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“Run,” I snap to Poppy and the others.

There is nowhere to run.

Hands grab me from both sides. I twist, kicking, clawing, biting at anything that gets close. Someone catches my hair. Another arm bands around my waist. I slam the back of my head into a face and hear cartilage crunch. Hot blood splashes the back of my neck.

Poppy screams.

I get one hand free and rake my nails down a guard’s cheek. Blood opens in four bright lines.

“Don’t touch her!” My voice tears out of me raw and animal. “Don’t you fucking touch her!”

A guard grabs Poppy by the wrist.

She kicks him hard in the shin.

That’s my girl.

He curses and yanks her forward.

I lose my mind.

I throw my weight back, knocking one man off-balance, then drive my heel down onto someone’s foot. Bone crunches. He screams. I twist toward Poppy, but another guard clips me across the face with the butt of his gun.

Pain explodes across my jaw.

My knees hit the tile. Hands shove me down. My cheek smears through blood that isn’t mine. Poppy is being dragged toward the circle, and I kick, scream, and buck so hard that I slam my own face into the tile.

“NO!”

The word tears out of me.

A gunshot cracks through the mall.

The sound splits the air.

Everyone freezes.

A body drops from the second level.

It falls past the railing in a loose, boneless tumble, arms flailing once before it hits the tile one foot from Bryant with a wet, final crunch. The skull splits against the floor. Blood and gray matter splatter across his boots.

The mall goes silent.

Every face turns upward.

Joanie stands at the second-floor railing, gun in both hands, eyes wide and offended.

“Shit,” she says. “I missed.”

For one unbelievable second, I almost laugh.

Then people start screaming.

Figures appear across the upper level. Lyla near the old department store sign, rifle steady. Trish beside a kiosk with her pistol raised. Carlos half hidden behind a support column. More guns angle down into the crowd.

Relief hits me so hard it hurts.

They came.