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I hit the exit at seventy-five and brake hard.

Neither of us are buckled in.

The inertia slams Amanda into the glove box and shoves me forward into the steering wheel.

At the end of the ramp, I take a brutal left turn through a stop sign—tires squealing, rubber burning. It slings Amanda against her door and nearly sends me flying into her seat.

As I drive across the overpa.s.s, I count five sets of flas.h.i.+ng lights on the interstate, the closest SUV now speeding onto the exit ramp with two Humvees in tow.

We tear through the vacated streets of South Chicago.

Amanda leans forward, stares out the winds.h.i.+eld.

“What is it?” I ask.

She’s looking at the sky.

“I see lights up there.”

“Like a helicopter?”

“Exactly.”

I scream through empty intersections, past the shuttered El station, and then we’re clear of the ghetto, speeding alongside abandoned warehouses and train yards.

In the boondocks of the city.

“They’re getting close,” Amanda says.

A round thunks into the trunk of the car.

Followed by three more in fast succession, like someone taking a hammer to metal.

She says, “That’s a machine gun.”

“Get down on the floorboard.”

I can hear the anthem of sirens drawing near.

This antiquated sedan is no match for what’s coming.

Two more rounds pierce the back window and the winds.h.i.+eld.

One rips through the middle of Amanda’s seat.

Through the bullet-riddled gla.s.s, I see the lake straight ahead.

I say, “Hang on, we’re almost there.”

I make a hard right onto Pulaski Drive, and as a trio of bullets peppers the rear pa.s.senger door, I cut the lights.

The first few seconds of driving without headlights feels like we’re flying through total darkness.

Then my eyes begin to adjust.

I can see the pavement ahead, the black silhouettes of structures all around us.

It’s as dark as the countryside out here.

I take my foot off the gas, but I don’t touch the brake.

Glancing back, I see two SUVs make aggressive turns onto Pulaski.

Up ahead, I can just make out the pair of familiar smokestacks spearing the starlit sky.

Our speed is under twenty miles per hour, and though the SUVs are gaining fast, I don’t think their high beams have touched us yet.

I see the fence.

Our speed keeps dropping.

I steer across the road, and the grille smashes into the locked gate, splitting the doors apart.

We roll slowly into the parking lot, and as I maneuver around the toppled light poles, I look back toward the road.

The sirens are getting louder.

Three SUVs streak past the gate, trailed by two Humvees with machine-gun turrets mounted to their roofs.

I kill the engine.

In the new silence, I listen to the sirens fading away.

Amanda climbs up from the floorboard as I grab our pack from the backseat.

The slams of our doors bounce off the brick building straight ahead.

We move toward the crumbling structure and all that’s left of the original signage: CAGO POWER.

A helicopter buzzes overhead, a brilliant spotlight sc.r.a.ping across the parking lot.

Now I hear a revving engine.

A black SUV skids sideways across Pulaski.

Headlights blind us.

As we run toward the building, a man’s voice through a megaphone orders us to stop.

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