The fuel light blinks on a thousand miles from the Canadian border. I see it between glances out of my rear-view mirror—a silver minivan has been following me for a few miles now—its orange light a faded yellow in the pallid sun, needle tipping dangerously close to empty. My chest hollows. I forgot to get gas. Of course, I knew I’d have to refill the tank at some point, but not so soon. Not before I got out of Oklahoma.

Shit. I smack my palms against the rim of the steering wheel. Shit, shit, shit.

I look up to see the brake lights of the car in front of me light up inches from the hood of my beat-down Honda Civic. My foot slams on the brakes and I sling forward, jerking my neck when the seat belt yanks me back. There’s a clatter as my gun hurtles into the glove box’s plastic door. The Toyota swerves into the left lane with a drawn-out honk and speeds out of sight.

Come on. I try to take a deep breath, but it jitters in my lungs. Get it together. Five minutes to get gas, tops, then I can get back on the road. It should take the Ring at least another hour to realize they’re missing two million dollars, and by then, I’ll be out of the state. I have time.

According to the sign above the interstate, the next exit is in two miles. Get gas, get back on the road, drive until I can’t anymore. Reach Canada. Build a little cabin in the middle of nowhere so no one can find me. Maybe become a fisherman. I could handle fishing, I think. Sitting by the water, day after day, listening to the waves and the gulls. It’s a shitty plan, just like all of mine have been lately, but it’s a plan.

I try to breathe again. It comes easier, if not easily. With a throb of protest from my likely fractured ankle, I shift back into gear and keep driving.

I have time.

My sneakers crunch into the thin layer of snow veiling the OnCue parking lot. An icy wind slashes through my sweatshirt and jeans. I pull my hood over my head and tug the drawstrings tight around my chin. Checking the forecast, yet another thing I forgot to do before I left, but at least with this weather, no one will question why I’m covering my face.

A blast of warm air hits me as I limp through the store’s sliding glass doors. Out of the corner of my eye, I scan the ceiling. Between fluorescent lights crammed to the edges with dead flies, little round, black cameras stick out from white paint like pupils. I duck my head. Buy gas. In and out.

“Excuse me.”

A tall man in a thick, black coat steps in front of me, his hands stuffed in his pockets. From within a thicket of bushy black hair, his blue eyes glint like the distant lights of a cell tower. I knew those eyes, years ago, though back then they were dilated and bloodshot. But it isn’t him; it can’t be. He’s dead.

The door gives a merry jingle, and I realize I’ve stepped back. I breathe in and ask, “Yes?” Short and direct. Fewer words give fewer opportunities to set people off.

The man’s gaze lingers on my eyes, then drags across my exposed skin. His expression shifts and his hands bulge beneath the fabric of his coat like rats in their burrows, clawing for something. In the time it takes him to draw whatever it is free, I could have run. It takes minutes, it takes hours, but still, I don’t move. Instead, I see a bullet pass through my leg—the Ring’s favorite spot since it doesn’t kill; they can’t get answers from the dead, and it denies any chance of escape, something Simone knew when she tried to kick in my shin as we were fleeing one of the Ring’s private warehouses. Maybe this man will finish the job.

He takes out a pair of woolen gloves. “Just trying to get to the door.” His beard lifts in what might be a smile.

“Oh. Sorry,” I hear myself say. I force my feet to step aside. My skin buzzes as though thousands of gnats were flying through my veins.

The man nods and raises a hand. I tense, but he only claps it to my shoulder. “Stay warm, son.” He leaves.

I press my palms against my thighs, trying to focus on the way the fibers dig into every crevasse in my fingertips instead of the bullet that never existed, that I can still feel, pulsing a dull ache through my leg. He just wanted to go outside. That’s all. I look over my shoulder through the doors but see nothing. No him. He’s probably sitting in his car, eating M&Ms with his kids. Or maybe he’s biding his time, letting the boss know where I am, waiting for me to go outside so he can shove me into a silver minivan faster than I can scream.

I stumble to the counter, where the cashier, a stocky, dark-haired woman with a name tag reading “Cindy,” stares at me, wearing a plasticky smile over a look of well-established boredom. As she opens her mouth, I say, “Just some gas. Pump four.”

Her smile twitches, but fixes back in place when she asks, “How much?”

I fumble my wallet out of my pocket. Inside is a stack of cash—everything I could find at home in the ten minutes I allotted myself to pack, which is to say, not much. Maybe two hundred at most, a far cry from the million I would’ve had if Simone hadn’t thrown me under the bus to take the whole cut. I hand Cindy a fifty. She taps something into the register, and I look around at the shelves stacked with snacks, cables, and gum. Behind her is a glass case full of cigarette packs, their bright lids arranged in a rainbow. Marlboros were my dad’s favorite. Their crumpled corpses used to sprinkle our yellowed carpet like confetti before his heart gave out. Cardiac arrest, according to the cops. Probably from all the smoking. Mom screamed when she saw his body, but all I remember feeling is bored, looking for constellations in the cigarette butts as she held me, wailing, waiting for the ambulance to arrive. I was twelve years old.

