It took her a moment to remember where she was. Sarah Beth stared at the underside of Darilyn’s bunk bed. She felt disoriented—decoupled from time and space. She turned her head toward Elizabeth’s kitty cat–shaped digital alarm clock on the bedside table. With effort, she read the glowing red numbers: 9:29. The numbers didn’t make any sense to her muddy mind. 9:29 would mean not even an hour had passed since Pastor Dee tucked her in, but she felt like she’d been asleep for hours and hours.

9:29 . . . Why does that seem important and familiar?

She made a tsk sound with her tongue. Her imagination was driving her crazy now.

A gust of wind blew rain against the window, beating out a snare drum snag.

Lightning flashed outside, turning the room electric blue for a fleeting instant.

She winced, her dark-adapted eyes rebelling against the brightness. Her migraine was back . . . or maybe it had never gone away. She groaned her irritation at being woken by the storm. Fresh thunder followed a moment later, not as loud or close as the clap that woke her, but it rumbled long, low, and ominous—like an approaching freight train. A heartbeat later another boom echoed, but this one didn’t seem to match up with a lightning strike.

Strange . . .

The alarm clock went dark.

So did the strip of amber light glowing in the gap along the bottom of the door leading to the hallway.

“Hey, guys, I think we lost power,” she announced and kick-crawled her legs out from under her blankets before swinging them off the side of the bed. Her bare feet touched down on the chilled, uncarpeted hardwood floor as she ducked out of her bottom bunk. A quick scan of her roommates’ empty beds informed her that she was alone in the room.

Hmmm, she thought. I guess Pastor Dee made good on her promise.

She yawned, her weary body yearning to return to her still-warm bed and go back to sleep, but that wasn’t going to happen. Her mind was up, alert, and fixated on getting an update on the mission. She padded to the door, depressed the lever, and pulled it open. Her across-the-hall neighbor Avery emerged from her room at the same time. They stood barefoot in their jammies staring at each other, but gratefully Sarah Beth saw Avery held a flashlight.

“Is that you, Sarah Beth?” the girl said, thankfully not shining the light in Sarah Beth’s face.

“Yeah. Avery?”

“Yep,” the eighth-grade girl answered.

“I guess the storm caused us to lose power,” Sarah Beth said.

“Yeah, I’m surprised they don’t have a generator or something.”

“I thought they did . . .”

“What do you think we should do?”

Sarah Beth was about to suggest they find their dormitory RA when she heard the unmistakable sound of a gunshot.