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I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on the threat. It’s a threat I know all too well, but I also can’t fall into the trap of thinking it’ll behave as I expect because this isn’t a “normal” case of a man with a gun. Shooters might not be otherworldly, but that doesn’t mean this one isn’t. In this forest, anything is possible.

There’s a thick maple to my left. I ease that way, moving my feet so carefully to avoid crunching any leaves that have escaped the downpour. Thankfully, my steps are silent, and I reach the tree, back up to it and take a slow step around—

The rifle fires again. This time, I don’t drop to the ground. I plaster myself to that tree and squeeze my eyes shut, as if I’m a toddler who thinks if I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

The forest has gone quiet. I listen for any sound of movement, but the wet undergrowth that muffled my steps does the same for his. Then something comes. Heavy footfalls, moving at a run.

“Ellie!”

It’s Henry.

I open my mouth to tell him no, be quiet, there’s someone out here with a gun. But I can’t expose my position. I have taken lessons, all the lessons, first arranged by my parents and then, when they started to worry that it was becoming an obsession, I’d sneak off and say I was out with friends. Every possible lecture and workshop and lesson on how to survive an active shooter.

So I don’t call out. I lift my hand and motion him to silence.

“There you are,” Henry says, and he strides my way, twigs cracking beneath him. He can’t see my gestures because of the tree and shadows, so I step out where he can see me.

A sound to our right. Henry glances over, his eyes go wide.

“Get down!” he bellows, and throws himself at me, like he did on the road. The gun fires, but we’re already landing on the ground and—

Something hits my cheek. Something wet and familiar, horribly, terrifyingly familiar. Henry’s arm is over my shoulder, the two of us head-to-head on the ground, and at first, I can’t see him, but then the moon shifts and his face …

His face is a wash of blood, a crater in his forehead, brains leaking out, brains splattering my face, his dead eyes wide with shock.

And that’s when I scream.

SEVENTEEN

I’m still screaming when footsteps pound, the earth shaking with them. Earlier, I’d snapped about the old man screaming, why he couldn’t stop, and now I can’t. I feel the earth moving and I know the shooter is coming and I will die—this time I will die—and I can’t stop screaming.

“Ellie!”

Hands grab my shoulders. My eyes open to see them—big square hands, rough with old calluses. Henry’s hands. A trick. The forest is tricking me again. He’s dead, lying on the ground …

There’s no one on the ground. I’m face down, and Henry is on his feet, pulling me up. I reach to touch my face, and it’s spattered in …

Dirt. I stare at a clod of dirt on my fingers.

Not brain matter. Dirt.

“Ellie, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? What happened?”

I let him help me up as my gaze sweeps the forest. “Sh-shooter. There—there was…”

He pulls me to him and swings me toward the tree. We both go very still and listen, and as we do, my panic ebbs.

“There’s no shooter,” I say, so softly I don’t think he’ll hear, but he looks down.

“You heard gunfire?”

“A rifle. Someone in the woods. And then you. I saw you, and you were shot and—”

My cheeks flame red-hot, and I expect him to stare, ask me to repeat myself. But he only nods, and my heart seems to stop, and I back away.

“You’re not you,” I say. “You’re still not you.”

Now the confusion hits. “Ellie?”