The thump of my pulse chased one other thought in circles through my mind. I couldn’t just stand there and let this crap happen to people. Whatever hold the school had over them, whatever power the professors might be exerting, there were limits. I’d get out of here, I’d walk the roads until I reached a town or my phone got reception again, and then I was bringing the police out here to treat these jackasses like the psychos they were. A headache like the one I’d gotten last night cracked through my skull as I burst out the front doors. The pain expanded through my head with each hurried step toward the gates. I gritted my teeth and pushed on. Maybe it was a coincidence; maybe the school was doing it to me somehow—it didn’t matter. I couldn’t give in. I had to get away from this place and force the assholes who ran it to face what they deserved. Ignoring the throbbing blaze behind my eyes as well as I could, I gripped the heavy latch on the gate and yanked it down. At least, I meant to yank it down. The metal lever jarred in my hands. I shoved at it again and then stared at it as intently as I could through the haze of pain. No lock held the latch in place. Nothing should have prevented it from opening. It simply… refused to. “No,” I muttered. “No, no.” I wrenched at the latch again, slamming my shoulder against the wrought-iron bars at the same time. The metal joints clattered, but the gate didn’t budge. The impact shot up my neck and rattled a fresh burst of pain across my skull. The headache was starting to mess with my balance. I stumbled backward and found myself tipping over onto my ass. My tailbone twinged as I hit the ground. My fingers dug into the cool grass beneath that gray, ever-clouded sky. A girl had been walking along the wall. She stopped several feet from me. Her voice reached me as if from an ocean of agony away. “There’s no point. We come in, but we don’t go out.”