I looked around for a way out. Broadway was a wide four-way lane. Unfortunately, for this time of night, cars clogged the streets. There were a few spots that I could wiggle through if I had a more compact car than a squad car.

Then, I saw it.

"We're going through the sidewalk," I said. "Buckle up."

I put the car in reverse, and I stepped on the gas and turned the wheel. I barely scraped the car's bumper behind me. Back on the drive, I stepped harder on the gas and made a vicious U-turn for the sidewalk. People scrambled out of my way as I drove through, then hit the empty intersection where the coffee shop was. Cars were left abandoned on the streets as people left them behind to escape the riots.

I parked the police car in front of the coffee shop. I saw people huddled inside behind counters and tables, believing the thin sheet of glass would protect them from the riots on the streets.

It wouldn't.

I grabbed the shotgun beside me. "Stay here," I told Luke and Yousef.

I hopped out of the car and racked the slide of the shotgun just in case someone jumped me. I looked to my left and right. People scurried away from me once they saw what I was carrying.

I entered the coffee shop.

"Don't shoot us!" said the barista from the counter.

People started screaming. They were crying and screeching because of me.

"No! I'm not going to shoot you!" I explained quickly, but some were already running to the backdoor at their wits.

I saw Aria hiding underneath the table. Our eyes met. I stomped toward her.

"Aria! Where are the others? We have to go!"

It took a while to register in her mind what I said. "Bren?" She stared at me, then at the shotgun in disbelief.

She eventually crawled out from underneath. She pointed at the table near the counter, where at least a dozen people huddled together and shot me some pleading and terrified glares. I saw Natalie and Logan in the middle, clutching at one another.

Then, the coffee shop's windowpane shattered.

A woman in a red dress burst through the window, shrieking and twitching her way toward us. Someone had torn her hair off of her scalp, leaving a big messy chunk dangling. Bite marks riddled her flesh, with some still peeling off. She had her eyes at Aria.

I grabbed Aria's arm. "Get behind me."

Aria did as she was told and picked up a wooden chair in the process, bringing it up as a shield.

I aimed the shotgun for the head and fired.

The woman's lower jaw blew apart, and she collapsed on the ground. She didn't move.

I peered out the front and saw that the rioters now invaded this intersection. I had to run fast and get out of there. I whirled around to the people still huddled behind the counter. One man even peed himself.

I turned to the nearest barista--the one who pleaded not to shoot her. "Where does that go?" I pointed at the door where a few people escaped through a while ago.

"The alley," she mumbled shakily.

"Okay. Lead the others out there. The streets aren't safe, and your shop isn't going to do shit if you all stay here. Remember, head south."

The girl nodded, and she ran back and ordered the others to follow her.

Aria stayed behind. She studied me quizzically.

"Aria! Come on!" Natalie shouted at her, following the rest of the others to the back.

"No. We're going into the car," I said, pointing at the police car.

Natalie glared at me. The kind that hoped I'd burn to the ground.

To my surprise, Aria shot her down, shouting back, "No. We should go with him."

"If you guys wanna come with me, you better do it now." I ran out of the shop.

The rioters now flooded the intersection, attacking the people who stayed behind to gawk at the carnage, frozen in their trance of fear and awe, not realizing that these rioters were killing not just the police but civilians, too.

I spun around. Aria followed after me, and to my surprise, Natalie, Logan, and Carson followed after her.

"Well, it'll be a tight fit, but it should carry us in. Quick. Hop in," I said.

Luke opened the backseat door, and he and Yousef scooted farther in. Aria and Carson hopped inside.

"You two take the passenger's side."

Logan and Natalie hesitated. I racked the shotgun's slide, and it snapped them out of their thoughts.

"Come on, babe," said Logan, pulling her to the other side of the car. Logan came in first, and Natalie sat on his lap. She gave the AR-15 mounted on the flank of the transmission hump with a tentative glare. She gave the same thing to me when I climbed behind the wheel.

"You killed that woman!" Natalie shouted.

"No, she's--" I paused. I didn't know what she was. "Doesn't matter. She's something else."

Yes—a thing. It made sense. Odd as it was, that was the best word for them. I might be losing my mind, but a primal recognition and an instinctive power clicked inside me, like what humanity's ancestors would probably feel when facing the unknown, slowly ingraining the understanding of the shadows in the night into our DNA for generations.

The things I was seeing were not human, something out of a nightmare.

I stepped on the gas and drove along the sidewalk until the violence slowly receded behind us. I made sure to avoid the pedestrians.

"Wait, hold on, where are we going? The hotel's back that way," said Logan, pointing behind us.

