Page 14 of The Fall of Crazy House (Crazy House 2)

“Why is there a sniper protecting this old cell?” Bunny asked the obvious question.

“No idea,” I said. After a moment I tapped my comm again. “Bunny? Peek out a bit.”

> “Roger that.” Seconds later we heard gunfire.

I tapped my comm again. “Bunny?” I asked urgently. There was no answer.

23

“THAT SUCKED,” BUNNY FINALLY SAID, sounding breathless.

Mills radioed in. “I’m gonna see if I can spot the bastard.”

“Copy,” I said.

More gunshots. “Goddamnit.” Mills sounded mad.

“Jolie’s going to take a look,” Levi radioed.

“Copy,” I said again, tensely.

And… gunshots.

“She’s okay,” Levi reported a few seconds later. “But we can’t tell where the guy is, or if there’s more than one.”

I looked at Nate. “We need to get out of here. We’re advance scouts. We need to keep advancing.” I was the leader; I needed to fix this. Make a decision, Becca, I told myself.

“You know—” Nate started.

“Shut up,” I said. “Let me think.”

I pinched my lip, trying to work through different scenarios. In one of them, only three of us died. God.

“Look,” Nate said, and I glanced up, narrowing my eyes at him in a way that made most people back down. Nate being Nate, he barreled on. “We can triangulate where the sniper is. Or figure out if there’s more than one. With geometry.”

Oh, good. One of my favorite words.

Still, a good leader has to listen—sometimes.

Nate took my lack of glare to be a sign to continue, and he explained what he meant. He explained it twice before I understood.

“Okay. Is that going to work?” I asked.

Nate shrugged. “Sitting here isn’t going to work,” he said. “We know that much.” Keeping out of sight, Nate and I talked very quietly, coming up with a plan that I sketched out in the dirt. Not for the first time I wished Tim was here. He would have figured this out by now with no stinking geometry.

The sun had gone down, which made this weird cell even creepier. But it would help us. I tapped my comm for a group chat. “Okay, guys,” I said. “We’re calling this plan ‘Fun with Geometry.’”

There were groans.

“We’re gonna make a hypotenuse triangle.”

“The triangle isn’t a hypotenuse,” Nate said, sounding irritatingly patient. “The hypotenuse is a part of the tri—”

“Shut up,” I said.

24

CASSIE