IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING that I was driving too fast; I was 15 and had just gotten laid. Add to that my inexperience—and a spike strip laid across the road—and, well, you probably have some idea how we ended up in the fountain of the Ronald Reagan Building with Old Glory folded up and sticking out of the trunk. All I know for certain is that we were both injured, Fiona seriously—to the extent that the blood from her head had fouled her left eye and she couldn’t stop shaking; which is how I noticed the figures approaching us from behind (I saw them in the rearview mirror when I removed Calvin’s doo-rag, to stop her bleeding).
“Fiona, listen—we—we gotta get out of here. Can you walk?”
“What is it?” she asked, weakly, deliriously, looking around like a blind person (which I suppose she was),
