The Last Liberal - Chapter 2

 

Chapter 2

The wind came howling off Lake Michigan like it had claws, ripping down South Dearborn Street and slamming into the crowd gathered in front of the old, concrete-faced Metcalfe Federal Building, the Chicago field headquarters for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The sky hung low, a bruised sheet of slate, and bits of ice-crusted snow skittered across the pavement like tiny white insects.

By 10:15 a.m., Dearborn between Jackson Boulevard and Van Buren was packed—shoulder to shoulder, sign to sign, bodies swaying in the cold as chants rolled like thunder, echoing between the steel and glass canyons of the Loop.

“NO ICE—!”
 “NO ICE—!”

“WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS!”
 “WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS!”

Evan Rourke was in the thick of it, dead center of the crowd, his breath steaming in the frigid air. His coat flapped open, scarf dangling wild behind him. His cheeks burned from the cold, from shouting, from adrenaline that felt like electricity pushing through his bloodstream.

He was a man on fire.

He cupped his hands around his mouth and screamed toward the line of ICE officers preparing to enter the building.

“This is FASCISM!”
 “THIS is RACISM!”
 “You don’t get to terrorize our city!”

His voice was raw, already hoarse despite barely an hour of chanting.

To his right, a young Latina protester in a wool hat yelled through a portable bullhorn.

“NO HUMAN BEING IS ILLEGAL!”

The crowd roared it back, a single wave of sound.

Drums pounded from somewhere behind Evan. A banner rippled above his head:

STOP THE RAIDS
 SANCTUARY FOR ALL

The ICE officers formed up near the Jackson intersection, a block of dark uniforms and hardened faces. Full protective gear. Helmets. Visors. Batons. Less-lethal weapons slung over their shoulders. Their vehicles were lined along Dearborn—black Suburbans idling, lights flashing but sirens silent.

Above them, on the steps leading into the building, a federal supervisor shouted into a radio, trying to coordinate entry.

“TEAM TWO, MOVE TO THE NORTH SIDE—NOW!”

Evan pushed to the front, adrenaline propelling him like a tide. He could feel the heat of the protesters behind him, their bodies pressed in tight, their voices bouncing off the federal building’s brutalist stone façade.

A reporter from the Sun-Times was somewhere behind him, trying to find an angle for a picture.

Evan didn’t look back. He wanted the cameras. He wanted the moment.

“WE WILL NOT LET YOU TAKE THEM!” he yelled. “NOT IN OUR CITY!”

A protester beside him, a bearded man in a thick parka, shouted, “THEY’RE COMING OUT—LOOK!”

The ICE team began to move forward.

Shields came up. Weapons ready but angled low. Formation tight.

“Hold the line!” someone yelled behind Evan. “HOLD THE LINE!”

Evan felt the surge before he saw it—hundreds of bodies pressing forward in a tidal push, feet scraping over pavement, boots sliding on slush, signs jabbing the air like spears.

The ICE agents were twenty feet away. Then fifteen. Then ten.

“WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS!”
 “WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS!”

The officers shouted orders Evan couldn’t hear through the roar.

Then the protesters broke.

They didn’t stop at a barricade. There was no barricade.

They surged—forward, hard, fast—into the officers’ line.

Everything snapped at once.

The first push hit the ICE shields with a crack like thunder. A woman fell sideways. Someone grabbed her arm and yanked her up before she was trampled. Another protester grabbed at an officer’s baton. Two more tried to push between the shields to block the entryway.

The ICE formation wavered—then tightened.

Evan was in the front row. Close enough to see the fear tightening around one agent’s eyes. Close enough to smell sweat under winter gear.

He shoved forward.

“GET OUT OF CHICAGO!” he yelled, spit flying with the force of it. “YOU DON’T BELONG HERE!”

The officer tried to hold the line, bracing.

Evan grabbed his forearm.

It was instinct. Rage. Righteousness. He didn’t think—didn’t process—he just reached out and shoved.

Hard.

The ICE agent stumbled backward.

Evan felt the crowd behind him cheer—an electric roar—

Then the world exploded.

POP—POP—POP.

Three sharp bursts like firecrackers, but deeper, heavier.

Pain slammed into his chest like a sledgehammer.

Evan’s body jerked backward, his breath erupting from his lungs in a single guttural scream. He felt himself falling—arms flailing—knees hitting pavement—ice slicing into his palms.

He hit the ground hard.

