His eyes are paralyzing. They look colorless—or gray, I can’t decide. They are fascinating and strange, eerily bright. For the tiniest of moments, I don’t even notice the expression behind them. But when I do, my stomach drops. His glare is sharp and piercing, like he hates me, like he knows what I’m doing, what I’ve already done.

He flips a cell in his hand.

Everything in me tightens.

Buzzing and ringing surround me. Teenagers wearing heavy clothing—hats, sunglasses, scarves, hoods, gloves—circle the pier. My gaze flickers between them. Half of them are tucking their phones away. The other half seem to be checking them, the lights of their screens peppering the fog with little blue orbs. The buzzing is deafening. I want to cover my ears and curl into a ball against the railing. I want to crawl under the bench and hide there.

I dial 911 and hit send.

And then I stop breathing. I realize now why the boy is staring at me.

It’s not because he knows what I’ve done. It’s much worse than that.

The Swarm isn’t after a tourist.

They’re after me.

Chapter 2

CHAPTER 2

Someone screams.

The noise is so loud and animalistic, my knees buckle and I collapse. I cover my head with my arms, bracing myself for a hit.

Curled into a ball, I’m vaguely aware of people shrieking and fleeing. I listen for footsteps charging me, but the pounding of my heart echoes in my head and mutes the world around me. This is it. I’m going to die. Petrified. And alone. Knowing in my final thoughts that I failed my dad and everything he stood for.

A low, muffled rumble of jeering and yelling emerges like a balloon. It pops, and the noise is overwhelming and terrifying and coming from someplace else. Dozens of them horde in a riotous circle around their victim forty feet away.

A bubble of air bursts from my mouth. They aren’t after me. But the tiny rush of relief is replaced by a new wave of limb-numbing fear.

These are the people who murdered my dad. They beat him beyond recognition. The Swarm’s enormity hits me as their thick wall of bodies huddle together, a deadly drove with one primal aim. Pressure coils around me, wringing my insides, strangling my throat though I know, better than anyone, that this is the worst time to panic.

I close my eyes and force myself to breathe, draw air into my lungs. I count down. Three. Two. One.

Swiping my phone, I scramble to the back of the bench. I stay low and peer through the wooden slats as dozens of them shove each other to get closer to the attack. Every hoot and scream makes me flinch. More emerge and join the chaos. Where were all these people hiding just moments ago, before the first hit?