We moved slowly through the corn field, doing our dead-level best to avoid rustling the stalks too much. Both Shane and Kyle were bent slightly at the waist to make sure they stayed concealed. The sharp edges of the leaves scratched at the exposed skin of my arms and face, leaving bright red lines that were stung by the nervous sweat coating my body.

"Now I'm starting to think this was a bad idea," Shane whispered from my left, his words nearly lost in the rustling of the stalks.

I licked my chapped lips, looking up. All we could see was the upper half of the gym looming in front of us. They couldn't see us, but we couldn't see them either. The one advantage in this situation was only that we knew we were coming and they didn't.

We hoped.

"Well its not like we can turn back now," Lisa muttered, slithering her way between the stalks on the other side of Shane. Her rifle was still tucked into her shoulder, her eyes focused straight forward.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes like a five-year-old, wincing as another leaf slapped at my face, leaving a stinging line along my cheek. The pistol in my hand felt light, though I knew it was probably just all in my head. I wasn't sensitive enough to be able to tell the difference between a pistol with four rounds in it and one with nine.

My gaze drifted toward the gun in Shane's hand. I'd made him switch with me as we'd trudged through the field. He tried to argue, of course, but he couldn't deny that he was a far better shot than I was. Those bullets would be more use to him than to me. He caught my eye and managed a tight smile.

I couldn't find an answering smile. All I could manage to do was return his look for a moment before I turned my attention back to the school. We were close now. A few more minutes of creeping forward and we were peering at the back of the school through the last few stalks.

A wall of glass sparkled in the sun. A concrete pad that extended from the back of the school had been turned into a work and living area of sorts. Laundry flapped on clotheslines in a gentle breeze. Racks of fruit dried in the warm sun. Tables had been taken from the school and set up under a tarp. It looked like a pretty nice place to live, actually. Peaceful. Neat. It seemed completely at odds with the people who lived there.

"Where are they?" Kyle whispered, breaking me from my musings.

I blinked, refocusing myself. Looking beyond the peace and laundry, I found that the back of the school was completely empty. No one sat at the tables, there wasn't anyone near the clotheslines. A breathless sort of calm seemed to sit over the place. And I hated it.

"Check the windows," Shane said. Turning my head, I realized he was talking to Lisa.

"So you have wire cutters but not binoculars?" she asked, eyeing the many pockets of his cargo pants. Shane just sighed through his nose, squinting toward the school and waiting.

Lisa muttered under her breath, so low I couldn't hear what she said, but I was sure it wasn't anything very nice. That was fine. She could say whatever she wanted just as long as she did what needed to be done. I watched from the corner of my eye as she carefully lifted her rifle, looking through the sights.

Shane's fist rested on his knee, his knuckles white as he watched her scan the windows. "Careful," he whispered. "Careful."

"I know," Lisa hissed back. "I can see the edge of the field just as well as you can, Shane."

I bristled and opened my mouth, but Shane put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head. Apparently, he thought it wasn't worth the effort. Maybe he was right, but that didn't mean I had to like it.

Still, I held my tongue and waited until she had finished with the windows. Lisa frowned and shook her head. "I don't see any movement, anywhere," she said, sounding both confused and concerned.

I shared her feelings. Turning my head to look at Kyle, I asked, "They aren't really all out front, are they?"

It was difficult to believe anyone would be so careless in such a situation. I mean, they knew we were out here, near them. Near enough for them to shoot at us. We might have done something unexpected, but that didn't guarantee them being surprised by it. Since we weren't about to trust to stupidity, it immediately turned our minds to the idea that this was all just a big damn trap. They had the right bait. The only remaining question was who they really wanted to bag and why.

Kyle chewed nervously on his lip, his eyes darting from window to window. "It looked like quite a few of them went out after us. And...they probably think we're somewhere toward the front." He frowned and looked behind him.

Following his gaze, I saw the perfect footprints we had made in the dirt.

"We need to move faster," Shane said, looking at the footprints as well. "We probably left a trail a five-year-old could follow."

"Maybe not," Lisa argued. "Not with the different houses we cut through."

"Still, the longer we wait, the more dangerous this gets." I took a breath, trying to force my heart out of my throat and back into my chest where it belonged.

"It's already dangerous," Lisa said dryly.

"You know, if we could dispense with stating the obvious, that would be nice," Kyle snapped, leaning forward so he could shoot a glare around Shane and myself. I stifled a quick smile. Maybe it was because of our own rocky start, but it was always amusing for me to watch him snipe at other people.

Lisa narrowed her eyes at him, her hands tightening around her rifle.

"We need to get inside," Shane said, shattering the building tension like a rock through glass. We all turned to stare at him. His face was pale beneath his tan, the nearly perpetual dark circles under his eyes made darker by the stress. His jaw was clenched, the muscles of his throat corded with anxiety.

Over his shoulder, I watched Lisa blink once, like she was trying to process what he'd just said. Hell, we all had to take a moment on that one, despite the fact that what he'd just said was perfectly reasonable.

Or maybe it's logical. 

Charging into a building we didn't know the layout of, without knowing how many people were in there and with limited weaponry probably wasn't reasonable. Not by a country mile. But the idea that we needed to go into the school was actually pretty logical.

"He's not out here and he's not out front," Shane said. "Unless they have some other place they'd take prisoners, it stands to reason that he's somewhere in there."

We all glanced toward Lisa questioningly.

She shook her head. "They don't have any other place as far as we know. Besides," she stood slowly, looking toward the school, "there isn't really any other place around here as fortified as they have this. If they took him expecting an attack, they'd keep him here, on the turf they know best."

