Take Chances - A New Look

Active shooter!
Two words that strike at the heart of everyone who hears them, whether you are in the place where school violence is about to occur or are seeing the action unfolding live on social media or your local news station. Everyone demands answers immediately, as images of frightened children and their terrified parents are flashed before us.

             Such was the case on Valentine’s Day 2018. Another high school was undergoing the tragedy of violence most people can’t imagine occurring. News media broke into regular programming. Social media was instantly filled with news—with little concern for the accuracy. People were demanding answers even though as the dinner hour approached on the East Coast, the incident was still ongoing. As the night wore on, as the Easter season opened with Valentine’s Day becoming a night of mourning rather religious observation or couples enjoying the most romantic day of the year, all Americans and the world knew was that a teenage boy—his age was said to be seventeen, no eighteen, no nineteen—had entered a high school in Parkland, Florida and attacked students who were his former classmates before casually dropping his weapon and leaving with the panicked teens.
Take Chances on Kindle
As we enter the weekend, stunned and mourning families are picking up the pieces. Some are demanding instant answers. The suspect in this case is in jail, awaiting his day in court, but that’s not enough for families burying children, or even their husband/brother/father. There were heroic acts on Valentine’s Day 2018. Some were small. Some have already been mentioned. Yet, one has to wonder if those teens who are now attempting to sleep but are reliving that event in their terrifying dreams are capable of understanding that they are heroes too. 


That’s right. These survivors of this attack are heroes. They will continue high school, without friends, teachers, or an assistant football coach. They won’t feel like heroes but they are because they will walk through halls that won’t seem as safe. They will attend classes but look around with a sharper eye on the details. Not many of these teens will take much for granted. At times, they will huddle together, affirming that terror isn’t going to rain down on the again.
Take Chances in paperback
Take Chances is a book I wrote, rewrote, edited, started over, and finally found the right story to tell. It was first published in 2013. This week, in honor of the students of Marjory Stoneman High School, I’ve updated the cover and blurb, to reflect how society as a whole has felt since this news first broke.
Julie Bond and her friends are fictional characters but through intense research, I made them real people struggling to survive a madman in their classroom. They managed to make decisions that kept them alive despite their sheer terror. Instead of allowing the shooter to destroy them, they made a conscious decision to survive, even though they’d witnessed three people die already.
Active Shooter Civilian Response Training
This, too, required many hours of research, where I discovered the internet had a wealth of information about organizations who teach students and teachers how to be smart in these situations. The link above is one parents should demand their school districts check out. Teachers and students can learn how to hide, how to avoid, and how to survive. So many are demanding that certain weapons be banned, they want sweeping legislation to deal with this in a harsh manner, yet that won’t stop the terror that descended on one high school and could on others. So many factors have to be overcome before that can happen, but our children can learn how to react in a way that could ensure their survival if they’re ever faced with an active shooter.


About the K.C. Sprayberry
Born and raised in Southern California’s Los Angeles basin, K.C. Sprayberry spent years traveling the United States and Europe while in the Air Force before settling in northwest Georgia. A new empty nester with her husband of more than twenty years, she spends her days figuring out new ways to torment her characters and coming up with innovative tales from the South and beyond.
She’s a multi-genre author who comes up with ideas from the strangest sources. Those who know her best will tell you that nothing is safe or sacred when she is observing real life. In fact, she considers any situation she witnesses as fair game when plotting a new story.
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