Waiting in the Wings

The city of New York was caught in that eerie hour between day and night, and what few people were left on the streets were hurrying home, hoping to be safely inside before darkness blanketed the city and some on the more- unsavory elements came out to play.

A young girl with amber eyes was no exception. Pulling her long, tattered coat more tightly around her, she ducked her head and tried to ignore the biting cold. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering, speeding up just a little.

The weatherman had said the temperature wouldn't go below fifty degrees, but she was sure it was much colder.

The wind played with her dark hair, making it fly into her face and obscure her vision. Muttering a curse that a girl her age had no business knowing, she stopped and put down her bag, pulling a hair tie off her wrist.

She was reaching up to tie her hair back when he grabbed her. One meaty hand covered her mouth, so she couldn't scream. He pulled her several feet into a dark alley. She struggle desperately, trying to break his hold on her, but he was too strong.

She froze, her entire body trembling, as she felt the cold steel of a knife against her throat. Don't make a sound, the man hissed, taking his hand off her mouth. She nodded shakily, her breath coming in short, panicked gasps.

Then she felt the knife sliding across her throat, biting into her skin, and her blood spilled out onto the pavement...

* * *

Kendall Foster woke with a scream on her lips. Her hands clenched, she gasped, trying to get her breath back. She was covered in a light sheen of sweat.

Damn. She hadn't had that dream in almost a year. She'd been naïve enough to think that she was over it, that she'd put The Incident, as she always referred to that night in her mind, behind her. Obviously it would take more time to truly accept that she'd almost died that night.

In fact, she had no idea how she'd survived. She'd been walking home from soccer practice when the man had grabbed her, probably to steal her money. She tried not to think about what else had happened.

What she didn't understand was how one minute he was slitting her throat, and the next he was- gone. Just like that. She supposed he must have run away for some reason- maybe he thought someone was coming?- but the fact that he'd vanished so quickly, and left his knife, covered in her blood and his fingerprints, behind, was odd. He'd never been found.

Shaking her head to try to dispel those dark thoughts, she slowly pushed the covers off and made her way to the light switch. When she switched the light on, and bright fluorescent light filled the room, she couldn't help but feel safer, although she knew she was still just as vulnerable.

She was, after all, completely alone in the small apartment. Catherine Foster was a night-shift nurse at the local hospital, and though she hated leaving her daughter alone at night, they needed the money.

Kendall sighed. She'd never be able to get back to sleep. It was a good thing today was a Friday, and not a school night. She glanced at the small clock on her desk. It proclaimed in glowing red letters that the time was 11:57.

In three minutes, Kendall would be eleven years old.