“And a pack of Marlboro Reds,” I say, grabbing a purple lighter from the rack on the counter. “And this.”

Cindy raises an eyebrow. “ID?”

I take it from my wallet and look into the face of a man named Scott West. My face, my new name. It was supposed to be a sign of my success, of the life I would have lived after taking everything the Ring had falsely promised. But now it feels wrong, like I’m looking at a doppelgänger made of my skin, my mom’s sunken eyes, and my dad’s patchwork stubble. I hand it over.

After I pay, tuck myself into the driver’s seat, and park in a corner of the lot, away from the staring eyes and cameras, I pop open the pack of Marlboros. Even unlit, I can smell the warm, thick smoke that lingered in the carpet, the walls, the plastic-covered beige sofa my mom held me on as I stared at my dad’s corpse amidst the stars. What would she think if she saw me now?

You’re just like your father.

Even after he died, she acted like he was still around, lurking around corners and behind every door. I got used to hearing her gasps whenever I entered the room, and though she never said it, I always knew what she was thinking. But it doesn’t matter what she thinks now, because she’s dead, too.

I place a cigarette between my lips and light it. A thread of smoke wisps from its end, I breathe it in—and the weight of it rushes into my lungs, bitter and sharp and suffocating. Coughs tear from my throat, but behind the pain is something else: a cold, heady feeling that steadies my shaking hands. I take another drag. It’s easier this time.

I roll down the window and blow smoke into the brisk winter air. According to the map, I’m about a hundred miles from Wichita. Then, I’ll head northwest until I reach Portal and keep going to the edge of the continent. The Ring’s jurisdiction ends at the border, but the further I am, the safer I’ll be.

As I pull out of the parking lot, I see the man in the black coat watching me from the seat of a silver minivan.

Seventeen minutes have passed since I’ve seen another car. Before that, ten minutes had passed, then eight. Logically, if there are no cars, then the Ring can’t be following me. But I can’t believe that. Instead, I scan the trees that border the highway, wondering if the shadows between the branches are moving leaves or something hiding within them.

I bring another cigarette to my lips. It fills me with that pleasant chill, loosening my tense limbs. My head falls back against the headrest. I see why my dad smoked. He was nicer with a cigarette, which isn’t saying much, because he was always an asshole. But when he smoked, he wasn’t yelling. Wasn’t swinging his fists or throwing the closest thing he could get his hands on. Maybe smoking was his way of hiding from the parts of himself that could only show love through black eyes and broken bottles.

A freezing rain patters against the windshield, accompanied by my radio’s crackling rendition of Holst’s “Venus.” I played that song in my high school orchestra on a viola I rented with money the Ring paid me for smuggling. Those were better times, when I still believed the Ring would give me anything I wanted. Money to build a life away from the smoke-stained apartment and drug runs. Control over myself, so I could be my own ruler for once, not a scared little boy in his daddy’s fist. But the Ring’s fist was tighter. The only difference was when they offered me their hand, they told me it was deliverance.

I don’t notice the black-and-gold police car crouched on the median until its lights begin to flash, reflecting off the wet pavement. A few seconds later, a siren shrieks behind me. I glance at my speedometer, which displays, in harsh white numbers: 115. Forty miles over.

Shit. If he’s one of the Ring’s connections, I’m as good as dead; if he isn’t, he’ll give me a ticket, everyone with access to the traffic ticket database will know where I am, and then I’ll be as good as dead. So that’s it, then. I’m dead.

I stop on the side of the road, gulping down mouthfuls of smoke to temper the rising fever in my chest, but it doesn’t work. It won’t be quick, I know that. They don’t like quick. Quick isn’t punishing enough for them. No, they’ll draw it out, make it hurt. They’ll torture me, and when they realize I failed, I don’t know where their millions are because Simone took the cash and left me for dead, they’ll keep going until I’m an unrecognizable pile of mush.

There’s a knock on the window. I look up to see the cop, a middle-aged man with cropped, greying hair and sunglasses, scowling at me. I roll down the window and shiver.

“Put out the cigarette,” he says. I stamp it out in the cup holder with the others. “License and registration.”

I hand over my license without looking at it, but the registration is in the glove box with the gun. When he looks down to examine my license, I crack open the glove box and peel out the registration form, keeping my eyes on him. As soon as I pull it free, I close the lid, a bit too quickly, and it makes a notable click. The officer turns to me.

“Sir, do you know why I pulled you over?” he asks in a tone that indicates I absolutely should. He gives both forms back and I tuck them into my pocket.

