There was smoke coming from the effigy of John Stockton. Glowing red embers were rising into the night.

They’re beautiful, he thought. A beautiful sight.

Around him, somewhere, there was chaos, distant, horrid, chaos. He didn’t want to go there. He shut it out.

He focused on the sky above, instead. He stared transfixed as the glowing embers rose, higher, higher still, lofted by the warmth of the smoke and fire below them.

Then one by one, as he watched, they died out in the cold air above.

Like Oscar.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT.

Auuuuuugggggghhhh.

A sound louder, deeper, and more painful than any Rangan had ever heard pounded through him, resonating through his bones, his teeth, his bowels. It was like every bass bin of every system he’d ever DJed had been piled atop him, turned up to twenty, and blasted on the same bass line all at once.

Oh fuck that was motivating in worst fucking way.

He rolled onto his side, curling into a ball, his stomach heaving. Someone fell to the pavement just feet from his face. He barely noticed as his stomach heaved again. He rolled all the way over, just in time, as the lunch he’d eaten hours ago with the boys emptied itself out of him onto the pavement.

Then the sirens came. WAWAWAWAWAWAWA.

He looked up and there were spinning lights out there in the distance, over the heads of the crowd, many of whom were now on their knees. Spinning lights in the direction they’d been driving. Spinning lights in the direction they’d come from. Buildings in the other two directions.

“YOU ARE ORDERED TO DISPERSE IMMEDIATELY,” boomed across the crowd. “YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS. ALL WHO DO NOT DISPERSE WILL BE ARRESTED.”

Disperse? How could they disperse? They were penned in by the cops and the buildings.

He pushed himself up to one knee. God, he hurt. A stranger in a mask – maybe one of the men who’d rolled their car – was on the ground, groaning. A piece of wood lay nearby, maybe part of a sign, just beyond his outstretched hand. Rangan grabbed the board from the ground, used it like a cane to come to standing.

He looked up and, not twenty feet away, a protester had a brick his hand, cocked back to throw, and then it was flying through the air, towards the flashing lights.

“Oh shit,” Rangan heard himself say.

Then the rubber bullets – he hoped they were rubber – converged on the protester, picked him up and threw him back.