Imogen—realizing the starting gun had already been fired—clapped her hands to her cheeks and exclaimed, “TAYLOR SWIFT, OH MY FREAKING GOSH.”

She bolted in the vague general vicinity of Delta’s baggage check-in, hands in the air, like she was on an actual roller coaster or something. Outside of Shakespeare, she was kind of a terrible actor.

The line to security reacted, all right. All sense of sleepiness was eviscerated. People leaned over the rope, ducked under the rope, abandoned the rope entirely—all for a better look.

That’s when a guy the size of an offensive lineman bulldozed Imogen into the floor.

Wynezra, Holden, and I stared, openmouthed. We could barely process what had just happened. It was like watching a galloping giraffe get taken down by a dinosaur.

“Chicago PD!” said a hostile male voice. “Hands in the air!”

I didn’t know when, or where, or how, but suddenly, we were surrounded. Men in blue shirts and dark bulletproof vests swarmed us. There were three of them, with three guns pointed at each of our heads—just begging us to give them a reason to go for the head shot.

We all threw our hands in the air simultaneously.

The officers moved in, grabbing our wrists, cuffing them behind our backs. They didn’t seem incredibly concerned with our comfort.

“What the hell, man?” said Wynezra. “What are you doing? You can’t do this!”

“Yeah, we have rights!” Holden proclaimed. And then, a little unsure of himself: “I mean, we do, don’t we?”

“Yes, Holden, we have rights,” I said.

“Are you the owner of the silver Subaru Forester in the drop-off zone?” an officer asked Wynezra. The oldest and unfriendliest looking of the bunch—craggy-faced, square-jawed, no-bullshit vibe. He looked like a disgruntled Josh Brolin playing a cop, which seemed to indicate there was a fifty/fifty chance he was dirty.

“What?” she said. She glanced down at herself. “Well, I am now, I guess, but… c’mon, guys, I was gonna come back for it!”

“Sure you were. Right after you distracted security.”

In my peripheral, I noticed the dinosaur of a cop who took Imogen down peeling her off the floor like a piece of string cheese.

“I can’t feel my anything,” she mumbled.

“We’re gonna take you kids down to the station,” said Officer Brolin. “Maybe find out why you felt it necessary to visit the airport at three in the morning and leave a suspicious, illegally parked vehicle outside the terminal. So, you know… you have the right to remain silent, anything you do say can be used against you, so on and so forth. You’ve seen the movies.”

I had seen way too many Josh Brolin movies to feel comfortable with this scenario. All I knew was we were royally screwed.

“Wynonna?” said a familiar voice.

The voice came from the security line.

An adult male voice.

But it wasn’t Roscoe.