I realize what’s about to happen a split second before it does as three Initiators stomp toward him.

He doesn’t see them. My dad’s face relaxes. He smiles at something on his phone.

The lead guy, bigger than my dad, winds up his hand to punch. He swings. My dad flinches away, dodging the hit. The second guy, Lip Spikes, anticipates it and punches him from the other direction. My dad’s glasses fly from his face. He falls, his body crashing against the sidewalk.

A strangled cry catches in my throat.

Lip Spikes punches him in the face. Again. And again. I wince and gasp as the Swarm materializes out of nowhere. Dozens of them. They surround my dad in a matter of seconds.

Screaming erupts. I can’t see them. But I hear them. Evening commuters run in the opposite direction, fending for themselves.

The Swarm closes in. My dad protects his head as Lip Spikes kicks him in the gut so hard that I’m sure something inside him burst.

And then my dad’s gone. Blocked from the camera’s view.

I drop the iPad.

Double over. Heaving.

Anguish rips through my body as if I’m the one being attacked. The world spins as horror and shock and images eat me alive. The smile on his face before he’s taken down. The blow to his cheek he never saw coming. The punches and kicks that tortured him in his final moments.

I try to picture Hana, like it has any chance of calming me or steadying me or preventing me from spiraling, but every detail of its sky or beach has escaped me.

Then realization hits.

Someone left this for me. Wanted me to suffer. Wanted me to watch my dad pummeled to death as some threat or warning to scare me into submission. These people murdered my father for trying to stop them. And they wanted to remind me of that in the most gruesome way possible. For what? To cripple me? To send me to the psychiatric center where I can’t pursue them?

Something coppery and rancid wafts into the alley.

Blood. My dad’s blood.

I hold my breath. Shake my head. No, it isn’t real.

Dopney’s screams echo from inside the pit.

Not. Real.

I shut my eyes. Count backward. Bury the delusions. Push them out of my head.

Five . . .

My dad moans.

Four . . .

His desperation.

Three . . .

Torture.

Two . . .

The Swarm cheers.

One.

My eyes wrench open to where the iPad lies on the ground. File Corrupt flashes on the screen. Incessant beeping punctures the empty alley. The file is being erased. I grab the iPad and slam it against the brick lining of our garage. Glass pops, shatters, and clinks across the gravel.