My pulse pounds under every part of my skin. Blinker on. Glide to the shoulder. Lower the window, then freeze, with my hands at ten and two. I already can’t breathe.

Not one, but two police cars. I expect them to flank me. They don’t even slow.

My car rocks in their wake. They are flying.

A prayer slides out of me, unbidden.

Relief, for myself.

Hope and despair, for the poor souls at the other end of their call.

Find a gap, ease back into traffic. Other cars rocket by me. I’m that annoying driver everybody can’t wait to pass. Their slipstream is my security blanket. They’ll get pulled over before me, for sure.

I’m only a few minutes’ drive from the Underhill Community Center. I’ll make it there before full dark.

My old car chugs its way down the exit ramp, weaves through the neighborhood. It’s hard, coming down from expressway speed. Feels like I’m crawling.

Peach Street is all lit up like Christmas. Some kind of big mess.

I crawl. Watch the needle like a hawk. Use my signals.

Fifty bucks. A hundred. That’s good money and all, but what’s the cost of freedom?

All I know is what it’s not worth: my life.

KIMBERLY

The clock on the office wall reads 5:27. It’s two minutes behind my cell phone. My shift technically ended at five.

Zeke’s late.

I’ve been pretend-packing-up my purse for almost half an hour. Put the lip gloss in, take the lip gloss out. Gloss. Put the lip gloss back in. Stand up. Loop the purse straps over my arm and take a last look at the desk. I’m like a background character in a cartoon. Can you get a repetitive stress injury from being ridiculous?

I should go. Instead, I unloop the straps and sit down again.

There’s a file folder open on the desk. Doesn’t matter which. It’s only there so I can close it with a flourish, stuff it in the drawer, and breezily declare, “I was just on my way out.”

I scroll to see what everyone’s posting. Another couple of minutes won’t hurt anything.

There’s a discussion going on between several well-known organizers from around the country. Kelvin X and Viana Brown love to go head-to-head about protest tactics. Kelvin thinks he’s clever, and he always sounds good in a thread of one-liners, but most of his ideas are unrealistically militant. I toss hearts onto a couple of Viana’s best zingers. Violence is not the answer; violence is the question. She is always spot on.

The big viral item of the afternoon appears to be an article featuring Senator Alabaster Sloan.

I scroll past that one. I don’t want to think about Senator Sloan. The Reverend. Al. Whatever.

“Hey.” Zeke’s voice comes out of nowhere.