Wolf points through the security gate at the kid Parker recognized. His name is Joe or Joel—something like that—and he’s a year behind Parker at school. “You. In the glasses.” Joe/Joel’s black-framed glasses are sliding down his tearstained face. “Come here.”

The kid doesn’t move. Lips comes up behind him and pokes his back with the rifle.

With a whimper, the kid shuffles forward, a wet stain spreading over the crotch of his pants.

“It’s your lucky day, kid.” Wolf’s grin is humorless. “You’re going to live. We’re going to open this gate and let you out. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of flash drives. “You’re going to put these in your pockets, and then you’re going to run down to the end of that hall and cut through Sears and go outside with your hands in the air. You’re going to give these to any reporters you see. You’re the one who is going to get our message out.”

Just a Shell

JUST A SHELL

4:02 P.M.

After Miranda rolls under the metal pulldown shutter, it hits the floor with a bang. Her heart leaps in her chest like a dying fish flopping on a boat deck.

Pressing her lips together, she forces her lungs to still as she strains to hear if Parker will be shot. The bike-locked hall he ran to is just around the corner, about a hundred feet away.

She hears running footsteps and muffled shouts and screams, layered over the blare of the fire alarm, on the far side of the shutter. But no shots. What is she hearing? More victims? The bad guys? Maybe even the cops?

Finally Miranda lets herself breathe again, a series of hitching gasps. She pushes herself to a sitting position. Her body feels heavy and clumsy, a sack of flesh she can barely animate.

There are four other teens in the store. On her left is the dark-skinned girl in a turquoise headscarf, the one who just lowered the metal shutter. She works here, at Culpeppers. Her name, Miranda remembers, is Amina. Her eyes are wide enough that they are rimmed with white. “This can’t be real,” Amina says, more to herself than anyone else. “This can’t be happening.”

On her right, the guy who urged Miranda under the shutter stands with his fists clenched. His dark hair falls over his eyes, and he holds his mouth so tightly that his lips have disappeared. He’s dressed in jeans and a plain black T-shirt.

The girl whose mom just died leans against the counter, head down, sobbing wordlessly, high-pitched huh-huh-huhs. Heard just by itself, Miranda thinks, it might almost sound like laughter.