The cold soaked through his clothes instantly. Air refused to enter his chest.

The crowd shrieked.

“HE’S DOWN—!”
 “THEY SHOT HIM—!”
 “MEDIC! MEDIC!”

People knelt around him, hands grabbing his shoulders, trying to lift him. The world blurred into a smear of boots, signs, sirens, and spinning gray sky.

Above him, the ICE formation surged past—storming toward the building entrance, stepping around him, through the gap in the crowd his collapse had created.

Another agent shouted toward the sky.

“GO—GO—GO—!”

Evan felt boots thunder past his shoulders.

His chest burned. Three hot, bruising blooms under his ribs, thick and deep and nauseating.

He tried to speak, but all that came out was a ragged gasp.

Someone pressed a gloved hand to his shoulder.

“Sir—sir, stay down—stay down—you’re okay—”

Another voice, frantic:

“They used rubber rounds—he’s breathing—he’s breathing—”

The world tilted. The cold felt suddenly distant, like it was coming from inside him instead of outside.

He heard chanting fading behind him as ICE vanished inside the building.

He closed his eyes and let darkness wash over him.

---

CHICAGO GENERAL HOSPITAL – EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

They wheeled him through automatic glass doors that hissed open like a stage cue.

Warmth hit him in a wave. Bright lights. The smell of antiseptic and coffee. The beeping of machines in nearby bays. Nurses shouting for a gurney. The squeal of shoes on tile.

Camera flashes.

A federal-use-of-force case was gold for local newsrooms.

By the time Evan was on a bed with a portable monitor clipped to his finger and three nurses cutting away his shirt, two TV crews were setting up lights just outside the curtain, and a reporter from Channel 7 was already recording stand-up footage with him framed in the background.

“Victim is a well-known public defender,” a nurse said, pressing a thick cold pack onto one of the mottled bruises on Evan’s chest.

“They’ll have to explain this one to City Hall.”

Evan gritted his teeth as the cold pack pressed into the swollen welt. The rubber bullet had hit directly over his sternum. It felt like a steel-toed boot had caved in half his ribcage.

Another nurse lifted his arm gently.

“You’re lucky,” she said. “These things can break bones.”

“Feels like they did,” Evan rasped, voice raw. “Maybe fascism is heavier than I thought.”

She snorted despite herself.

A doctor in scrubs arrived, snapping gloves on as he approached.

“What have we got?”

“Rubber rounds to the anterior thorax, three impacts,” a nurse said. “No fracture crepitus. Vitals stable. Complains of severe pain and difficulty breathing, but lungs sound clear.”

The doctor leaned in.

“Mr. Rourke,” he said. “I’m Dr. Khatri. Do you know where you are?”

Evan blinked into the bright exam light.

“Emergency room,” he said. “Chicago General. And probably on Channel 7 in ten minutes.”

Khatri nodded. “Good. Any numbness? Dizziness? Trouble staying conscious?”

“Just trouble believing what happened,” Evan muttered.

The curtain yanked open suddenly.

A cameraman from WGN stepped inside, followed by a reporter with hair perfect enough to suggest she kept a makeup artist in her car.

“Mr. Rourke,” she said breathlessly, “can we get a statement—?”

The charge nurse intercepted her with a controlled burst of fury.

“OUT. NOW.”

The curtain snapped shut, but the microphones and cameras pressed in against the other side, shadows shifting along the fabric like ghosts.

Evan pushed himself up slightly as another wave of pain rolled through him.

“Let them in,” he said.

The nurse froze. “Sir—”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I want them here.”

A pause. A long exhale.

Then she relented.

The curtain was drawn back just enough.

Lights flared. Mics surged forward.

Evan sat upright on the gurney, shirtless, three massive purple-black bruises blooming across his ribs and sternum like grotesque medals. His hair was mussed, face pale, breath shallow—but his eyes were alive.

The cameras loved it.

The WGN reporter stepped forward, mic raised.

“Mr. Rourke, can you tell us what happened out there today?”

Evan sucked in a breath through clenched teeth.

“What happened,” he said, voice steadying as he spoke, “is exactly what we’ve been warning this city about for years.”

He lifted a trembling finger toward one of the bruises.

“This,” he said, “is what happens when law enforcement—federal law enforcement—believes it can override the will of a city. When they think they can bypass oversight. When they think they can treat peaceful protesters like enemy combatants.”

