I approach.
Resting in a crack in the concrete six inches from the base of the generator: an empty ampoule with its neck snapped off. In all the abandoned power plants I’ve passed through during the last month, I’ve never seen this.
Perhaps the one Jason2 injected himself with seconds before I lost consciousness, on the night he stole my life.
—
I hike out of the industrial ghost town.
Hungry, thirsty, exhausted.
The skyline looms to the north, and even though it’s decapitated by the low winter clouds, it’s unmistakably the one I know.
—
I board the northbound Red Line at Eighty-Seventh Street as dusk is falling.
There are no seat belts, no holograms on this El.
Just a slow, rickety ride through South Chicago.
Then the urban sprawl of downtown.
I switch trains.
The Blue Line carries me into the gentrified northern neighborhoods.
Over the last month, I’ve been in Chicagos that looked similar, but there’s something different about this one. It isn’t just that empty ampoule. It’s something deeper that I can’t explain other than to say it feels like a place where I belong. It feels like mine.
As we cruise past gridlocked rush-hour traffic on the expressway, the snow intensifies.
I wonder—
Is Daniela, my Daniela, alive and well under the snow-laden clouds?
Is my Charlie breathing the air of this world?
—
I exit the train onto the El platform in Logan Square and thrust my hands deep into the pockets of my coat. Snow is sticking to the familiar streets of my neighborhood. To the sidewalks. To the cars parked along the curbs. The headlight beams from rush-hour traffic slash through the profusion of snowflakes.
Up and down my block, the houses stand glowing and lovely in the storm.
A fragile half inch has already collected on the steps to my porch, where a single set of footprints leads to the door.
Through the front window of the brownstone, I see the lights on inside, and from where I stand on the sidewalk, this looks exactly like home.
I keep expecting to discover that some minor detail is off—the wrong front door, the wrong street number, a piece of furniture on the stoop I don’t recognize.
But the door is right.
The street number is right.
There’s even a tesseract chandelier hanging above the dinner table in the front room, and I’m close enough to see the large photograph on the mantel—Daniela, Charlie, and me at Inspiration Point in Yellowstone National Park.
Through the open doorway that leads from the dining room into the kitchen, I glimpse Jason standing at the island, holding a bottle of wine. Reaching across, he pours into someone’s wineglass.
Elation hits, but it doesn’t last.
From my vantage point, all I can see is a beautiful hand holding the stem of the glass, and it crashes down on me again what this man did to me.
All that he took.
Everything he stole.
I can’t hear anything out here in the snow, but I see him laugh and take a sip of wine.
What are they talking about?
When was the last time they fucked?
Is Daniela happier now than she was a month ago, with me?
Can I stand to know the answer to that question?
The sane, even voice in my head is wisely suggesting that I move away from the house right now.
I’m not ready to do this. I have no plan.
Only rage and jealousy.
And I shouldn’t get ahead of myself. I still need more confirmation that this is my world.
A little ways down the block, I see the familiar back end of our Suburban. Walking over, I brush off the snow that’s clinging to the Illinois tag.
The license plate number is mine.
The paint is the right color.
I clear the back windshield.
The purple Lakemont Lions decal looks perfect, inasmuch as it’s half ripped off. I instantly regretted putting the sticker on the glass the moment I did it. Tried to tear it off, but only managed to remove the top half of the lion’s face, so all that’s left is a growling mouth.
But that was three years ago.
I need something more recent, more definitive.
Several weeks before I was abducted, I accidentally backed the Suburban into a parking meter near campus. It didn’t do much damage beyond cracking the right rear taillight and denting in the bumper.
I wipe the snow off the red plastic of the taillight and then the bumper.
I touch the crack.
I touch the dent.
No other Suburban in the countless Chicagos I’ve visited has borne these markings.
Rising, I glance across the street toward that bench where I once spent an entire day watching another version of my life unfold. It’s empty at the moment, the snow piling up silently on the seat.
Shit.
A few feet behind the bench, a figure watches me through the snowy darkness.
I begin walking quickly down the sidewalk, thinking it probably looked as if I were stealing the license plate off the Suburban.
I have to be more careful.