Chapter 47 I thought that I'd imagined it. And then there was a second shot. And a third. Gunfire. My brain searched for another explanation, even as my body told me to run. Run-run-run-run- I could feel my heartbeat in my throat, my entire body jarring with each beat. Blood rushed in my ears. I forced myself to move, forced myself to turn, to take a step forward-away. Away. Away. Run away. Run-run-run- I caught sight of the library door. I remembered the door opening, John Thomas's bloody body spilling into the hall. I shook. My vision blurred. Shallow breaths burned my lungs. Blood. Everywhere I look, I see red. John Thomas. His body is on the ground. The walls close in around me. Shot. Shot. Shot. He's bleeding. Can't run. Can't move. Can't breathe. The blood- Hands gripped my shoulders. I lashed out, like a horse with a broken leg. The person holding me stumbles backward. All I can see is blood. I hear her, calling my name. I felt like I was watching myself from outside my body. I felt as if something else had control. "Tess. Tess." Through the blood, her features come into focus- "Emilia." I said the name and came back to myself. There was no blood. There was no body. But the gunshots were real. It took hearing another one before I was sure, and by that time, Emilia had locked a hand around my forearm. "We have to go," she said. "We have to hide." I let her pull me toward the library door, and then my survival instincts clicked back on. I pushed the door inward. Emilia followed. I considered barricading the door but decided that might just draw attention. If we barricaded ourselves in, the shooter would know we were here. I pulled Emilia through the stacks. Toward the back of the library, the lights in the stacks were motion activated on an aisle-by-aisle basis. I hunkered down between two shelves, pressing my body as flat to them as I could. Beside me, Emilia did the same. It took a minute for the lights to go off. Those sixty seconds were the longest in my life. I could hear Emilia breathing beside me, could feel her breath on my neck. "What's going on?" I asked her, my voice so quiet I could barely hear the words myself. "We were supposed to be in class," Emilia said, her voice nearly as low as mine, neither of them anywhere near as deafening as the sound of my own heartbeat. "I forgot something in my locker. I went back, and I saw one of the new security guards pull his gun." Hardwicke had doubled the number of security personnel on campus. Heavily armed. The memory washed back over me. I'd thought-we'd all thought-that the guards were armed for our protection. "How many?" I said, my voice hushed, my throat tightening around the words. "Just the one guard?" Emilia shook her head, the motion stilted. We couldn't afford to set off the motion sensors. We couldn't afford the light. We couldn't afford to draw attention to the library. What do they want? I didn't waste my breath to risk asking that question out loud. Emilia had no way of knowing the answer-not if she'd seen what she'd seen and then run. Run. Run-run-run- Every instinct I had told me to get out of here. I was trapped. And if they looked for us-if they wanted to find us, there was nowhere to hide. And if they weren't looking for us, if this was an attack and they decided to concentrate on the classrooms, then our classmates, the ones who'd made it back to class after the assembly- Without even realizing I was doing it, I shifted. I was going to get up. I was going to do something. But Emilia's fingernails dug into my arm. Don't. Like my last question, her plea was silent. Don't be stupid. Don't leave her there alone. "Henry's out there," I told Emilia, my voice nearly refusing to form the words. "And Vivvie-" I had no idea where Vivvie was. She'd bolted, minutes before the first shot. There was a moment of silence out in the hallway, and then a rapid-fire burst of shots, louder than the others. Closer. Emilia squeezed her eyes shut. I eased the phone out of my pocket. Call. Call for help. Dial- No service. I heard footsteps outside the door, heard someone shouting out orders. Why wasn't my phone working? Had they knocked out the service? They. For the first time, I let myself process the fact that there was a word for the kind of people who infiltrated the security force of an elite private school and then began shooting. Terrorists. "Somebody roofied me." Beside me, Emilia's eyes were open now. She was pale and staring straight ahead. "At that party, someone roofied me." This was the first time she'd ever said the words. I knew that, just like I knew that she didn't want to die without saying them. We're not going to die. We're not. "I don't