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of Pacific Lake High School instead.
    This was ridiculous. The overreacting. The fear.
    “ Bears are not trying to poison me ,” she thought to herself. “ Bears are not trying to poison me .”
    There was no way that any of this amounted to anything remotely exciting. She just needed her damn homework so she could go on vacation with her family. For a moment, she thought of just walking with confidence down toward her locker, and if a guard stopped her, she would just say with calm precision, “My ride to the airport is waiting outside. I just need my Ray Bradbury book and I’ll be on my way.”
    The walkie-talkie crackled again, but it was moving away from her. Further down the hall it traveled. A man’s voice, some security guard, sounded an “All Clear” for the science and main hallways. The talking turned a corner, toward the cafeteria, and away from her.
    Two minutes.
    With a deep breath, Lucy hesitated. Then, without thought, she sprinted, running as fast as her legs would carry her, shoes slapping heavily on the tile. She closed her eyes and ran; straight by lockers and classrooms, past the front of the building and the main office, they were all a blur as she sped down the wide stretch of hallway.
    Then, she rounded the corner toward the English hall. Within eyesight of her locker, she slowed her pace, her heart beating with rapid thumps against her chest, blood pounding in her ears. Then her body flew forward. Pain shot up her legs and arms as she hit the tile with a crash, knocking the air out of her body. She landed on her elbows and knees and slid forward several feet before stopping. Her head caught the metal of a locker—a burning pain traveled from the top of her ear and all the way down her neck.
    After a few moments, Lucy collected her composure and took in a giant gulp of air. She hoisted herself into a sitting position and then turned to see what had caused her fall.
    And that was when she saw the body.
    Crumpled in a heap, like someone dropped a wet rag on the floor and left it there.
    She scooched herself backward, her feet slipping against the tile, until she felt her back hit the hardness of the lockers. It was a boy, his face turned in her direction, his eyes open and staring past her; one eye, one-solitary eye, was filled with blood, the blackness of the pupil still peeking through the bright red. It was a freshman she didn’t recognize.
    One minute.
    Lucy stood up, viscerally aware of how her knees wobbled together. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest; pulsating outward all the way to her fingertips. As if walking on a small ledge, she high-stepped along the row of lockers, until she reached her own and only then did she turn around, her hands shaking as she spun the lock.
    Nine.
    Twenty-six.
    Seventeen.
    There was a dead boy in the hall.
    A dead boy in the hall.
    Someone left a dead boy in the hallway.
    And yet she was still fully fixated on her homework and getting the hell out of there.
    She couldn’t shake the boy’s image as she pulled up and opened the locker with a click. Lucy grabbed her big purple binder that was covered in Salem’s doodles, political cartoons, and a photo of her family stuck on one side and a picture of her holding Harper on the other. She dropped the binder into the backpack and then grabbed her copy of Fahrenheit 451 , sliding it into the bag and zipping it up. Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath and she let it in one giant hot gush. Voices down the hall snapped her to attention. Men’s voices, conversational, but hushed.
    Time was up.
    The voices were gaining on her.
    No more than thirty feet away were the doors leading outside. Lucy could hear the distant sounds of sirens traveling up the street. Ethan was out there, waiting for her, and her mother and her family were at home. They had a plane to catch. This couldn’t be happening; she had a plane to catch.
    Lucy struggled to wrap her mind around the evidence—the lack of