“We saw ICE officers today,” he said, his voice growing stronger, “fire less-lethal weapons into a crowd of unarmed Chicagoans exercising their First Amendment rights. We saw them escalate a situation they created. We saw them push their way into our streets like an occupying force.”

Another wave of pain hit him, but he powered through it, gripping the side of the bed.

“This is not America,” he said. “This is a failure of democracy.”

A reporter from NBC raised her mic.

“Mr. Rourke—did you make physical contact with an ICE officer before the shots were fired?”

Evan swallowed, jaw tightening.

“I was trying,” he said, “to keep an armed agent from striking a young woman who had fallen in front of him. That’s what I was doing. Protecting a civilian who ICE had already shoved to the ground.”

It wasn’t strictly true.
 It wasn’t strictly false.
 It was what he needed it to be.

The cameras seemed to lean in.

Another reporter asked, “Do you believe federal agents should be allowed to operate in Chicago at all?”

“No,” Evan said immediately. “Not like this. Not ever.”

The curtain suddenly snapped open again.

This time it wasn’t a reporter.

It was Mayor Cassandra Whitaker.

She strode in wearing a heavy wool coat, her hair swept back by the wind outside, her expression a mix of fury and concern. Her dark eyes scanned the bruises on Evan’s chest, and something sharp tightened in her jaw.

“Evan,” she breathed, stepping to his bedside. “Oh my God.”

The cameras surged closer.

Whitaker turned on them with a practiced glare.

“You can record,” she said sharply, “but you give him space.”

Evan managed a weak grin.

“Madam Mayor,” he said. “Nice of you to drop by.”

She squeezed his shoulder gently, leaning close enough that her voice didn’t carry beyond the cameras unless someone had directional mics.

“This is exactly what the hell we were afraid of,” she whispered. “This is exactly why we’ve been fighting them.”

Then, louder—projecting for the press:

“What happened to Mr. Rourke today is not an accident. It is not a misunderstanding. It is the predictable result of unleashing a federal agency with no accountability into the streets of Chicago.”

The lights caught the icy fire in her eyes.

“This city will not,” she said, “be bullied by ICE. Not on my watch.”

She turned to Evan, gripping his hand.

“We stand with you. And we will pursue every avenue to ensure this never happens again.”

The room buzzed with the intensity of it, the energy of a political earthquake happening on live television.

The reporters shouted questions.
 The doctors protested.
 The cameras rolled.

And outside, the sirens wailed as Chicago braced for another night of chaos, politics, and rage.

 

 

CUT TO: ONSITE NEWS BROADCAST

The scene faded to the familiar studio of WGN’s early evening anchor, Daniela Arce, sitting before a glowing skyline backdrop.

“Tonight,” she said gravely, “outrage in Chicago as a well-known public defender and immigrant-rights activist is injured during a confrontation with federal ICE agents in the downtown Loop.”

Behind her, footage played of Evan on the gurney, bruised, shirtless, defiant.

“The incident raises new questions about the role of federal immigration enforcement in sanctuary cities like Chicago—and whether local activism is entering a dangerous new chapter.”

Her eyes hardened with the polished moral clarity of a practiced progressive voice.

“In a nation built by immigrants, many Chicago leaders are asking tonight: Have we lost sight of who we truly are?”

The screen faded to black.

 

 

The dishwasher hummed softly in the background, a steady white noise under the cozy chaos of the Rourke living room.

The house sat in a quiet, gated subdivision on the northwest edge of the city—brick façades, trimmed hedges, security patrols that never had much to do. Inside, though, it felt smaller, warmer. The kind of place where stray crayons still turned up under couch cushions and a stray doll shoe could ambush a bare foot.

Evan lay half on his back, half propped on an elbow on the thick gray area rug, pretending not to wince every time one of his daughters bounced near his ribs.

Avery, twelve and all limbs now, sprawled cross-legged with a sketchbook in her lap, pencil flying as she drew something intensely—eyes narrowed, tongue peeking at the corner of her mouth. On the other side of him, Molly had built an elaborate zoo out of mismatched blocks, plastic animals, and an overturned shoebox.

“Daddy, the tiger’s escaping,” she announced, pushing a chipped plastic tiger through a gap in the blocks. “You have to stop him.”

Evan reached out with one hand, caught the tiger, and made a low growl, sliding it back in.

“Nope. Sanctuary city, kiddo. Tigers get to stay.”

Molly giggled, then frowned, clearly unsatisfied with the legal nuance.

