Sawyer stops, closes his eyes, and massages his eyelids, deep in thought. He covers his ears, then looks up and all around. He walks a few paces up a path between a road and a building and looks all around again. He frowns and mutters something.

“What are you looking for?” I venture.

“The little stop sign. I haven’t seen it. It should be here . . . somewhere.” He rubs his temples. “The vision is in all the windows. Fucking gunshots won’t stop. I can’t even think.”

Trey and I start looking for the stop sign too.

“It should be there,” Sawyer says. “I guess I have the wrong building.” He emits a heavy sigh and runs a hand through his hair, gripping it in frustration. “But everything else is right. That building with the ivy,” he says, pointing to a gorgeous old building on one side of the quad near where we stand. “The redbud trees. The sidewalk. And suddenly now, believe it or not, the noise and everything stopped. I can’t seem to conjure up the vision at all—not in any windows or signs or anything.”

“It’s because you’re doing something right,” I murmur, hoping he can find some encouragement in it, but knowing how helpless he must feel.

Trey walks in the direction of where Sawyer pointed. “Maybe we’re just on the wrong side of the building,” he says over his shoulder. “I’ll run around to see if it looks the same from the other side.” He starts jogging down the path. I go over to Sawyer.

“Is there anything I can do?” I ask.

There’s a distant look in his eyes that’s not due to the punch he took to the face, but he focuses in on me and relaxes into a half smile for a moment. He reaches one arm around my neck and pulls me close, kisses the top of my head. “Just don’t leave me.”

As we stand there together, two girls and a guy pass by us silently, and I think it must be sad to be stuck at school during spring break. And then I think about me going to college someday, and wonder if I’ll ever want to go home. Only if Trey and Ro are there too.

Sawyer’s arm tightens on my shoulders and his whole body tenses. He puts his lips to my ear and whispers, “I think that’s them.”

I turn my head and look at their backs. One girl has dark brown hair in a ponytail. The other has short blond hair, a pixie cut. The guy has blond hair too. He’s wearing a black knit cap. My heart races, but I’m confused. “I thought you said there were two guys?” I say in a soft voice.

“Come on,” he says, and we start to follow leisurely behind them. “I thought they were guys, but I never see their faces and they’re wearing black. The guy I see with the gun in the classroom is slight and short. It’s that girl, the one with the ponytail.”

I bite my lip. Has Sawyer started losing it?

“In the vision she’s wearing a knit cap, and her jacket collar is up. I’m guessing her hair is tucked into the cap. That’s her, I’m sure of it.”

“But, Sawyer,” I say, “school shooters are never girls.”

“Don’t be sexist,” he says, and I actually hear a little bit of the old, nonstressed Sawyer teasing in his voice, and I know he’s sure we just stumbled on a big clue. But he turns serious again as we follow, trying not to look like we’re trailing them.

Trey is standing at a crossroads, looking at the ground. The three in black pass him, and the girl with the ponytail gives him a long stare, long enough for Sawyer and me to get a good look at her profile before they continue walking.

“I’m going to follow them,” Sawyer says. “I’ll meet you back here.”

I almost protest, but then I notice the expression on Trey’s face. I nod instead. “Be careful.” And he continues on without me. I make a beeline to where Trey is standing.

I squint as I approach. “What’s wrong?” When I’m close enough to whisper, I tell him, “Sawyer thinks those people are the shooters.”

“No way.” Trey looks startled and cranes his neck to get a better glimpse. I look down at the ground next to where he’s standing. And there’s the stop sign that’s missing, lying in the grass, a fresh black dirt hole near the base of it. But it’s no longer a stop sign. Underneath the word “STOP” is another word in black spray paint.

“‘Stop fags’,” I say, reading it, and the anger wells up inside me. I press my lips together and blink back the gritty tears that spring to my eyes. “Wow, the haters are so clever these days.”

“Aren’t they?” Trey murmurs. “At least we found the stop sign.” He tries to shrug off the slur but I know better. I know it hurts him. Then he points to a little blue flag stuck in the ground next to the hole. “Looks like it’s flagged to be replaced. I’m sure they’ll have it up before school starts again.”

“Well, that’ll satisfy the evidence in the vision. I think that means the crime scene is somewhere near this building. We’ll have to ask Sawyer.” Trey and I both look at the sprawling structure, several stories high, with spires and gargoyles adorning it and green ivy creeping up its walls. Trey takes pictures with his phone. I count windows, trying to figure out how many rooms are in there, but it’s impossible to tell.

Trey shakes his head a little and looks at me, then looks back at the enormous buildings around us. “Somehow this seems just a little harder than stopping a snowplow,” he says.