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To my utter shock, Wally acted first, shouting a battle cry and hurtling the cake cutter like a knife, right at the guy’s head. To my astonishment, the guy caught it one-handed just before it reached his head. Before I could react, Frankie jumped toward him, throwing the open bottle of bleach at his head. While he was busy swatting the bottle away, I launched myself forward, latching onto his arm with the gun and tossing the salt directly into his face.

I must have gotten some in his eyes, at least partially, because he cursed and stumbled. I struggled with his arm, trying to get him to release the gun. I leaned over to bite his arm, using the only weapon I had left at my disposal, when he snaked an arm around my neck, holding me tight against him and rendering me immobile. If I struggled, he tightened his hold on my neck, cutting off my breath. For a moment, we all stilled, looking at each other. The acrid smell of bleach permeated the air, making me gag. Wally and Frankie, out of weapons and options, froze and watched me with frightened eyes.

Slowly, the guy lifted his gun and pointed it at them. I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for the shots.

They never came.

“Bang,” he said. “You’re all dead.”

Chapter Nine

ANGEL SINCLAIR

To my astonishment, the shooter suddenly released me. I staggered backward, grabbing my neck as our driver—apparently not dead—entered the room, climbing over the discarded chair. He patted our attacker on the shoulder. The attacker pulled the ski mask off his head. He was young, blond, and had a friendly smile. He gave us a quick smile and salute, disappearing out the door.

Frankie, Wally, and I stared in shock.

“Y-you’re not shot,” Wally finally stammered, stating the obvious.

“I am not. Let me introduce myself.” He took of his sunglasses and tucked them neatly into the pocket on his white dress shirt. “I am Dexter Donovan, training director of UTOP.”

He held out a hand, but none of us stepped forward to shake it.

“Wait. None of this was real?” I exclaimed, looking around. “This was some kind of test?”

He turned his attention to me. “That’s correct, Ms. Sinclair. We like to have a baseline for every potential candidate before they receive any actual training.”

“A baseline?” I repeated, still trying to wrap my head around the situation. We hadn’t even been on the campus for five freaking minutes and they threw us into the middle of an active-shooter drill? What kind of baseline did they expect from three kids?

“Wow.” Wally pushed a hand through his hair. He was still shaking. “Okay, so we’re all technically dead. What does that mean? We failed our first test?”

“There’s no winning or losing at UTOP, Mr. Harris,” he said. “There’s only response and counterresponse. We’re simply collecting data.”

“But…he said we were all dead,” Frankie exclaimed.

“Oh, he was right. If this was real, you’d all be dead.” He wrinkled his nose at the bleach smell and motioned with his hand. “Let’s move to more comfortable quarters. The smell is getting to be too much in here.”

He turned and left the room while Wally, Frankie, and I exchanged worried glances. How was this possible? We’d just arrived on campus and had already failed at something? I wasn’t used to failing, and I didn’t like how this had played out. Swallowing my anger and frustration, I followed Mr. Donovan. I should have suspected something like this. Itwasa spy school, after all.

Mr. Donovan led us down a corridor and up two flights of stairs before he stopped in front of a door. A plaque on the wall near the office readDexter Donovan, Director, UTOP. He pressed his thumb to a pad on the door and then tapped in a code before the door swung open. He motioned for us to enter, so we did.

A huge wooden desk dominated his office. Three chairs were placed side by side in front of his desk, and he indicated we were to sit, so we did, like three obedient children, with Frankie in the middle. Mr. Donovan didn’t sit but leaned back against his desk, folding his arms and studying us like lab specimens. I wondered if he were going to tell us he’d be driving us home now.

He didn’t speak for some time, presumably giving us time to reflect on our failure. We sat in silence, awaiting our fate.

Finally, he asked us a question. “What do you think was your first mistake?”

“Leaving the car?” Frankie immediately volunteered. She glanced uneasily at me, then Wally. In my opinion, she got bonus points for having the courage to answer first. “You told us to stay put, after all.”

“But the shooter was coming toward the car,” Wally countered. “We could have been trapped with no easy exit, if he came to investigate it.”

“What if the car windows were bulletproof?” she suggested.

“What if theyweren’t?” Wally’s fingers drummed anxiously on his thigh, something I noticed he sometimes did when he was upset. Clearly, he didn’t like failing, either. “We’d be trapped and dead.”

“True, but we ended up dead anyway. Right, Mr. Donovan?” Frankie looked at him for confirmation, but he just asked us another question.

“What else did you do wrong?”