“But the zookeeper says he’s dangerous,” she insisted. “He ate three zebras.”

“Allegedly,” Evan said.

Avery snorted without looking up. “You literally can’t turn it off, can you?”

“Turn what off?” he asked.

“The lawyer voice.” She shaded harder, pressing too hard with the pencil. “You even cross-examine toy animals.”

He smiled, then sucked in a tiny breath when the motion tugged along the bruises across his chest. The ER doctor had warned him: deep tissue damage, significant bruising, rest, ice, NSAIDs, no heroics. Three swollen, ugly welts were spreading in dark blossoms under his ribs, each one a painful reminder of the morning.

“Daddy, are you okay?” Molly asked suddenly, watching his face.

“Yeah, bug,” he said quickly. “Just moved funny. Your old man’s getting creaky.”

“You’re thirty-two,” Avery muttered. “You’re not old. You’re just dramatic.”

He flicked a balled-up napkin at her. She dodged without looking, the kind of reflex that comes from years of similar warfare.

The kitchen light clicked off behind them, and Claire stepped out, drying her hands on a towel. She’d changed after dinner into soft black leggings and an oversized Northwestern sweatshirt, blonde hair pulled back into a loose knot. The domestic uniform of someone who’d done a full day already and then cooked on top of it.

She paused in the archway between kitchen and living room, watching her three favorite people in the world arranged like a little still life: Avery on the couch with her sketches, Molly’s zoo spreading like an invasion across the rug, Evan on the floor in jeans and a faded “Justice for All” T-shirt, moving like everything cost him just a little too much.

“Okay,” she said, dropping the towel on the counter. “It’s eight. Homework done?”

“Yes,” from the couch.

“I did math,” Molly said. “And reading. We had to read about bees.”

“Bees are important,” Claire said, leaning over the back of the couch to kiss Avery’s head. “They pollinate things.”

“They die,” Avery said absently, still drawing. “Like everything else.”

“Cheery,” Evan murmured.

Claire walked around the couch and sat on the arm, reaching for the remote.

“News time,” she said. “Then teeth, pajamas, bed. Deal?”

Molly wrinkled her nose. “Do we have to watch news?”

“Yes,” Claire said. “Because your father will anyway, and this way I control when it starts.”

She clicked the TV on.

CNN bloomed into the room in high definition, washing the walls in cool blues and reds.

“…you’re watching Anderson Cooper 360,” the anchor said, his silver hair immaculate, his voice smooth. “I’m Anderson Cooper in New York. Tonight, we begin with breaking developments out of Chicago…”

A graphic spun in the corner of the screen: ICE CLASH IN THE LOOP.

Evan felt his shoulders tense before the first image even flashed.

Claire slid off the arm of the couch and stepped closer, dish towel forgotten in her hand.

“What is this?” Avery asked, finally looking up, with an alarmed expression.

The screen cut to footage of Dearborn Street—crowds, signs, chanting. Then sharper, closer: a wall of ICE officers, shields up.

“And we warn you,” Anderson Cooper said, “some of what you’re about to see may be disturbing.”

Molly scooted closer to Evan, plastic tiger clutched in one fist.

On-screen, the footage zoomed. The protesters surged. Signs bobbed. Someone shouted “WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS!”

Claire’s hand stilled in midair.

The camera found him.

There, in the middle of the frame—hair wild, scarf flying, eyes blazing—Evan Rourke shoved an ICE officer backward.

Molly gasped. “Daddy, that’s you!”

Claire’s breath caught in her throat.

The audio carried the muffled pops.

POP—POP—POP.

On the television, Evan’s body jerked, crumpled. He went down hard. The screen shook as the camera jostled. People screamed. Someone yelled, “They shot him!”

Back in the living room, Molly let out a thin, high noise that didn’t sound like her usual whine at bedtime rules. It sounded small and animal and scared.

Claire dropped the towel.

“Oh my God,” she whispered.

On screen, the chyron changed:

ICE FIRES “LESS-LETHAL” ROUNDS AT PROTESTERS
 CHICAGO PUBLIC DEFENDER HOSPITALIZED

Claire moved before she even thought about it, instinct taking over.

“Girls,” she said, voice too bright. “Come on. Let’s go upstairs for a second.”

“But—” Avery started.

“Now, Avery.” The edge in her tone snapped the word like a twig.

