gap of the restroom door that had been half-broken: Uncle Henry was using every last bit of his remaining strength to lock onto the hitman's ankle, while the hitman was wildly swinging his arms aiming to break free.
Snap! Thud!
The restroom door was completely kicked open by him.
Maya quickly grasped the edge of the window, lowering her body to slide down. Her feet touched the muddy ground safely. The landing from a low height only made her stagger slightly, leaving her completely uninjured.
"Let's go, Mark!"
Maya tightly held Mark's hand; both lowered their heads and ran for their lives toward the back gate of St. Jude School amidst the pouring downpour. Behind their backs, the hitman squeezed through the narrow window frame but got snagged due to his suit and oversized body, creating the conditions for Maya and the child to disappear into the dark San Francisco night.