That settled it. Knowing what we did, we realized there was no more point debating anything. The only thing we'd accomplish would be to give those people the time to decide Aaron wasn't worth the trouble. Or the time to find us.

Shane swallowed hard, looking a little nauseated as he locked eyes first with me, then with his brother. "Let's go get him," he said, standing up. 

"Wait," I said, grabbing his hand. 

He looked down at me, but I was staring at the portion of the building that was mostly glass. Nothing seemed to be moving behind the glass, though it was hard to be sure. Finally I knew we'd just have to risk it. Shane squeezed my fingers once before inching past the last few rows of corn. When the rest of us stood and moved to follow, he threw his hand out. "Just...just wait, one moment," he said.

I stepped forward, then back, my need to be by his side warring with my understanding of the fact that he was the one who needed to be calling the shots. He knew what he was doing, and I just needed to swallow my feelings and follow orders for the moment. That was the only way I was going to get through this.

We watched him creep forward across the strip of tangled grass separating the field from the concrete. He never stopped moving, but every few steps he would slow a little and look up, scanning the windows above him.

"Watch them," I hissed at Lisa.

"What?"

"The windows!" I gestured toward the building. "Watch them."

"What the hell good is that gonna do?" she grumbled even as she did what I'd asked, once more lifting her rifle.

I didn't know if it really would do any good, but it certainly made me feel better to know that we'd know about anyone who saw Shane. Hopefully before the bullets started flying.

When his feet touched the concrete pad, he darted toward the laundry flapping on the lines, using a light blue sheet as a flimsy bit of cover. He knelt down, his head bowed like he was praying. I could see how his chest heaved and wondered if he'd been holding his breath on the way across. Again he held up his hand, signaling for us to wait.

It startled me when Kyle's hand wrapped around my wrist, nearly jerking me back. I'd stepped forward without even realizing what I was doing. I met his eyes, trying to ignore my own worry reflected back at me in his face.

"You good?" he asked, his hand briefly squeezing my wrist in a gesture of solidarity.

I didn't know how to answer that honestly, so I just shrugged. "Good as I ever am."

Kyle opened his mouth, his brow creasing, but never got the chance to speak. Shane had waved us forward, his eyes still trained on the school.

"Come on," Lisa said, the corn rustling quietly as she pushed her way past the stalks. "We should move fast." The words had barely come out of her mouth before she was darting away, crossing the strip of grass and reaching the concrete within the space of a couple heartbeats. She joined Shane beside the laundry and knelt down.

Annoyed by her brusque manner, I pushed to my feet and ran toward Shane, Kyle hot on my heels. Like Shane had been, I felt completely out of breath by the time I reached them. Adrenaline was spiking through my body, making my hands tremble and my breath come in rapid bursts I couldn't seem to control no matter what I did.

"There are two doors," Lisa murmured, pointing first to our left, then right. "Should we—"

"No," Shane, Kyle and I all said at the same time.

"You don't even know what I was gonna say," she said, a scowl creasing her face again.

"You were gonna say we should split up." I shook my head hard enough to make my ponytail whip against my cheek. "No. There aren't enough of us as it is."

Lisa opened her mouth, but Shane cut her off. "Raleigh's right. Even with the four of us, if we hit major trouble, chances are slim we're coming back out. Cutting us down even more ups the chances of discovery and lowers our ability to respond to any additional threats."

"Additional?" Lisa snorted. "This entire situation is basically a gun to our heads."

"Again with the obvious," Kyle muttered, so low I was pretty sure I was the only one who'd heard.

"Fine," Lisa said, sounding defeated. "No splitting up. Going in there pretty much blind. Is there any other stupid thing you'd like to do today?"

"You know, we didn't start this—"

"Yes you fucking did," she snapped at Kyle. "You started it with the first can of chicken noodle you picked up."

Rather than say anything in response, Shane just stood and began to make his way toward the door on our left. The one that led into the glass-walled room. We could clearly see from our current position that it was abandoned.

To my immense relief—and surprise—the door opened easily. As we crept inside what looked like a cafeteria, my nerves wound tighter. Every step on the laminate tile seemed to echo up to the high ceiling. We made our way to a bank of double doors, cautiously easing open the ones on the far right, closest to the interior wall.

The cafeteria opened into an oddly pristine trophy hall. It didn't appear to be used at all. The trophies of a past life sparkled dull gold and bronze behind dusty glass that was still intact. The floors were equally dusty, but completely bare. 

Again, the state of the place seemed incongruous with the appearance of its inhabitants. Or, what I'd seen of them at least.

"I think that's the gym ahead of us," Shane whispered, gesturing toward two sets of double doors framing one of the trophy cases. 

Before anyone could stop me, I moved forward, ducking under the slit windows in the doors. Carefully, I peeked around the edge of the window to see that Shane had guessed right. The room was dim, the only source of light high-up windows above the banks of bleachers. One side had the bleachers stacked neatly up against the wall, while the other side had them extended.

In the middle of the room, tables had been pushed together to make one long table. I didn't see anyone and stood a little straighter, moving my head so I could see more of the room. The place was empty, save for that long table, and I wondered what they used it for.

I didn't have time to wonder, though. A door opened on the other side of the gym, a long beam of sunlight spilling across the wood floors. I ducked to the side, holding my hand out to make sure none of the others decided to come forward and have a look at the wrong moment. 

All I could really make out were a handful of silhouettes. They were speaking. I could hear the echo of their voices in the cavernous space, but couldn't make out what they were saying. They hovered in the doorway for a long time before finally coming inside and shutting the door behind them.

I nearly jerked away from the glass just then, but something held me in place for just a moment longer. Just long enough to see that one person was struggling against two of the others.

Long enough to see that they were headed directly toward us.