“There’re three,” I whisper to Sarah. She’s standing next to me, her back against the wall. “They must be the vat-grown ones Malcolm was talking about. Pale and ugly, as usual.”

“What’re they doing here?”

“Don’t know,” I reply. “But they’re easy targets.”

“I didn’t bring a gun on our date,” she whispers back. “I should’ve known better.”

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “They haven’t spotted us.”

Sarah looks down at my hands. “We can’t just let them do whatever they’re doing, can we?”

“Hell no,” I reply, realizing that my fists have clenched. For once, I’ve got the drop on Mogadorians. I want to know what they’re up to. No more running scared. “If things go bad, you run for help.”

“Things won’t go bad,” Sarah says firmly, and confidence flows through me. “Light those assholes up.”

I step into the alley and walk right towards the Mogs. Their hollow eyes focus on me in unison. For a moment, that old familiar chill runs through me, that fugitive feeling. I shove it down; this time, I’m choosing fight over flight.

“You guys lost?” I ask casually, striding closer.

“Get outta here, kid,” one of them hisses, flashing a row of tiny teeth. The Mog next to him opens up his coat, showing me the handle of a blaster tucked into his pants. They’re trying to scare me off like I’m just some human taking a really ill-advised shortcut home. They don’t recognize me for what I am. That means whatever they’re doing here, it isn’t hunting me.

“Getting kinda chilly,” I say, stopping about ten yards away from them. “You warm enough?”

Without waiting for a response, I trigger my Lumen. A fireball swirls into existence over my palm and I lob it at the closest Mog. He doesn’t even have a chance to react before it envelops his face, lighting him up like a matchstick for a moment before he disintegrates to ash.

The second Mog at least manages to reach for his blaster but that’s as far as he gets. I hit him with a fireball right in the chest. He lets loose a short scream and then joins the first Mog as dust on the dirty alley ground.

I don’t hit the final Mog with my Lumen. He’s the one holding that envelope and I don’t want to risk torching it. I want to see what the Mogs are after, what secret mission has these Mogadorians skulking around Chicago. He stares at me, almost as if he’s waiting for me to dispatch him as easily as I did the others, the envelope clutched to his chest. When he realizes that I’m hesitating, he takes off, sprinting down the alley.

A Mogadorian running from me. Now there’s a welcome change of pace.