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Back Run, Hide, Fight Back Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Notice
  3. Dedication
  4. Map
  5. Newspaper Extract
  6. Survive
  7. One Hundred Miles
  8. So Many and So Fast
  9. Start to Die
  10. Fish in a Barrel
  11. Because of the Blood
  12. Can’t be Real
  13. Waiting to Die
  14. Panic
  15. None of Them
  16. Trapped
  17. Video Game
  18. Like Her Life Depends on It
  19. Before He Sees Us
  20. It’s Your Lucky Day
  21. Just a Shell
  22. The World’s Best Reality Show
  23. How Long
  24. No Matter What Happens
  25. The One Who Decides
  26. What You Need to Do
  27. One Last Time
  28. The Biggest Secret Ever
  29. What They Want Me to Believe
  30. Who He Really Is
  31. People Like You
  32. I Believe She Is Saying
  33. Wake Up
  34. We Told You What Would Happen
  35. Slowly, Slowly
  36. Everything Is Under Control
  37. Come with Me
  38. The Last Thing They’d Expect
  39. They Can’t Shoot All of Us
  40. Go Down Swinging
  41. Not Running Away
  42. If You’re Going to Lie
  43. Every Rattle and Click
  44. Infinitesimal
  45. No Safe Place
  46. I Didn’t Know
  47. Straight to the Source
  48. Nothing but the Breathing
  49. Anything Other Than Killing
  50. You Honestly Believed
  51. Three Inches Away
  52. Not Anymore
  53. Refusing to Crack
  54. On the Trigger
  55. Over
  56. All Too Much
  57. Together, We Can Make a Difference
  58. A Note From the Author
  59. Other Mysteries by April Henry
  60. Honors for April Henry
  61. About the Author
  62. Newsletter Sign-up

DISPATCH: Due to traffic, ETA ten for mobile command center. Longer for Crisis Negotiation.

UNIT 68: Copy. We can’t wait. I’ve got a shield, a Halligan tool, and some flash bangs in my car. Give me three units for an active shooter. We have to go in.

DISPATCH: Copy. 43, 41, and 19. Respond to south parking lot of Fairgate Mall for active shooter.

UNIT 68: Get the RP to tell us the best way in.

DISPATCH: Ron, check your cams. What’s the best entrance for our team to take?

SKINNER: I can’t believe this. Everyone’s dying!

DISPATCH: Ron, listen to me. We need to know where the officers can enter to help those people. Look at your cams.

SKINNER: I think they can come through Nordstrom. It looks empty.

Who He Really Is

WHO HE REALLY IS

4:49 P.M.

Parker’s not sure how long he’s been waiting inside the Van Duyn workroom. His shoulders ache from pressing against the wall on one side and the door on the other. Moxie is, he thinks, asleep. There hasn’t been even a rustle from the cupboard. And no sounds outside this room either, no matter how he strains to hear. No shouts. No gunshots. Even the sirens that were faintly wailing when the siege first started seem to have ceased.

While he waited for the killers to come through the door, and hoped that they never did, Parker set down the knife and pulled his phone from his back pocket. He’d missed a couple of dozen texts. From his mom, his dad, his friends. It looked like everyone else who was at his table managed to get out.

But the text that first caught his eye was Miranda’s. R U out? Hiding w/ people at Culpeppers.

He texted her back. Hiding Van Duyn storeroom w/ sister. 30+ ppl trapped in hall. Killers pulled metal gate across. Already shot 1.

Thinking of Miranda fills him with deep shame. In fact, as he sits on this white tile floor and waits to see if he’s going to die, Parker is ashamed by pretty much everything he’s done recently. If he’s honest with himself, he’s turned into kind of a jerk, especially since the wrestling team took state. Today especially. Ignoring Moxie. Leaving a mess. Taunting that busboy. If there’s a heaven, he’s pretty sure that’s not where he’s going to end up.

But it’s been going on for longer than just today. Like that one afternoon a few weeks ago that he spent with Miranda. He’s surprised she cared enough to text, let alone to try to drag him to safety. He pictures her cowering behind Culpeppers’s metal roll-down shutter, reviewing her life the way he’s reviewing his.