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Our shoes made tracks in the dew on the grass, which was frosted by the gray early morning sunlight. The air smelled sharp, the chill settling into my skin. A mist rose from the ground and wreathed the trees in otherworldly fog, their branches held high in warning or fear at the creatures who roamed among their roots under the moon.
I paused. The light hadn’t made it into the woods yet, and shadows still twisted and undulated in the fog. I reminded myself the most lethal shadow walked behind me, his footprints in mine, his hand on the gun he held in the pocket of his navy jacket.
I found one of the deer paths my grandfather and I had explored when I was a child. When I stepped on the crunching rocks, the image of the trail came to my mind, and I walked forward with confidence. The pa
