The strap leaps. Someone yanks from the far curb, hauling the slack taut at bumper height.
"Hold," Gavin says, drifting right so the strap finds the rounded fender, not the grille. Nylon slaps paint and climbs. "Hands in." Don't touch live rope.
"It's riding up," Madison says.
"Angle more," Rick says. "Let it walk to the A-pillar."
Gavin feeds a breath of throttle and another inch of right-hand wheel. The strap rides the fender crown, skates the headlight bucket, and kisses the A-pillar with a dull thump. The pickup ahead rocks as the far-side handler hauls; the strap goes from line to blade.
"Lift," Madison says, already grabbing the pipe wrench. She snakes half out the window into hot wind and hooks the wrench under the strap where it touches the pillar. "Two inches!"
"Not your hands," Gavin says. If it whips, it takes fingers. On the left, a steel bracket holds a low green placard for something no one sells now.
"Bracket," Rick says. "We can peel."
"Straight to sign, two degrees left," Madison calls. The wrench clacks as the strap rides it. Her hips do the lift; the strap slides over the A-pillar trim to the windshield header.
"Keep it," Gavin says, and threads the nose under the bracket. Steel kisses the strap and hooks it. Tension yanks the far-side handler off balance; the pickup's rear corner hops. The strap lifts to the roof edge, scuds along the gutter, then snatches free over the steel and whips away behind them with a gunshot pop.
"Clear," Madison says, breathless and laughing once, too hard.
A shadow on the far curb loses the rope and bounces off a mailbox post, then chooses to be still.
"Next," Gavin says.
"Left toward the pharmacy lot," Rick says. "North exit is a narrow driveway."
"Under the canopy," Madison adds. "Low helps sight."
Gavin angles in. Fluorescents hum. Carts stack and sigh. Pop-pop from the street stops when something more important arrives there—the pack's wet footfalls and throat-noises pushing into new music.
"Driveway's a scissor," Madison warns—low brace two car-lengths in.
"We won't bring a friend," Gavin says. The mirror stump kisses chain-link; zip ties tick paint. A guy wire crosses at window height; Madison bats it up with the hammer's cheek. It rides the roof dent and whispers back behind them, missing the hood strap tail stuffed through the grille.
"Corner," Rick says. "Hard right into a lane. Barricade after."
A round slaps the windshield and leaves a white coin star. Gavin refuses to blink until after the turn. The barricade is cans and a bench; the bumper shoulders the bench a quarter-turn. Cans rattle and become bad marbles. The van steps over them with patient tires.
"Cut to the service road," Madison says.
They pop between two dumpsters married by grease. The laundromat's glass is fractured but whole. A man with suds to his elbows watches with a face that doesn't know this story.
"Left, then immediate right," Rick says. "Service road parallels the avenue."
"Ribbon is good," Gavin says. The pedal is still gossip; engine is truth. The service road narrows between a sound wall and holly trees that haven't learned the new rules. Leaves scrape like whispered dissent. Ahead, a low commuter spur bites light.
"Clearance?" Rick asks.
"Enough," Madison says. "Not generous."
"We like mean better than generous," Gavin says. He inches under. Steel eats the last inch of whip the dryer gave the hood and leaves a chalk-scrape. Sight stays theirs.
"Rotary in fifty," Madison says. "Take second exit to the school alley."
"Copy." A Civic with two flats tries to be a wall; Gavin uses its fender as a guide and a gift. A man with a garden shovel watches and doesn't ask his question.
The school alley is narrow, cracked, and chained at the far end. "Angle breach in three," Gavin says. The bumper bullies the diagonal; the anchor gives up with a ping.
"Pack?" Rick asks.
"Lost for a minute," Madison says.
The alley doglegs around a brick recess. Somebody drags a rolling bin across from the blind side—a small man doing a job that made sense this morning. He sees them, drops the bin, runs for a door with a key that doesn't work. The bumper shoulders the bin aside; it spins and stops with one wobbly wheel.
"Right into the avenue," Madison says.
They burst into wider air. A block away, three hoodies jog crisp and same, not like pack. One carries a tall radio, eyes on roofs, not faces. The others carry duffels. Their geometry is military, their morality unassigned.