I glanced at the rear-view mirror. "We can't go through that."

Logan went silent. He knew what I meant.

"But our things are there! My laptop! My iPad! My clothes!" Natalie groaned.

I glared at her. "Don't you see it? That's where they came from! The rioters are working their way down the city."

Natalie scoffed but remained silent.

"Can anyone get through the internet?" I asked the others.

They tried their phones. Nothing.

Crap.

Luke saw through me. "You think it's related, don't you?"

I hesitated. "My dad has stories. I mean, he's a SEAL. Whenever they try to confine a region, a village, or a town, communications are the first things they'd hit first. Nothing goes in or out."

"So, you are saying—"

"Behind us is Columbia University just a mile back up."

Through the rear-view mirrors, I saw all their eyes widened as they stared at me. "Oh my god...the plane," Aria gasped.

"Yeah. I think they're attempting to quarantine the city."

"How would you know that?" Logan asked me in disbelief.

"Think about it. If what we saw went out through the entire city, panic would grip the streets."

"And we can't get out," Luke said, finally understanding.

I gave him a weak smile. "Yes. That. I want to be out of here before that happens."

Carson burst into tears. It was probably the first time I saw him cry, and he stifled them by hiding his face behind his hands.

"Bren, could you turn on the radio, please?" Luke asked, cutting through the silence.

I nodded and turned on the radio. It took me a couple of tries until I landed on a station that didn't play music. A female voice filled the car's cabin, though she remained professional and unwavering in her reporting.

"...The riots in Riverside Park turn deadly into the fifth hour of the protest and are spreading to the nearby boroughs. Three precincts responded to this drastic turn of events to control the wild crowd. So far, we have a reported twenty-five dead on the scene and dozens more wounded.

For now, we have unconfirmed reports that the rioters are attacking not just the police but other civilians and looting over a dozen city blocks. The damage could be in the billions of dollars. These events came after a shocking and possible terrorism act above the East River tonight when a passenger plane blew up after an F-22 fired on the aircraft.

The Mayor's office has notified the National Guard and is currently mobilizing. New Yorkers are told to stay indoors in the Upper West Side until further notice. More updates are coming soon after this break."

"Terrorists? Do you think the terrorists did this?" Yousef asked.

"She doesn't know what was going on," I said.

"What do you mean?"

"She didn't see how those people behind us acted. Something happened to them."

"What do you plan to do now?" Aria asked.

"We go south of the city. Maybe find a way out. The thing is, I don't know the streets. I have no idea where to go--"

"And go where?" Logan interrupted.

"Airport. Fly home. I don't know! Mr. Ramirez is dead for crying out loud! Can't you see? A fucking plane just exploded up the sky; people are killing each other...no, fuck that. And I want to go home."

"What are we going to tell his wife?" Carson stuttered between his sobs.

Silence. Frankly, I didn't think ahead of that.

"Let's focus on getting out first," Aria told Carson, patting his back soothingly, but it only hardened his sobs. "We'll be home soon."

As I hit Columbus Circle once again near Central Park, the streets eased up, and I could finally use the road instead of the sidewalk. Still, we cruised at barely fifteen miles per hour.

"We can't go to the airport," Luke blurted out suddenly.

I narrowed my eyes at his reflection on the rear-view mirror.

"If it's a quarantine to contain a disease as you said, then they'd stop flights from getting out of the city. They already took out that plane."

He had a point, and I nodded.

"Then how are we going to get out?" Aria asked.

"Quick. Does anyone have a map on their phone? Find me the nearest bridge I can cross with," I said.

Luke, Yousef, Logan, and Aria quickly pulled out their phones and looked.

"Shit. It needs the Internet," said Aria.

"Mine works without it. I downloaded a GPS app when I went camping a couple of weeks ago with my folks," said Logan. "What direction do you want to go?" he asked me.

"Anywhere off Manhattan."

After a few scrolls around the map, he found one. "Not a bridge, but a tunnel. The entrance is only twenty blocks down 9th avenue."

"Perfect," I said. "Close enough."

The cop's CB radio crackled to life.

"All units in the area, please respond to a 129 between Columbus Avenue and Broadway. Possible 137 in progress and a shooting. Multiple suspects are armed and dangerous. Caution advised."

They were responding to where we were. I blared the horn on the car in front of me.

"You know what, screw this." I tried to find the switch around me, and I saw it right on top of the dashboard. I turned it on, and the police sirens howled through the streets.

The cars in front of us immediately gave way, and I burst through the path they formed for me. I let out a smile. Perfect, I thought, stepping on the gas harder, climbing the speed up to the fifties.