“Since when are my business affairs any concern of yours?” I pulled down on the light switch and fell to the floor.

“Simon!” they bellowed.

I could hear Simon on the other side try the knob, swear, and put his shoulder into the door. Someone came up behind me, trying to get at the switch. I grabbed him at the knees and pulled hard. He came crashing over at the same time that Simon kicked the door open. I squirmed out from under the body I’d tackled. Staying on my hands and knees, I made it past Simon and out the door.

Simon’s pal was rushing in behind him. He grabbed at me as I went past, but missed. I ran down the hall, trying to get back to the entrance. Someone fired at me. I started moving from side to side as I ran, but I was too exposed a target. When they fired again I turned down the T-intersection to the loading bays.

The same subdued industry I’d interrupted last week was taking place on the work floor. A couple of men overhead were steadying a load on a gantry while another couple stood at the open back of a trailer to receive it.

I sprinted past them out onto the bay and jumped to the ground. I couldn’t hear anything over the truck engines, to know whether the Hulk was close at hand or not, and I didn’t stop to look. I could feel the gravel under the thin soles of my Tigers, could feel my toes wet with sweat or blood. It was still raining. I didn’t waste energy wiping water from my eyes, just kept running until I reached the Impala.

“Don’t flood now,” I gasped at it, turning the key while I slammed the door shut. The engine caught and I reversed with a great squeal of rubber. A bullet tore through one of the back windows. I shoved the car into drive without braking. The gears ground, but Luke’s magic fingers on the transmission kept it running smoothly and we leaped forward.

I careened down the drive toward Thirty-first Place. I was almost at the intersection when I saw the lights of one of the semis bearing down on me from behind. I turned right, sharply, so sharply that the car skidded on the wet road. I spun around in a circle, my arms cold with fear, chanting to myself my father’s lessons for managing a skid. I straightened out without flipping over, but the truck was now right behind me, almost touching the back of the Impala. I accelerated hard, but he was bearing down on me too fast.

We were running on an access road to the expressway, next to the stilts of the exit ramp to Damen, where pylons lowered the road notch by notch. I could just make out a fence through the rain.