"Left," Gavin says, choosing school and plant and chance over bridge and smoke.
"Trap," Madison says as soon as the turn shows the earlier pickup—nose still across—with a tow strap drooping from its hitch. The rope rises as someone yanks from the far curb.
The strap leaps. Someone yanks from the far curb, hauling the slack taut at bumper height.
"We already solved you," Gavin says. "Again." He aims two feet right of centerline so the strap slides to the fender. "Madison—wrench ready."
"Already," she says, half out the window, wind drilling her words.
The strap climbs the fender crown. The far yank is stronger—two bodies, or one with a new idea. The pickup rocks. The strap goes blade again.
"Nothing low enough," Madison says. "We need a shave point."
"Light-standard shoe," Rick says, spotting a concrete plinth with a metal lip at knee height. "Fairlead over it."
"Copy," Gavin says. He puts the strap to the A-pillar again. Madison lifts with the wrench. The strap kisses the windshield header. Gavin edges so the strap contacts the shoe. Metal bites nylon. Fibers cough and spray bright hairs, then part with a flat bang.
"Clear," Madison says, chest heaving, eyes bright and feral.
Two silhouettes on the far curb tumble backward into a hedge and don't crawl out fast.
"Go," Rick says.
"Going," Gavin says. A minivan with no rear glass sits in the median with all four doors open, a church with no congregation. A plywood piece leans on a hydrant: STOP TAKING OUR WATER in a hand that was polite even when angry.
"Left roofline—two shapes," Madison says. "One rifle, one stick. Not pointed yet."
"Don't be interesting," Gavin says, threading right by repetition of small choices.
"Drive-through ahead," Rick says. "Back lot has a dock ramp—a jump if we need it."
"We do not," Gavin says, and pockets the map anyway.
The avenue kinks around a bus stopped sideways. Inside, a shape sits with hands clasped like a commuter who can't accept schedules changed. Gavin uses the bus flank as a wall and slips past with inches. The hood strap hums; the windshield's spiderweb sews itself tighter around every new brightness.
"Plow ahead," Madison says. "City blade across two lanes, backed in. Blade down."
"Under or around?" Rick says.
"Curb ride," Gavin says. He puts right tires on the curb so the van leans away from steel. A low limb sheds leaves over the glass like green rain. A bolt head on the blade kisses paint. The strap hums, holds. They land back in the lane with a hop that tells the suspension the truth.
A block later the avenue funnels to a T with a bigger road arguing with itself. Left is smoke; right is the river's dark certainty. Straight isn't offered. Gavin takes right. The river smells like coins and old mistakes. A construction zone begins—the meshes and cones of a world with plans. The meshes stayed.
"Choke," Madison says.
"Use it," Gavin says, slaloming orange barrels. A skid-steer sits dead with its bucket high like a question interrupted. He uses its bulk as a shield for a moment he doesn't need.
They come out to a municipal yard gate rolled half down, a slot under it three feet tall, metal teeth hanging.
"Under?" Rick says.
"We can't stop," Madison says. "We can lower."
"Not with pedal," Gavin says. "With angle." He turns so the slot meets the low hood and deepest roof dent. He breathes once, then commits.
"That's too tight," Rick says.
"It is exactly tight enough," Gavin says.
They go under. The gate lip scrapes the hood, rides the dent like a rail. The strap hums a protest and then a vow. The roof bows and survives. The rear rack fingers the gate and keeps some paint.
On the far side: a maintenance lane lined with stacked barricades and one honest forklift with keys still in. The lane opens to the street in thirty yards and a soft S.
They take the S. The city breathes with them—and then stops.
Ahead, someone has stretched a second tow strap from an SUV's hitch to a fire hydrant and is hauling it tight—timed with a box truck nosing from a side street, closing the last gap at the same breath.
"Options?" Rick says.
"Blade or wall," Madison says.
"Middle," Gavin says, because sometimes the door is where the wall thinks it isn't. He sets the nose for the hair between rope and truck.
The rope snaps the last inch into law. The box truck keeps coming.
And the lane becomes a letter slot again.