But first, I have to get there.
At least ten miles.
My feet already throb, torn up from that midnight sprint, the skin rubbed raw. I need a ride. Transit would do. The L, a bus, anything, but I’ve got nothing. No shoes, no money, no card. The odds of a transit cop letting me through? Zero.
Centering myself, I whisper a request to the universe. “I am open to receiving safe and immediate transportation to Chicago. I am aligned with the energy of progress. I trust my path forward will reveal itself.”
As I near the edge of the park, I spot a yellow taxi gliding slowly around the corner, the headlights catching puddles.
My chest jerks as hope and panic tangle together.
Salvation almost passes me by.
The cabbie barely glances my way.
For a second, I think I’ve lost my shot at abundance.
But then he slows.
Stops.
His face, obscured behind mirrored aviators, regards me through the rearview.
Frantically, I throw my arms up. “Please!” There’s no time for pride, if I ever even had any. “Bad date. Real jerk. He left me here. I need to get to my hotel in the city. I promise I can pay you if you just get me there.”
The driver surveys me more closely. Bare feet, shredded dignity, a face streaked with dirt.
He’s older, with salt-and-pepper hair. With the deep noise of a man who’s seen every kind of trouble, he sighs. “Hop in.” Gruff, but not cold. “You look like you need a break today.”
“Thank you so much. I really do.” I slide onto the worn leather of the back seat.
As the taxi pulls out into the empty road, bright, overwhelming relief hits me.
I’m moving. Free. Alive.
For the first time in six days, hope feels less like a prayer and more like a possibility.
I rest my forehead against the taxi window and watch Scoville Park fade away. The streets melt into the ragged fringe of Chicago. With every block, the tightness in my chest loosens, tension leaking out by degrees. For the span of a breath, my eyes drift closed.
That’s when the world comes crashing back in a shockwave of shrieking metal. Glass shatters in a burst of brittle stars, the impact spiraling through my body. I fling around the back seat as the taxi spins.
Gravity loses hold, and the banshee wail of the horn assaults my ears.
One bounce. Two. We’re rocking. Then we slam back down onto all four tires, one side higher than the other, the cab a twisted mess.
Somehow, I’m not hurt. Or maybe I’m just not feeling the pain yet.
That’s a scary thought.
Digging my fingers into the seat, I pull myself up off the floorboard and press my face against the plexiglass separating the back from the front, where I find the kind driver slumped, his chin buried in his chest and blood trickling from his hairline in shivering, crimson rivulets. The cab thickens with the stench of smoke and burning rubber. I take a deep breath and find undertones of hot metal and chemicals that sting the back of my throat.
A black van idles nearby, crooked in the street, its front end mangled.
My ears ring, the electric, high-pitched whine eclipsing everything but my racing pulse.
Before I can come up with a way to save the driver, the door at my side bursts outward. The screech of metal scrapes down my spine.
Two sets of hands seize me and haul me out as a man shoves his face into my field of vision. I get a close-up of pocked skin, the scar slicing his cheek, and hot, distant eyes.
