I was all alone. I skidded to a halt and was breathing so fast and shallow I was certain that I’d begin to hyperventilate. They must have given up. Maybe I’d been too fast for them. I had been going to the gym a little more than normal lately, to get into bikini shape for my big, expensive trip to Puerto Vallarta. Amy and I had been planning it for nearly a year, and now it was just a month away. That had to be it. I was in amazing shape. Just as fit and dangerous as that chick from the Terminator movies. Then I heard the rev of an engine and the squealing of tires. A Jeep lurched onto the road in the distance, spraying gravel under its wheels. Outrun that, Terminator , I thought as the panic rose again in my chest.

Dammit.

I could hear them, the men I’d stupidly thought I’d escaped. They were hooting and hollering as they bore down on me. This must have been their idea of a good time. I finally made it to the bridge. In the distance I could see the Toronto skyline. I kept running, ignoring the pain. The concrete sidewalk that ran along one side of the bridge felt cool through my torn nylons and cut-up feet. I looked around, hoping that somebody might stop to help me, but car after car whizzed by without even slowing down for a second glance. When I stepped out into the bridge’s traffic to try to flag someone down, a driver blasted his horn and swerved, narrowly missing me. I scrambled back onto the sidewalk. It looked like it was just going to be me, White-teeth, and the boys. And the dark shadow of a figure balanced on one of the bridge’s metal suspension beams.

He stood on the other side of what was called the “veil”—thin, evenly spaced metal rods put up to prevent anyone from climbing over the barrier and leaping to their death. But I saw that a section of the veil was now warped, stretched wide enough to allow someone to get through. This was where I quickly scrambled up and squeezed through so I stood near the stranger, my back against the barrier. Behind me, I heard the Jeep skid to a halt and the doors slam as the men got out to chase after me on foot.