I shake my head. Just keep quiet.

“I pulled you over because you were going over one hundred in a seventy-five.”

“Oh,” I say. I stare at my knuckles, white on the wheel. My pulse thrums through my fingertips. I would be so easy to kill.

The officer sets his hands on his belt, one over the grip of his handgun. “Are you alright, sir?” His sunglasses reflect the whites of my eyes.

“Yeah. Yeah,” I say with a wavering smile. Get it together.

He stares at me for a few long moments, each punctuated by a quiver of my heart. Although I can’t see his gaze, I can feel the path it takes as it carves through my face: my brows, my nose, my jaw.

“Step out of the car,” he says.

“What? Why?” He knows.

“Just do it.” He backs away from the door.

If I get out, he kills me. That’s a fact. But maybe there is a chance, after all. If I get far enough away fast enough, none of this will matter. I’ll get to Canada. I’ll be free. I turn back to the road and clench my jaw so tightly my teeth feel like they’re about to shatter. I’m not going to die.

I twist the engine to life, slam on the gas, and the car speeds away with an ear-splitting screeech! The cop shouts something, but his voice drowns in the wind. An acrid scent burns the insides of my nose, the smell of burning rubber, and despite my heart beating so fast I feel nothing more than a faint tremor in my chest, my head feels strangely steady, like a buoy in a hurricane. I don’t think; I don’t feel. My body moves on its own, twisting the wheel around every bend so fast the dashed pavement markings blur into a continuous streak. Red and blue lights glare in the corners of my vision, growing brighter. I won’t be able to outrun him for long. Not on the highway, at least.

An exit splits off the road. I turn onto it, but the rain has frozen to the asphalt, coating it in a sheet of ice. The car jerks to the side and rolls over the shoulder. There is a moment where I hang suspended in the air, watching the trees twirl outside in a glittering mist of sleet. Then my head cracks against the dashboard, my vision spirals, the insides of the car lurch, a featureless funnel of beige. Glass sprays from the broken windshield, leaving stinging cuts on my bare skin. By the time I no longer feel like I’m spinning, I’m upside down, watching mud leak onto the ceiling through the open window. I unbuckle my seatbelt and hit the ground headfirst. Heat throbs through my skull.

“Get out,” a voice says, muffled in my ears. “Now.” A shadow hovers outside, blocking out the sun’s thin, grey light. “I’ll give you three seconds, and then I’m not gonna be so nice, kid.”

I struggle to push myself onto my stomach with limbs cold and heavy, soaked through with globs of mud.

“One.”

I reach to the side and my fingers brush against the plastic latch of the glove box.

“Two.”

A heavy weight rests in my hand.

“Three.”

I squeeze myself through the window, ankle burning as I force it to push at an angle dangerously familiar to the one that broke it. When my face reaches the light, I look up into the black hole in the barrel of the cop’s gun.

A shot fires.

For a few moments, I feel nothing. I see nothing but the shadows settling over the ground and the light on my face. My father lies on the yellowed carpet of our smoke-stained apartment, surrounded by used cigarettes and a leaking can of Coors Light. Vomit crusts his lips. His skin is pale and his eyes are wide, but he’s not dead. Not yet. The Ring said it could take as little as a few minutes or as long as an hour from the moment of ingestion. At this rate, it looks like it’ll be just a few minutes. Liquid nicotine acts quick and looks just like a heart attack, which would’ve killed him anyways. All I’m doing is speeding up the process. The veins in his eyes bulge as they roll towards me, and in them, I see fear, shock. Recognition. His jaw shifts beneath his jowls, but the only sound that comes from his taut throat is a hoarse wheeze. Then, it stops. I wipe his mouth with a bit of toilet paper and sit on the couch, counting the orange butts on the floor until Mom comes home.

I stand and lower my smoking gun. The officer crumples to the ground beneath me, pressing a hand to his neck. Blood squirts between his fingers and runs down his palm. He looks confused, more than anything, but he recognizes me too, soon enough. His sunglasses reflect my mother’s hollow fear; they reflect my father’s brutal love. He lifts his gun once more, but he is weak. His hand falls, and he dies.

The metal chills the palm of my hand. It sizzles like dry ice, an electric, living cold. I pry the cop’s gun from his still-warm hand. I hobble into the front seat of his car, its lights still flashing in the fog. I pop out the magazines of his pistol and mine. Seventeen rounds in the Glock, plus twelve in my Smith & Wesson. Twenty-nine isn’t a lot, but if I’m careful, it just might be enough.

I reload the guns and, with one hand, place them on the seat beside me. With the other, I dig a crumpled cigarette from my pocket, stick it between my lips, and light it. I breathe in. Exhale grey. The taste lingers on my tongue long after it burns out.

Writing