“Smart girl,” the man said. “You may get out of this just yet. But first, turn around, slowly. Like I said, one wrong move, and your young life is over. I don’t want to shoot a girl, but you’re holding a gun, and until I’m holding that gun, you’re a threat. So please go slow.”

She couldn’t fault his logic. Which is probably why he’s some kind of mercenary and you’re a high school student. She did as he asked, turning slowly to her left as an irrational fear came over her, as if she were about to come face-to-face with the incarnation of evil. She stopped and found herself less than fifteen feet from her ambusher. She could make out gray features, dark clothes, a Kevlar vest like the other impersonators wore, and the gun that was pointed directly at her. His eyes were his most visible feature. She could still see them—at least their whites and the black holes that punctuated them like periods on his soul. He was a man in shadow—but then the shadows around him moved, and Sam’s terror ascended to a whole new level.

An arm drenched in blackness snaked around the man’s left shoulder and reached under the man’s left wrist, grasping the pistol under the barrel near the trigger guard. Simultaneously, a hand reached up from the man’s right side and plunged something into his neck below his jawline. The man issued a cry of shocked pain, and his neck turned dark black with blood. Sickened from the sudden violence, Sam turned away and instinctively dropped her iPhone, holding the Glock in front of her.

The sounds of the man’s dying struggle elicited a gag reflex, and she found herself wanting to throw up. Don’t do it. He was going to kill you and, at best, was holding you at gunpoint. She fought the urge and then looked back as the impersonator’s killer lowered the dying man to the ground, the man’s pistol now in the hands of its new owner.

The dying man’s right hand tried to press against the wound, but it was useless. Whatever his killer had done, it was permanent—there was no stopping the flow of blood. He fell onto his back and stared up at the night sky, a blanket of darkness looming over him. Within seconds, his existence was consumed by it and he was no more.

Sam stood in shock, pointing the Glock at a spot between the dead man on the ground and the figure standing before her. After a very brief moment, the shadow raised its hands and spoke.

“Are you hurt?” a young voice asked.