The bikes didn’t pass by immediately, which meant they’d clocked my move. I popped the car into reverse, eased down the ramp, and watched the entrance behind me in the rearview.
Thirty seconds, maybe less, and I saw the first helmet appear. He slowed, scanned the garage with a head tilt, and then—no warning—kicked the bike over and came in, tires biting slick cement.
I went for the exit, not caring about the sign that said “DO NOT ENTER.” Out the ramp and onto the street, a full block ahead of the biker. I took a left onto Johnson, then another onto 11th, then threaded the needle between a box truck and a Prius at the next light. The bikes didn’t show in the mirror for two blocks. Then, all at once, they were there—two up front, one off to the side, gaining fast.
Now the fun part.
I took the baby’s hand in mine, just for a second, and whispered, “Sorry, kid,” then slammed the gas.
I went up the curb, over a median, through the open gates of a construction site. My wheels caught in the mud, and I felt the car tilt hard left, nearly taking us into a stack of rebar.
I cranked the wheel, corrected, and burst out the other side of the site with a shower of gravel clanging off the undercarriage. The bikes followed, but one went down in the mud, helmet and all, and didn’t get up right away.
I had time to think again.
Steel Bridge was up ahead. I remembered, suddenly and with uncomfortable clarity, a training scenario where you have to lose a tail in an urban environment using only what’s in the car and what’s in your head.
Back then, I’d used the river—just floored it for the waterfront and prayed for the best. It worked. This time, I aimed for the pedestrian ramp, knowing it was a bad plan, but hoping the city’s design flaws would work in my favor.
I hit the ramp at thirty, scraping the Subaru’s underbelly on every raised bolt, but the car held together. At the halfway point, I pulled into a side lot and killed the engine, letting inertia carry me the last ten feet behind a line of parked semis.
The bikes came up behind me, but I watched as they shot past the ramp, not even pausing. I waited, counting the seconds. Ten. Fifteen. Thirty. Nothing but silence and the soft click of cooling metal.
My hands were steady as I started the car and pulled back onto the street, looping north along the river before cutting west and south, then back east again.
No bikes. No one.
The baby stirred. I risked a glance. She was looking up at me, face unreadable, eyes almost dark enough to be black. For a split second I wondered if she understood, if her silence was some kind of grim agreement about the shape of the world. Then she yawned, a huge, jaw-cracking yawn, and tucked her face deeper into my jacket.
I didn’t head to the hospital. They’d be waiting, or worse, they’d pull the video and have me ID’d before I even made itto the maternity wing. I doubled back to my own alley, the one I’d started from, and parked nose-in so the plates wouldn’t be visible from the street. The rain had picked up, and it hammered the windshield with a metallic urgency.
I braced the baby with one arm as I opened the door. Cold, sharp air hit my face, cutting through the stink of wet cardboard and oil. I ran for the stairs, taking them two at a time, the baby zipped tight to my body and the jacket hood up to shield her from the rain.
At the third floor landing, I stopped to listen. No footsteps. No voices. Just the hum of distant traffic and, beneath that, the impossibly soft snore of the baby against my chest.
I got the door open and slipped inside, bolting it behind me. Only then did I let myself breathe.
Inside, the apartment was all teal walls and warm light, every surface stacked with paperbacks, empty mugs, and the occasional clean t-shirt.
If I squinted I could almost pretend this was just another night, the baby a weird fever dream I’d conjured after too much caffeine and not enough sleep.
But the weight against my chest was real. The fist was real. And the silence that followed—the silence after a city chase, after running all your best moves and realizing you’re still in it—was the most real thing of all.
I stared at her. She stared back, tiny and alive, like she was waiting for me to come up with the next move. I didn’t have one. Not yet. But I had time, and I had a locked door, and for the moment, that would have to do.
In the calm after a chase, when the adrenaline fades and you’re left with whatever’s left of your mind, you cling to the rituals. I dropped the keys into their bowl by the door, kicked off my boots, and set the grocery bag on the counter. Then I peeledthe jacket off my chest, careful, as if the thing inside was more volatile than nuclear waste.
The baby didn’t move until I laid her on the bed. It was the first time she wasn’t pressed directly to my body since I’d found her, and for a second she looked offended by the separation.
Her arms flailed, fists caught in the empty air, then she made a disgusted little snort and rolled onto her side, burrowing into the navy folds of the duvet.
I sat on the mattress’s edge, the bed springs groaning under my weight, and took inventory:
One: the baby was here.
Two: the baby was not dead.
Three: men on bikes wanted her, or me, or both, and they were good enough that I’d nearly lost the game in the opening round.
