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Doc’s hand came down on the door handle, Harrison turned to look at me. He knew that once we stepped through the steel gate, there would be no turning back, and he wanted to give me one last chance to back out.
    Slowly, I shook my head, he frowned, and we followed Doc and Mei out the door.
    “I’ll clear the way,” I said, going ahead of Doc and holding my gun at the ready.
    Harrison grimaced and kept his eyes on me the entire way to the front.
    I stopped at the guard, whose gun I held, and looked down at him. His insides, which were now outside, were hardening across the warm pavement. Doing my best to ignore it, I stooped down, picked up the second magazine of ammunition, and dropped it in my pocket. I had the uneasy feeling we’d need it.
    Opening the steel gate wasn’t complicated. The issue was redirecting the attention of the ones who’d be trying to get at us once we did, one of whom was standing directly where the gate slid to the side and opened into the parking lot. He was an older man with silver hair and a gut, not a faculty member. Maybe a parent…maybe someone with no affiliation and who’d just happened to wander here. Half his leg was chewed off, but he was still standing, clinging to the bars that separated us. His eyes were locked on us and his mouth quivered like he felt some sort of rush at seeing us.
    “How do we get him out of there?” Doc whispered.
    Mei shrugged as I took a second to evaluate our options. But Harrison knew exactly what to do.
    Stepping up beside me, he kept his voice low and instructed, “When I open the gate…run.”
    Carefully, watching for any sign the man might catch on to what he was doing, Harrison inserted the key into the gate and turned it, sliding aside the automatic locking mechanism that was keeping us safe.
    Then two things happened at once. First, the gate squeaked and the heads of all those standing in the parking lot snapped up in search of the source. Second, the man lunged for Harrison.
    It felt like my stomach jumped up into my throat as I watched it happen. Shoot, my instinct screamed, but Harrison was blocking any access to him. As he grabbed the man, Doc and Mei did as commanded, sprinting for Old Boy. I waited, unable to leave Harrison alone in the struggle. He was working on gripping the man’s erratic arms, when he had to shift to the side as the man’s teeth came dangerously close and grazed his ear. I took aim, but Harrison’s head came into sight. I had to step aside to look for a better angle. Then Harrison completely surprised me by picking up the man and shoving him into the air, through the curved spear at the top of the steel gate. The man’s arms and legs flailed until his snarl softened and he became entirely motionless.
    Harrison stood there, registering what had just happened, and I opened my mouth to tell him that he didn’t have that option when he seemed to come to that conclusion on his own. Spinning around, he grabbed me by the arm and sent me into a run.
    By that point, everyone with blood on them was either charging in our direction or toward Doc and Mei, who were now only a few feet from Old Boy. Suddenly, I wished that I’d given them the keys.
    “Kennedy?” Harrison called out, and I followed his line of sight, knowing instantly what his intentions were. Staring back at the mass of bodies running for us, he was telling me to shoot.
    I raised the gun, settled the front sight on the closest one, just as my dad had taught me, and pulled the trigger twice. Two shots landed in the chest. Yet, the man kept running at us.
    “The head!” Harrison urged. “Aim for the head!”
    I did, and the man’s head snapped back just before the rest of his body followed. Without waiting for his legs to collapse entirely, I moved on to the next closest one. And as they fell, we made our way to the car. I unloaded the weapon until I saw the slide back and, mid-pace, I dropped the magazine and loaded the other one. It was the last of the