I lean hard into the next turn. The vans are heavy and less maneuverable. Every corner gains us distance. They’re still tracking us somehow.
But how?
There’s a construction site ahead, with a chain-link fence and a gap where someone cut through. Perfect.
I aim for the gap, shoot through at forty miles per hour. We weave between cement mixers and excavators, the bike’s engine screaming in the confined spaces. Three hard turns through the maze of equipment. My left arm throbs with each movement, blood running down inside my sleeve, pooling in my glove, but the pain is manageable. I’ve worked through worse.
“Millennium Park,” I tell her, shouting over the wind. “Concert tonight.”
She nods against my shoulder.
The park stretches wide ahead, pulsing with light. Thousands of people swarm toward the main pavilion, a sea of movement and sound. Massive screens flash the words ANGEL FIRE – WORLD TOUR in molten red and gold. Even from blocks away, I can feel the bass rumbling through the pavement, through my ribs. Figures. The one night we need quiet and the biggest rock band on the planet is setting Chicago on fire.
But crowds are good places to vanish.
I pull in near a row of bikes, kill the engine. My left arm screams as I swing off, the bullet’s path reminding me it’s stillthere, but I keep the motion smooth. Controlled. She doesn’t need to see pain; she needs competence.
“Stay close.”
We merge with the flow of fans. College kids spilling beer from plastic cups, couples holding hands, Angel Fire shirts everywhere—black cotton and burning wings. Normal lives orbiting a single purpose: music. No one looks twice at us.
The opening chords of “Heart’s Insanity” thunder through the night, that iconic guitar riff echoing off glass towers. The crowd roars, a unified, fevered sound. Lights sweep over faces. Phones lift. The air vibrates with energy, joy, and alcohol.
That’s when I spot the street vendor pushing through the bodies—light-up necklaces, glow sticks, and surgical masks swinging from his stand. Still sealed. Five bucks each. Protection from summer colds, the cardboard sign boasts. Post-pandemic paranoia still paying dividends.
Next to them: baseball caps and tour shirts from Angel Fire’s Inferno Tour—the band’s logo in blazing orange and gold, wings, flame, and all. The vendor barely glances up when I pull out cash with my good hand, grabbing two masks, two caps, and two shirts.
“Put these on.”
Talia takes the bundle, already understanding. “Facial recognition?”
“Phoenix loves its surveillance.”
She tucks her hair beneath the cap, pulls the brim low. Mask up, head down. Instantly anonymous. I follow suit, adjusting the brim to cast a shadow over what the mask doesn’t hide. The shirt is too big on her, the black cotton swallowing her frame, but it makes her look like just another fan. We keep them on. They’re our armor now.
The band launches into “Hunting Waterfalls,” the crowd’s collective shout rising around us. The sound is deafening, overwhelming, perfect.
We move as one body with thousands of others, our faces lost to the strobing lights and smoke. Every camera in range sees nothing but data noise—caps, masks, color, motion. Not enough for an algorithm to name.
Talia glances up at the stage once, awe flickering in her eyes as the lights hit the band. For a heartbeat, she forgets the danger. I almost do too. Angel Fire fills the night, “Carry Her Home (for Me)” bleeding into the darkness like an anthem for everything we’ve lost.
Then the crowd surges again, and I catch her hand, grounding us back in the mission.
The far edge of the park lies in shadow, quieter, safer. I spot what we need—a faded Camry idling outside a coffee shop, driver inside grabbing a late-night caffeine fix. No GPS, no smart-key tracking. The perfect escape.
“We’re taking that car,” I say.
I move before she can debate ethics. Slide into the driver’s seat smooth and casual like it’s mine. She follows, shutting the door just as the owner exits the coffee shop, cup in hand. By the time they process what’s happening, we’re already turning the corner.
Behind us, Angel Fire hits the final chorus, a wall of sound rising like the city itself is singing us into the dark.
“Where are we going?”
“Somewhere off-grid.” I check mirrors, take another turn. No pursuit visible. “Twenty minutes north. Industrial district. Empty building I’ve used before.”
My arm throbs with each turn of the wheel, blood seeping through the jacket, soaking into the seat. The bullet’s deep butmissed the artery—I can tell by the flow rate. Steady seep, not spurting. I can work with this. Have to.
“You’re hurt.” Her hand hovers near my arm, not quite touching.
