We freeze in place. We see the dog, but maybe we’re too far away for him to smell us. Or the wind’s wrong.

Diablo goes straight to the place where we’d hidden. He sniffs, then raises his head and barks. In a second, the dog’s on our trail. Somewhere behind him, Paul shouts at us to stop. “I’m warning you. I got a gun!”

Paul shoots into the woods. The crows go crazy. A bullet thuds into a tree close enough to scare me so much I almost wet my pants. He can’t see us—the woods hide us—but he shoots again and again.

The boys scatter, but Skylar and I stay together. We have no idea which way to go. Or where Marie Drive is. We just flat-out run, dodging trees and ducking under vines, plowing through weeds and brambles, splashing through puddles and jumping over fallen branches. We can still hear the gun but it’s farther away now. He must be shooting at the boys, not us.

If we live through this, I will never leave my neighborhood again, not even my yard.

We come to the Paint Branch and plunge down the bank and into the water. It’s hip-deep, the stones on the bottom slippery, but we keep going. We’ve both read enough books to know that Diablo can’t track us if we stay in the water. I hope it’s true.

By the time we reach the railroad bridge, we’ve slipped and fallen so often we’re totally soaked. Even our hair is wet. We know where we are, but we’re scared to come out of the water. If Diablo finds us, he can run across the bridge and get us. So we sit on the bank under the bridge and listen. All we hear are crows and the noise of cars bumping over the tracks in town. Evansburg is so close, yet so far away. At least we don’t hear the gun anymore.

Skylar gets out her phone, but her hands are wet and she drops it. We watch in shock as it sinks in the muddy water. Even if we find it, it won’t work now.

I hear a splashing sound up around a bend in the stream. Someone is wading toward us, but I can’t see who it is. Skylar and I crawl farther under the bridge, but there’s really nowhere to hide. We huddle together and watch the stream to see who’s coming—Diablo or Paul?

Jason splashes into sight, breathing hard. For the first time in my life, I’m glad to see him. I still hate him, but he’s a lot better than Paul or Diablo.