Joe blanked his mind entirely, except for one thing, which was how it might feel to soar through the air. It was a dream after all—the whole night was. It had to be. It was the only way it could be explained. He couldn’t remember when he’d fallen asleep, but if it truly was just but a dream, that granted certain advantages. For one, it would be pretty easy to soar from one rooftop to the next, if he envisioned it properly. There were, after all, no limits in dreams.

He took a deep breath and sprinted toward the drop-off. His final two steps were one propelling him up to the ledge, and another launching himself from it.

The neighboring rooftop looked to be miles away, but once sailing across the chasm it came fast, and Joe clearly heard some more deadly whistles of bullets from the darkness below, as though his assassin had been down there all along, seemingly waiting for this exact maneuver. Joe twisted his body in midair, thinking it would help make him more elusive. He cleared the gap easily, but due to his midair contortion, his landing was a mess. He rolled painfully across the rooftop of the neighboring building and into an exhaust vent, which he sheared off entirely, before bouncing into an air conditioning unit, which finally halted his tumbling. He left a wide, shallow dent in it. The echo of the assault rifle still hung fresh in the air.

He stood up, and the pain from his landing—which should have been incapacitating—simply rolled off of him. He knew he had to leap again—he was far from having escaped. This was now a chase, an absurd one, but a chase nonetheless. And it didn’t do any good to wait.

He sprinted toward the edge again, this time his intended leap and landing spot entirely unseen and unplanned. He’d improvise.

Landon had followed his path from the ground—it was indeed a chase—and as Joe sailed through the air he heard the reports again from the assault rifle somewhere in the darkness below. But this time Joe felt assured those bullets wouldn’t—couldn’t—hit him. He’d twist his body right through the trajectory of each bullet, like threading a needle, as they went under, over, and around him. If need be, the paths of those bullets would bend to cleanly avoid him. Or so he believed. Or so he demanded.

They whistled past, scarily close, even grazing his clothes that billowed in the air around him. He had a long flight time, mostly a fall—the neighboring rooftop was considerably shorter, as he jumped from a twelve-story building down to an eight-story one. He saw it getting larger to meet him and Joe envisioned exactly how he’d land. This time he did so cleanly, even in stride, and without skipping a beat Joe kept running and launched his body again off the far side. He felt like a squirrel jumping from tree to tree and knew such a clear image in his mind could only help him.

There was another drop, again four stories or so, onto a row of townhouses. While in midair the bullets came again—clearly Landon still kept up with him from the ground—and Joe saw the brick ledge by his feet and the chimney near it each shatter into a storm of red shards that Joe ran through. He felt those brick fragments pelt his body but it did not slow him down as he kept running across the roofs. The row ended and he made a short leap to the next, this time without any thought at all. He made ground quickly, his dash across the rooftops unobstructed by cars or pedestrians, thus he began to feel confident that he distanced himself from his pursuer.

The rows of townhouses came to an end, which Joe realized was inevitable, and his body fell casually four flights, landing smoothly onto the sidewalk, still without breaking stride.

He noticed an awful thing then—even at such a late hour there were plenty of people about, and it was clear they’d all heard the gunshots, as they mostly cowered and hid. Some had even seen his clean, impossible descent from the rooftop of a four-story townhouse onto the sidewalk, a move he’d accomplished as casually as a sprinter clearing a hurdle. Others didn’t dare to even glimpse at him as he sprinted past, and they kept their eyes shut and their heads down, just waiting for it to be over. While Joe ran for all he was worth, the sight of the cowering people was quite striking—a jarring suggestion that this was not a dream after all, although it so felt like it. Any consequences would be very real.

With dismay he realized his path was taking him straight toward Dupont Circle. It explained the thickening crowds—surely mostly younger people, rallying for either home or their next destination amidst the bars and clubs that were closing their doors. Joe saw the crowds were a strange mix of hysteria and obliviousness, for some knew of the disturbance, but others did not—though they quickly sensed something was off.

Of course it was. Off was a goddamn understatement, Joe thought to himself shakily.

It came to a head when Joe made the mistake of taking a look back over his shoulder, and amidst the people cowering on the ground he saw Landon cutting through them. It seemed like he merely jogged, but he was a tall man, and his long strides covered ground scarily fast. An abrupt hush was cut by isolated shrieks as Landon again lifted the assault rifle from the shadows of his coat and aimed it toward Joe.

It was his lowest moment yet, with the thought of the innocent lives at stake, and so Joe altered his path, away from the crowds ahead of him, and made himself a target to a backdrop of parked cars beside a brick building. It worked, and when the bullets came Joe fell to the ground and rolled. The missiles whistled past his body before plunging into those cars, rending the metal and punching holes in the glass before striking the brick. Joe bounced to his feet again, leapt over the cars and took to the sidewalks past additional legions of cowering, frightened people. He ran low, the row of parked cars shielding him, and masking his movement. On the other side of him the traffic had come to a standstill, and Joe saw the drivers within, and the alarm on their faces. That is, from all but one car, which came screaming down the road, weaving in and out of stalled traffic, riding mostly along the yellow-striped median. Behind the wheel he saw Roy’s grim, determined face, and Joe thanked God.

The car slowed when nearing him as Joe, still crouching low, moved out toward it until he ran along side of it. The car slowed even more so Joe could pop open the right-side rear door. Then he dove into the back seat as behind him a fresh spray of bullets tore through metal, fabric, and glass. The door hung uselessly as Joe lay low on the cushion, wondering if he’d been hit, and the car sped off, accelerating rapidly, with Roy’s foot heavy on the gas pedal.

While crouched deep in the leg wells of the back seat, he could hear deep, panicked breaths, and he realized they were his own.

“Stay down,” Roy said. “Doubtful it’s over yet.”

“Why does he want to kill me?” Joe asked. He heard the hysteria in his voice and it was frightening. Their car had long since split away from Dupont Circle, and now sped down New Hampshire Avenue. Joe had to yell over the air blasting in through the broken windows, plus the sounds of screeching tires and horns honking from the traffic around them.

“I already told you what’s happening,” Roy replied. “I told you, Joe.”

“Well, could you tell me again?”

“The nightmares always follow.”

Joe quietly tried to comprehend what that meant, while still crouched down, with the air blasting in from the shattered windows and the vehicle’s engine roaring.

“Shit,” Roy said, while glancing in the rearview mirror. “He’s back.”

Joe peeked out the shattered rear window. There was a motorcycle on their tail, catching up rapidly, with its engine screaming. Joe saw the rider’s flapping coat, and so he knew it was Landon, the hell raiser himself. Probably he’d commandeered the motorcycle from a biker in the traffic around the circle. He couldn’t be stopped, it seemed. He was just like the goddamn Terminator.