His baton, already raised and ready, comes down hard on her. Crack! She screams as the cruel metal tube strikes her shoulder. She falls to the ground. The cop spins, putting his back to us, and brings the baton down on her again.

“Oh, hell, no!” Robb exclaims. “Police brutality!”

The moment hangs above me like a cloud, even as it’s happening. Robb slips around me, light on his feet, like a breeze. His hand goes out, grabs the officer by the collar with one hand. His other hand knocks the baton aside and away from the woman on the ground.

OFFICER YOUNG

I feel under attack. I feel like a monster. All at the same time. It’s not so easy to breathe through a mask. We do our duty. We do the uniform proud. We stand our ground against the mob that threatens to tear everything down.

I’m not alone. But I’m at the end of the line. Exposed.

We withstand the shouting. We step strong, in formation, to drive them back.

We withstand the surge of bodies. I hold my baton down at my leg, ready, but still. Poke with it, when anyone gets too close.

The hands that shove my shoulder, jarring my helmet, knocking me off balance, are the last straw.

Whirl around, find the nearest dark, guilt-ridden face. Slam it to the ground.

ROBB

The police officer pivots away from the girl on the ground. He charges past me, slams his forearm into Tyrell.

Tyrell goes down, the cop’s knee in his back. “You’re under arrest,” the cop shouts. “Don’t move, asshole!”

Shit. Oh, fuck.

More cops.

Will kneels beside the beaten girl. I turn and there is no way out. The cops surround us with shields engaged. We put our hands up, except for the girl, who can’t move her right shoulder.

Some cop grabs my hands, wrenches them behind me. It’s fast and it’s fierce, and we know enough to go peacefully. The plastic band tightens around my wrists.

They don’t even put us in the same van.

We’re split up, me and Will, DeVante and Tyrell. I don’t know where DeVante even went, or if they got him. Tyrell was taken to the ground and cuffed and chained. Me, shuffled into a paddy wagon with a bunch of hissing activists, plastic zip ties around our wrists. We sit where we are told to sit.

There is energy, excitement. The worst has happened, we have done what we came here to do. Our faces will be on the news. We are willing to go down for the cause, but I can see now that we won’t. That we have it easy.

STEVE CONNERS

The call you fear. When it comes, there are no words. There is no breath. There is only your wife’s hand, if you can find it, and at the moment you can’t.

There is the chorus in the back of your mind: He is alive. He is alive. He is alive.