Molly’s eyes were glued to the TV, where paramedics now worked over Evan’s prone figure, his face pale, eyes squeezed shut.

“Is Daddy gonna die?” she asked, voice shaking.

“No,” Claire said sharply. “He’s fine. He’s right here.”

She reached down, grabbed Molly’s hand, and practically lifted her off the ground.

“Mom,” Avery protested, “we already—”

Claire wheeled on her.

“Avery, I am not asking. Upstairs. Now.”

The girl recoiled at the steel in her mother’s eyes. She slid off the couch, snapped her sketchbook shut, and grabbed Molly’s free hand.

“Come on, Mol,” she said quietly. “It’s just old stuff. Remember? He’s okay.”

“It’s not old,” Molly said. “His shirt is different.”

“It’s fine,” Claire repeated, pushing them gently toward the hallway. “Go brush your teeth. I’ll be up in five minutes.”

They shuffled off reluctantly, casting one last look back at the TV—at their father doubled over on a gurney, shirt cut open.

Claire waited until they were out of sight, then turned back to the room, heart pounding.

On-screen, Anderson Cooper’s voiceover carried that blend of outrage and professionalism CNN had perfected.

“…video from this morning’s protest outside the Metcalfe Federal Building in Chicago, where ICE agents preparing to launch what sources say was a ‘targeted enforcement action’ encountered a large, organized crowd of demonstrators, including immigrant-rights advocates, faith leaders, and public defenders. Among them, thirty-two-year-old Cook County public defender Evan Rourke, well-known for his work defending undocumented immigrants and opposing cooperation between Chicago police and ICE…”

The footage cut to a still photo of Evan at a previous press conference, suit crisp, jaw set, Mayor Whitaker behind him.

Claire’s stomach flipped.

Cooper continued, “As ICE teams moved to enter the building, witnesses say agents aggressively pushed into the crowd. Protesters linked arms, chanting ‘No ICE in our streets’ and ‘We are all immigrants.’ What happened next is now at the center of a growing national controversy…”

Back to the fall. The pops. The collapse.

Cooper’s tone tightened.

“Federal officials insist that only ‘approved less-lethal munitions’ were used when, they say, protesters ‘physically interfered’ with agents in the line of duty. But critics—including Chicago’s own Mayor Cassandra Whitaker—are calling this a troubling example of excessive force and federal overreach in a self-declared sanctuary city.”

Claire stepped slowly toward the TV, hand pressed to her mouth.

A clip rolled of Evan in the ER, shirt off, bruises like storm clouds across his chest, cameras in his face.

“What we saw today,” the Evan on screen said, voice hoarse but firm, “is exactly what happens when you send militarized federal agents into our neighborhoods with no accountability. They think they can treat peaceful protesters as enemy combatants. This is not public safety. This is intimidation. This is what fascism looks like at the street level.”

The Anderson Cooper in their living room nodded sympathetically from his Manhattan studio.

“Powerful words tonight from a man who says he was simply trying to protect a fallen protester when he was shot with so-called ‘less-lethal’ rounds,” he said. “We reached out to ICE for comment. They declined to appear live but sent a statement—”

Evan, still on the floor, reached for the remote and hit mute.

The room went abruptly silent, save for the faint dishwasher hum from the kitchen and the girls’ distant voices upstairs.

For a moment, nobody spoke.

Evan sat awkwardly on the rug, hand still on the remote, chest heaving a little harder than it had a few seconds ago. The bruises, ugly even under his T-shirt, throbbed in time with his pulse.

Claire turned to him slowly.

“What the hell,” she said quietly, “were you thinking?”

He blinked, realizing she wasn’t talking to the TV.

“Claire—”

“No,” she cut in, walking closer, eyes blazing. “No lawyer voice. No speech. You don’t get to spin me.”

He exhaled. “I was doing what I always do. What I have to do.”

“You have to stand directly in front of armed federal agents?” she asked, voice rising. “You have to get yourself shot on national television?”

“They were pushing into the crowd,” he said, anger flickering at the edge of his words. “They were ready to trample people. Somebody had to stand in their way.”

“Somebody,” she echoed. “Somebody, sure. Why did it have to be you?”

“Because I was there,” he snapped. “Because I’ve spent my entire career fighting this. Because those people out there—my clients, their families—they don’t have anyone else.”

“You have us,” Claire shot back, stabbing a finger toward the ceiling. “You have two daughters upstairs who just watched their father get shot on TV.”

