I lift my chin as my foot hits the sidewalk. Across the street, lights from the Chicago Theatre’s marquee bursts through the dimming twilight. Descending the Red Line stairs, I push my way through the turnstile and take the escalator down to the platform. Hundreds of people pass me going up, headphones snaking into their ears, messenger bags slung across their torsos. None of them seem more frightened or alerted than on any other day. I’m half expecting someone to recognize me as the girl from the pier, the girl found on the mayor’s dock, the girl whose father was savagely murdered exactly two years and eighteen days ago. But no one takes a second glance.

I look for Swarm, unable to find anyone who fits the stereotyped profile I’ve created for them. And it worries me. I have no idea who they are. Stepping off the escalator, I squeeze my way to the front of the platform, taking my place beside a tiled pillar.

I glance over my shoulder. He stands behind me, several rows of people back, not looking in my direction.

Train lights flicker in the tunnel to the right. The air is stale and warm. Sheets of discarded newspaper flutter on the tracks below. A rat scurries to take cover. Across the platform, the same Chicago ad from the train takes up most of the wall. It promotes Phase Two of the Lakefront Project, listing ways the project has benefitted the city like it’s justifying the next group of mansions they’re about to build. Someone has spray-painted Save the Parks across the entire poster in green.

I’m trying to figure out how someone crossed the tracks to spray-paint their message when the train’s rumbling grows into a booming, rattling noise that overwhelms the station.

The first several cars pass as it slows to a stop. Every car is crowded. Standing room only. The car that stops in front of me is especially packed. Teenagers with hard, scowling faces stand behind the door beneath the train’s putrid florescent lighting. Dozens of them. One guy glares at me with ferocity. I’ve never felt so hated. His lips are pressed together. His nostrils flare.

They’re here for me.

They stand two feet away on the other side of the train doors, ready to mob me, to beat me to death. I try counting them, to determine my odds, but I can’t stop staring at the lead boy. He’s the one who will throw the first punch. I try to step back, but too many people push me forward from behind. I can’t move. No one lets me move. And then the train chimes, the doors open. People flood out of the car.