My father was a Navy Seal for close to sixteen years before he became a civ. I grew up during most of his tours, and whenever he came home, he'd always teach me things he deemed were essential for me to learn.

Being his only child (and a boy), I had to do manly things, he once told me, even when he found out I was gay since gay men were still men. One of them stuck out to me the most when I confessed I was bullied at school.

He told me: If you are going to run from a fight, make sure you have a weapon first—any weapon.

Back then, I thought it was stupid to grab a weapon unless you had to fight. Then again, I guessed my dad had a point. One, if I ever get trapped or caught, I had something aside from using my fist. And two, it'll thwart another attack.

I was eight when he told me this, and he had been grilling it in my mind since then.

I am in a foreign city with low knowledge about its layout and its people. Then, the carnage on the streets pushed me to find a weapon.

The Plane. The deaths. The crazy man. Too many bad things were happening at once—too much of a coincidence to arrive at the exact second.

I needed a weapon, and the shotgun would do.

I was ten feet away from the door. There were too many things that could go wrong once I reached for the shotgun.

Back in Portland, my dad was friends with a lot of cops and veterans. My dad knew a lot of people throughout the years. Portland cops knew him well. And when it came to squad cars, it was a federal law to equip shotguns (and sometimes AR-15s or M16s) in their vehicles for strong firepower (pistols were useless against armored criminals) and stored in magnetically locked mounts.

The locks were the first problem I was going to face.

Five feet away from the door.

My mind raced harder. If I pulled on the gun out of the magnetic locks, it would destroy the weapon. My dad had magnetic gun mounts in his gun locker at home. He'd always warn me not to touch them unless I wanted to be grounded after breaking it. I didn't listen, and I broke his hunting rifle and caught three weeks' grounding.

One: It needed a key. Going for the gun would be of no use. The dead cop was behind me, and I'm pretty sure the police officer would have the magnetic key on his belt. That ruled out going for it.

Two: I had to punch in a code. Like the former, it would be useless. The dead cop was the only one who would know how to open the lock.

Three: I had to press the hidden button to release the lock. Possible and very tricky. If it were a button-released mount, then I'd have to scramble looking for it.

I hoped it was the latter.

I reached the door, and I made the mistake of looking back.

Mr. Ramirez stirred, and he rose. Half of his face and nose were missing, and blood covered his hair. His clothes were shredded, revealing a deep gash on his abdomen. He was staring straight at me.

Even from a distance between us, I could feel him already breathing at the nape of my neck. People were running alongside me while the other violent rioters took others down. Still, the man targeted me like a hound would on an alluring scent.

Mr. Ramirez sprinted toward me, crossing the street within seconds until he was twenty feet away.

I had to act fast.

I jumped into the driver's seat and immediately knew what the magnetic mount was. There were no codes to punch. That was good news, but my heart suddenly sank when I saw that it needed a magnetic key.

Fuck.

Then, I saw the cop's keys dangling from the ignition and the simple cylindrical magnetic fob key.

I smiled.

Mr. Ramirez reached my side of the car until he was inches away from my face.

I ducked as he leaped forward, and he flew past me. I whirled, gave him a good round kick, and he landed on the sidewalk, running over a nearby newspaper stand. A slight pain coursed through the ankle I kicked him with—my right ankle—and I feared I might have sprained it.

Mr. Ramirez shrieked angrily, covered in newspapers, shaking off the disorientation as he trained his eyes back to me.

I grabbed the magnetic key. It acted like a fob, so I held it against a tiny red LED dot at the side of the mount.

The dot turned green.

Yes!

I looked behind me, and Mr. Ramirez was now halfway up to his feet, using the upturned newsstand to lift himself. He paused, turning his cries into a high-pitched whine, then slowly got up. It would only be a moment before he regained his footing and attack me again, and by that time, I might not be as lucky.

I pulled the shotgun out of its mount.

It came off easily.

It was a Mossberg 500 Compact Stock pump-action shotgun. Slightly a different color compared to my dad's collection as it was all black. And I knew how to use it.

I looked through the chamber. And found it was loaded but not chambered.

