And then the spell was broken, shattered with the first gunshot.

And then it was bullets flying over us, not snow.

The screams ripped jagged and piercing from the throats of hundreds of kids. Five—ten—fifteen—it was impossible to count the kids that suddenly pitched forward, falling face-first into the snow, screaming and howling in pain. A nightmarish red began to creep through the snow like spilled ink spreading, expanding, devouring. I reached up to my cheek, to the wetness there, and when I pulled my hand away, my brain finally connected that I had run straight through a spray of blood. I was covered in it—someone else’s blood was dripping down my cheeks and off my chin.

We ran harder, faster, toward the back right corner of the chain-link fence surrounding the old school. I threw a look back over my shoulder to the brick school building, to the dozens of black figures on top of its gray slate roof, to the dozens more pouring out from the first story windows and doors. When I turned back, the field in front of me was covered in heaps of every color—Yellow, Blue, Green. And red. So, so much red. They formed lines, unwilling barriers that others had to jump over to keep going.

I fell forward, barely catching myself on the snow. Something—someone had caught my ankle. A Green girl on her stomach, crawling toward me, her eyes open, her mouth gulping at the air. Help me, she was sobbing, blood bubbling up over her lips, help me.

But I got back up and ran.

There was a gate at this edge of the camp; I could see it now that I was within a few hundred feet of it. What I couldn’t see was what was causing the backup of kids, why we weren’t dashing through the gate to get to freedom. With a jolt, I realized there were almost three times as many kids down in the snow behind me than there were in front of me.

The cluster of kids surged forward with a unified wail, hundreds of hands straining forward. My size made it easy for me to slip through legs and fight my way up to the front, where three older boys in blue uniforms were struggling to keep the crowd of kids back from both the gate itself and the one-man watch booth beside it, which was currently playing host to three people: an unconscious PSF, Liam, and Chubs.

I was so shocked at the sight of them, I nearly missed the blur of green that was a little kid rushing for the fence. He darted around the teenagers in his path and threw himself against the bright yellow bars holding the gate firmly in place.

He had only just touched it when all of the hair on his head seemed to stand on end, and a burst of light flashed under his fingers. Instead of releasing it, his hand only seemed to clamp down harder, frozen in place as thousands of volts of electricity sent his body into a frenzied fit of shuddering.

Oh my God.

The gate was still on. Liam and Chubs were trying to turn it off.

I felt my own scream bubble up in my throat when he collapsed to the ground, finally still. Liam yelled something from the booth that I couldn’t hear, not above the screams from the kids around me. The sight of that boy burst the temporary bubble of calm in a heartbeat.

The PSFs were closer now; they had to be, because when they started firing again, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. Each layer of kids fell down and away, peeling back to reveal a new, fresh layer for the kill—I couldn’t see the snow beneath them anymore.

Kids turned and bolted in every direction, some heading back toward the school, others following the edges of the electrified fence, looking for another way out. I heard dogs bark and the growling of engines. Combined, the noises sounded like a monster straight out of hell. I turned to look at the trail the animals and snowmobiles were blazing toward us, when something hard slammed into me from behind, throwing me into the thick snow.

I’m shot, I thought, half in shock.

No—that wasn’t right. The blow had come from an elbow to the back of the head. The Blue girl hadn’t even seen me as she turned and ran back toward the camp. I rolled over just in time to see her with her hands in the air, a clear surrender, and still—still—they shot her. She shrieked in pain and crumbled to the ground.

It wasn’t just the girl who hadn’t spotted me in the snow—no one did. I felt my arms, stinging with the cold, strain as I tried to push myself up and out of its freezing touch, but every time I made progress, another foot came slamming down across my shoulders and back. I had enough time to cover my head, but that was it. There was no getting air to my chest—I was screaming and no one could hear.

Rage and despair ripped through me. The crush of stampeding kids pushed me deeper and deeper into the snow, and I kept thinking, can you drown like this? Can you suffocate in the freezing dark? Would it be better to die this way?

Hands reached around my waist. Freezing air flooded my lungs in a single, painful gasp as I was lifted up and out of the snow.

The gate was open now, and the kids who had been steady and calm enough to remain—who had been lucky enough not to be hit—poured through, running for the dense cluster of trees ahead. There couldn’t have been more than twenty—of the hundreds of kids who had flooded through the halls of the old school—twenty.

I felt warm, impossibly warm. The arms holding me tightened. When I looked up, it was into Liam’s bright eyes.

Hang on tight, okay?

Zu woke with a gasp, coming up from her nightmare for a long drag of air.

I was thrown out of the dream, sent hurtling back into the freezing hotel room. Through the topsy-turvy vertigo that slammed into me, I turned toward Zu, my eyes adjusting just enough to make out her silhouette.

When I reached for her, I found someone else’s hands already there.