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The bus pulled up to another stop and an elderly man sitting across from them got up and left by the rear doors.

Lily mumbled, “I can’t do this. I can’t leave my father.”

A police car raced past with its lights flashing and its siren blaring.

Jason barely realized what was happening next. He was distracted by the police cruiser and the flickering blue and red lights lighting up the neighborhood. Suddenly, he realized Lily was gone. The rear door of the bus closed and the bus pulled away into the street again, leaving Lily standing on the sidewalk.

“No,” he cried, jumping out of his seat and running to the door.

The bus continued to accelerate.

“Stop the bus!” he cried, striking the door with his palm.

“Next stop’s a hundred yards down the road,” the driver called out, making eye contact with him in his rear-view mirror.

“Let me off,” Jason yelled, again striking the glass in the door panels with the flat of his hand.

“What are you doing?” Mitchell cried out, still pinned by the window by Helena. “Leave her, dude. If she wants to wait on a street corner, let her do it. You don’t owe her anything.”

Jason grabbed the emergency release lever and pulled. The door opened, but the bus was speeding along at easily thirty-five miles an hour. The concrete raced by in a blur. The wind howled through the open door, swirling into the footwell.

“Hey!” the driver called out. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get back in your seat!”

The driver eased off the accelerator and onto the brakes with the kind of precision that had been missing from his driving so far. He slowed the bus, pulling over close to the curb. Jason watched as lampposts and trash cans whipped past, timing his jump.

“Don’t you—“ the driver called.

“No!” Mitchell yelled.

Jason jumped from the bus, landing on the concrete sidewalk, surprised by his forward momentum. He could have sworn the bus had slowed to a running pace, but it must have been still moving considerably faster than he realized, and he found himself rolling on the pavement with his arms up protecting his head.

“You stupid dumb fuck!” the driver called out. He’d brought the bus to a halt about thirty feet away and had opened the front doors, standing on the bottom step as he shook his fist at Jason. “Damn kids!”

Jason got to his feet, grimacing at the skin torn from his forearms and his bloody elbows. Pain surged, surprising him with how much it hurt.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Mitchell cried, stepping down out of the rear doors of the bus, followed by Helena.

“Just go on without me,” Jason called out, feeling stupid. He waved them away. What was wrong with him? This was unlike him. Jason wasn’t one to be impetuous and stupid. As far as stupid went, that stunt was right up there with the dumbest things he’d ever done. If his head had struck the concrete he could have suffered a serious, life threatening concussion. People had died from less, and he knew it.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” he whispered, turning his back on Mitchell and Helena and looking at Lily in the distance.

The driver of the bus closed the doors and the bus pulled back out into the traffic, leaving them on the sidewalk. He could hear Mitchell walking up behind him.

“Oh, my God. Look at your arms!” Helena cried.

Jason could feel blood dripping from his fingers.

“I’m OK,” he said, raising a hand and requesting some distance. “Just … give me some space.”

“No problem, dude!” Mitchell said, holding his hands out in a non-threatening gesture, his fingers splayed wide.

Jason ran down toward where he’d last seen Lily a couple of hundred yards away on the next block. He jogged across the street, barely pausing to look for traffic. She’d disappeared down a darkened alley. Rain began falling from the night sky. Twilight was over. Even with streetlights, the night seemed unusually dark.

As he approached the alley, Jason heard a deep, resonant hum like that of a generator. Lights flickered from the narrow alley between the buildings, flashes of blue-white like those from an arc welder cutting through the darkness.

He glanced back at Mitchell and Helena. They were waiting to cross at the lights.

Jason slowed to a walk, wondering what could be causing the flashes between the buildings. Wisps of smoke drifted from the alley. He stepped around the corner and into a gale not dissimilar to what he’d once felt from the downdraft of a landing helicopter. Flecks of dust and dirt whipped through the air. Scraps of paper tore around him.