I glanced back, and Mr. Ramirez was only two feet away from me, hands raised and ready to pounce. His growl reverberated like an animal hawking at its prey. Its remaining eye was staring at me with the greatest hatred that I've ever felt before; A look that could kill.

I flicked the safety off and racked the slide. The shell flew out.

I aimed.

And I froze.

For a split second, all I could see was Mr. Ramirez. His warm smile he'd always give to me whenever I came into his class, ready for his lecture of the chapter we just read. He'd always crack jokes, and no matter how some kids didn't respect him and would sometimes make fun of him, he was the type of man who would brush it off and smile at the same time.

I didn't see that beneath his dead eyes, which now had two pupils on them.

Mr. Ramirez snarled, launching himself into the driver's seat.

He never made it that far.

I fired the shotgun, blowing a wide hole at the side of his abdomen where his spleen was supposed to be.

The loud bang split everything into a ringing mess as if the world around me dulled down to a slow creep. I shook away the haze, and as the ringing quickly dissipated, I saw Mr. Ramirez twitching and convulsing on the ground.

I racked the slide again and aimed it at him. "Get back down, sir!" I yelled.

I was shaking. No, I was beyond that. I had tears welling up my eyes, clouding my vision, and I wiped them my free hand, quickly returning it to the forearm of the shotgun. Why wouldn't you stay down?

It was impossible. An average person would die within twenty seconds of blood loss. A quarter of his left abdomen was missing from the shot.

"Please! Just stay down!" I pleaded.

Mr. Ramirez growled at me.

"I'm sorry."

I fired the shotgun again, and Mr. Ramirez's head disappeared into chunks of flesh and blood.

Once my composure returned a couple of seconds later, I quickly checked the chamber. It was a fully loaded gun, and it being a Mossberg, it could hold six shots. I fired two. Lucky for me, the shotgun came equipped with a six angled-shot slide saddle with a spring-loaded cartridge magazine already attached to the side and closer to the loading port.

I looked at Mr. Ramirez's dead body, then to the chaos reigning the streets. I stared at the cop's car keys on top of the transmission hump.

I didn't know how far the violence was gripping this block of the city. I looked in the direction of the street where our hotel was and Colombia University in general. The rioters came from that direction, and it seemed they were working their way down to Lower Manhattan. It was not a good idea to head in that direction, which left me with no other choice but to follow the rest of the crowd back.

I had to get out of the city.

I stared at the cop's keys on top of the transmission again.

If I stayed out on the street, I would risk ending up just like Mr. Ramirez. The car, especially a police car, could get me through anywhere. I knew I'd be breaking so many laws, and I could list them all inside my brain that could put me at least five years behind bars.

But that didn't matter. It was my only way out, and I'd cross whatever bridge I have to pass after.

I felt a hand grabbed my shoulder, and I racked the slide once again, aiming for my attacker.

Luke screamed, and I froze. "It's me!" He raised his hands. Eyes wide. He gaped at Mr. Ramirez's body. "Did you—My God—did you do this?"

"Get in!" I bellowed.

Luke didn't dare make a move. Yousef came up behind his back and gaped at Mr. Ramirez's body, too.

"I said fucking get in the car," I repeated. I grabbed the cop's keys and put them in the ignition.

"Dude, that's a blue's car!" Yousef exclaimed.

"Do you see that?" I pointed at the intersection less than a hundred feet away. They paled at the dozen rioters continued to stream into the intersection, attacking anyone they could. "Get in, or else I'm going to leave you both."

There must be something in my voice that got through to them. Luke took one glance at me and nodded. I flicked the unlock button at the side of the driver's seat, and Luke hopped into the backseat. Yousef followed after him.

"This is crazy!" Yousef exclaimed.

"Shut up, Sef, we're doing this," Luke said. We closed all the doors, almost drowning out the sound of chaos from the outside. "What now?" Luke asked.

From the rear-view mirror, I could see the corner coffee shop a block away. For a second—and only for a second—I was tempted to leave the others behind. And yet, something dragged my heart and brain down to the mud, making me feel guilty for even entertaining such a gutless notion. No matter how awful Natalie and her friends were, I couldn't leave them. It felt like stooping down low to their level.

I turned the ignition, and the car came to life.

I whirled around to face Luke.

"We're going to get the others."