know if John Thomas was the one who slipped it into my drink," she said hoarsely, her lips barely moving, the words barely audible. "I never knew for sure what happened that night, or who was involved. I didn't want to know." Another set of footsteps. Heavy. Running. A tremor ran down my spine. I forced myself to stop shaking but couldn't stop the horrible questions wending their way through my mind. How many gunmen were there? How many people are already dead? Emilia closed her eyes again, then slipped her hand into the messenger bag she wore over her shoulder. My breath caught in my throat. What are you doing, Emilia? The lights stayed off as she eased an electronic tablet out of her bag. Her movements tortuously slow, her own breaths shallow, she hit several buttons on the screen. A second later, the screen was split six ways. Six video feeds, I realized. "I said I'd find out what it would take to hack Hardwicke's security," Emilia whispered. "So I hacked it." My gaze was locked on the screen. I could see armed guards passing by one camera after another. There were bodies on the floor. Grown men. I processed what I was seeing. Hardwicke security. The first thing they did was shoot the other guards. I didn't see any students-not on the ground and not in the halls. There was a blur of motion in front of one of the cameras, and a second later, the door to the library flew inward. Peering through the shelves, I saw the gun before I saw the man holding it. I heard the girl with him cry out before I recognized her. Anna Hayden. The man with her was Secret Service. His gun drawn, he herded Anna toward the far side of the library. I was on the verge of yelling out to let them know we were here when the door opened again. The agent shoved Anna behind him and started shooting. Emilia and I sat there, huddled in the dark, unable to move, not even to crawl away from the gunfire, without setting off the light overhead. Anna was screaming. The armed guard shooting at the Secret Service agent was yelling for backup. Emilia's body pressed itself up against mine. I could feel her shaking beside me. She bit down on her hand to stifle a whimper that tried to make its way out of her mouth. Don't move. If we move, the lights come on. If we move, we die. One of the terrorists went down, but another rounded the corner after the Secret Service agent, who switched out guns and kept shooting. "Anna." I heard someone say Anna's name-a female someone. At first I thought it was Emilia, or maybe even me, but it wasn't. The stilted, desperate whisper came from the far entrance. Dr. Clark. My World Issues teacher looked how I felt-somewhere between gutted and numb. I remembered her lecture on flashbulb memories. I wouldn't forget a single thing about this day. I wouldn't ever be able to forget. Anna edged toward Dr. Clark as two armed guards advanced on the Secret Service agent. I heard, as much as saw, the agent take a bullet to the shoulder. He kept fighting. Anna made it to Dr. Clark. Like one of these mothers who suddenly develops super strength to lift a car off her child, Dr. Clark shoved Anna down behind a bookshelf and bolted into the fray. Taking cover where she could, she made her way to one of the fallen gunmen. She grabbed his weapon, then ducked back into the shelves on the opposite side of the room from us. Don't move, I kept telling myself. Can't move. Stay frozen. Stay still. I watched my World Issues teacher do what I couldn't. The Secret Service agent glanced at her as he took down the terrorist who'd been firing at him. "How many of them are there?" he asked her. She stepped out of the shelves, gun still in hand. "I don't know." She swallowed. "Is help coming? Were you able to call out?" "Communication is down," the agent told her. "The other agent on Starlight's detail is dead. Backup will be here any time, but they won't be able to get in. This place is a fortress. I have to get her out." The guard turned toward the vice president's daughter. "Anna, are you-" A shot rang out. An instant later, Anna Hayden's last remaining Secret Service agent slumped to the floor. Emilia's second hand joined her first, pressing over her mouth, holding in a scream as tight as she could. Secret Service. Shot. I couldn't process what I was seeing, or what it meant. Someone shot him in the head- Not just someone. As I watched, Dr. Clark stepped dispassionately over the Secret Service agent's body. The gun she'd just fired was still in her hand. A single mother returns to the city she left seven years ago after breaking up with her ex to seek treatment for her son’s leukemia. Upon learning of her return, the ex immediately searches for the lo...