I pull my sweater sleeves over my palms and narrow in on a pudgy woman wearing pantyhose, tennis shoes, and monochrome blue. She’s easily the adult version of Violet Beauregarde from Willy Wonka after Violet turned into a giant blueberry. The woman bends over and picks up a coin from the ground. As if it will bring her luck.

A lanky guy with red stubble and a designer trucker hat almost trips over her. He swerves at the last second, stumbling over his own feet before smoothing out his flannel shirt and resuming his jaunty swagger.

They’re oblivious. It could be either of them, and they wouldn’t see it coming.

Of course, the second I mark them as potential victims, I can’t even blink without envisioning their beatings and how they begin. A fist in the back of the neck. An uppercut punch in the gut. The first hit comes out of nowhere—a seemingly random attack from a guy in the crowd. Then within seconds, dozens of teens appear, swarming the victim like a colony of flesh-eating ants—hitting and kicking to the death.

Just like they did to my dad.

A damp chill rustles through my hair as the wind skates off the lake behind me. My chest tightens, and I glance at my purse slumped beside me on the weathered bench slats. As tempted as I am to reach for my inhaler, today is not the day to show that kind of weakness. I pinch the bridge of my nose and remind myself to stay vigilant. Alert.

The day’s too gray to see the whole half-mile stretch from where I’m sitting at the end of the pier. Even the lines of the Ferris wheel towering over the middle look blurred as they push through a heavy sky. Still, I don’t see any reinforcement—police officers, a SWAT team.

You’d think a tweet with the date and coordinates of the next attack would alert them all. It’s not like the code was hard to figure out. But when I called the city’s Anonymous Tip Hotline, the operator dismissed me like I was some delusional kid flipping out over a random comment she’d found on the Internet. She assured me she’d pass my note along and reminded me the Death Mob era was behind us. Then she hung up before I could think of an articulate rebuttal, leaving me sitting there, mouth gaping like some taxidermized fish.

Even Detective Irving neglected to call me back—not that he actually proved his competency after my dad’s death. Apparently, like all city officials, he’d rather sit behind his desk and adamantly deny that the Death Mob’s Swarm has been lying dormant for the last two years, waiting for the right moment to reemerge.