“One gunman,” my partner said, catching me up. “Three students and two teachers hostage. One of the teachers is injured. A shot to the gut is what we hear.”

I borrowed Remy’s binoculars, placing the Bushnell L Series to my face.

“The hostages are in the art room, P.T.,” she said. “Back of the building. Far right. All the rest of the staff and students are accounted for. Fifty-nine adults. Three hundred and ninety-four kids.”

I scanned the school grounds. To the right of the main building was a rectangular sports field, currently dressed for football and not a soul on it. To the left was a concrete area with two deserted basketball courts and a cluster of orange metal lunch tables.

Backpacks and Coke cans lay abandoned on the ground in the lunch area. Even farther left was the new library, no longer under construction but not yet open. A vinyl banner was strung across the front, announcing the date of an upcoming ribbon-cutting.

“There’s something else,” Remy said. “Avis Senza may be one of the three girls inside.”

I pulled the binoculars down and made eye contact with my partner.

Avis Senza was a budding thirteen-year-old artist who attended the magnet school. She was also the daughter of our boss, Police Chief Dana Senza.

“Bullshit,” I said. But Remy’s face was dead serious.

My partner wore gray Kevlar over a white blouse and tan pants. The outfit contrasted with her dark brown skin.

“Vest,” she said to me, tapping at her own protection.

I grabbed mine. Pulled the straps tight around my chest. “The first report came in at 1:57,” Remy said. “A student saw a man in the art room with a gun. The kid did a one-eighty. Pulled the fire alarm and hightailed it.”

From there, whispers and texts moved through the school faster than summer lightning. Soon, four hundred kids were racing across the parking lot.

Kids streamed into the nearby forest, Remy explained. Flooded into adjoining neighborhoods.

I turned and reexamined the campus.

Falls Magnet Middle School was only two years old, built on land that locals once called the Sullivan farm. When I was a kid, I’d ridden my dirt bike here with friends—a six-foot-long frog gig duct-taped to the handlebars, the metal pole of the tool sticking up into the air.

Where the main building stood was once a pond that overflowed from Cleric River. Back when I was ten, you could catch two silver perch and a bullfrog here on a good Saturday.

I leaned on the butt of the Remington. “You got an I.D. on the weapon, Rem? So we know what we’re up against?”

Remy turned to a patrolman, crouched just the other side of her. My partner had the sharp cheekbones of a fashion model, and her long hair was flat-ironed and cut at an angle at her shoulders. She could be intimidating.

“The students who ran out of the school,” she said to the rookie. “You got ’em in a safe area in the parking lot?”