Miranda tries to ready herself to fight. Where’s her sock full of quarters? She doesn’t remember dropping it, but she must have. She makes her hands into fists so tight, her nails bite into the flesh of her palms.

She hears nothing. Nothing but the breathing of the others.

Slowly, she starts to shift toward the glass slit in the door. A river of sweat runs down her spine. She shouldn’t look. She should stay hidden. But she has to look. She has to know.

The stairs below them are empty. Pressing her face close to the cold glass, she strains to see past the turn of the stairs. There’s no one there.

Miranda exhales in a burst. With a little shake of the head, she lets the others know the stairs are empty. Her heart still thudding, she turns the other way.

The short hallway they’re in opens up into the second floor, which is shaped like a rectangular doughnut. It’s hollow at the center, with the food court below and skylights far above. Offices line the outside edge of the doughnut. The inside edge has a black metal railing.

There are no bodies up here, at least none in sight. But Miranda can see down to the food court, and the carnage there is even worse than it was in her memory. Red smears where people tried to crawl away and bodies where they died trying. And Grace’s mom, a broken doll, her hands still stretched above her head from when Grace tried to pull her to safety.

Now it’s Grace who has to put her hand across her mouth to stifle her cries.

Somewhere below and ahead of them, one of the killers curses. “All of you stop moving around!” he shouts at the hostages. “Don’t make me shoot you!”

Miranda would give anything to be out of here, back at her house, in her bed. She tries to remember how it felt this morning, tries to conjure the feeling of the sheets cool against her legs, the pillow cradling her head, but she can’t. She puts her arm around Grace and gently turns her until she’s no longer directly facing the sight of her mother’s corpse.

Cole puts his finger against his lips, then whispers, “I think I know where we can get a real gun.”

Grace takes her hand away from her mouth. They all step closer to Cole, crowding together until their shoulders touch.

“I was up here when the shooting started. I saw this big gun hidden in a planter. I didn’t think it was real.”

“Where?” Javier’s question is as soft as a sigh.

Cole points in the direction of the railing. Spaced along it are three large concrete planters. Each holds a lush plant with foot-long green spade-shaped leaves that contrast with large hooded white flowers. Miranda thinks they’re called peace lilies.

“The second one.”