He flinched harder at that than he had at the rubber rounds.

“They’re fine,” he said weakly. “You got them out.”

“I shouldn’t have to get them out,” she said. “Do you understand that? They shouldn’t have to be protected from watching you almost die.”

“It was rubber bullets,” he said. “Not live rounds.”

“Oh, well,” she said, throwing up her hands. “Rubber bullets. Great. I feel so much better. Next time maybe they’ll just break your ribs instead of stopping your heart.”

He pushed himself up to sitting with a grimace, resting his back against the base of the couch.

“This is what it looks like,” he said, his voice quieter. “This is what standing up to them looks like. It’s not pretty. It’s not safe. That’s the point.”

“Whose point?” she demanded. “Yours? ICE’s? CNN’s?”

He stared at her.

“You think I did this for ratings?” he asked, incredulous.

“I think,” she said slowly, “that you like it.”

The word hung there, heavier than the rest.

“You like the cameras. You like being the face. The crusader. The guy who gets quoted by Anderson Cooper while his chest is covered in battle scars.”

“That’s not fair,” he said, color rising in his neck.

“Isn’t it?” she asked. “You came home from the hospital today and what was the first thing you told me? ‘Did you see Mayor Whitaker’s statement?’ Not ‘I’m okay, honey.’ Not ‘I’m sorry I scared you.’ It was about the statement. The optics.”

He opened his mouth. Closed it.

“That’s not… I was still processing,” he said lamely.

She laughed once, bitter and short.

“You have been processing for six years,” she said. “Since you got that job. Since you started going to rallies instead of dinners. Since you started chasing every protest like it was oxygen.”

“You knew who I was when you married me,” he shot back. “You loved that I cared. That I fought.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I did. I still do. I just didn’t think I was signing our kids up to watch you throw yourself in front of bullets.”

The word “kids” did something to his posture. He sagged a little, running a hand through his hair.

“I’m not trying to be reckless,” he said. “I’m not trying to hurt them. Or you. But what do you want me to do? Stay home while they raid apartments I’ve been in? While they drag my clients out in front of their children? Just sit here and watch Netflix?”

“I want you alive,” she said. “I want you here. I want you teaching Avery how to drive in four years and yelling at Molly’s first boyfriend in ten. I want you at the goddamn dinner table without bruises shaped like federal munitions.”

He looked down at his chest, at the faint, dark circles visible through the thin cotton.

“They’re not coming for us,” she went on, voice trembling. “We live in a gated suburb. You drive a hybrid. Nobody is going to knock on our door at three a.m. and drag you away. But you keep running toward the places where that can happen until I don’t know where the line is anymore.”

“That’s exactly why I have to go,” he said, lifting his head. “Because it doesn’t happen to us. Because the whole system depends on guys like me keeping our heads down and enjoying our granite countertops while they wreck everybody else’s lives.”

She folded her arms, digging her nails into her sleeves.

“And if you die?” she asked. “If one day it’s not rubber bullets? If one day some ‘less-lethal’ round hits you wrong and it’s over? Are your principles going to tuck our daughters in at night?”

He stared at her, throat working.

“That’s not going to happen,” he said, too quickly.

“You don’t know that.”

Silence stretched between them, taut and ugly.

From upstairs came the faint sound of running water, the squeak of a faucet turned off, the muffled thud of a bathroom drawer. Ordinary sounds. Safe sounds.

“Claire,” he said finally, voice low, “I can’t… I can’t not be there. It’s who I am.”

She swallowed hard, eyes shining now.

“I know who you are,” she said. “I love who you are. That’s what makes this so hard.”

He pushed himself up off the floor with a grunt, hand braced on the couch.

“I promise I’ll be careful,” he said. It sounded weak even to his own ears.

She shook her head slowly.

“You can’t promise that,” she said. “Not if you’re going to keep doing this. Not if you’re going to keep putting your body between people and guns.”

He stepped toward her, reached out, set his hand gently on her arm.

“I’ll try,” he amended.

She let out a breath that was half laugh, half sob.

“You always try,” she said. “You try to save everyone.”

“I didn’t save everybody today,” he said bitterly, images from the raid flickering behind his eyes. “They still got in. They still made arrests.”

“But you got on TV,” she said, softer now, not quite accusing, not quite forgiving.

He winced.

“It matters,” he said. “People see it. They get angry. They call their reps. They show up.”

“Do you want Avery to show up?” she asked suddenly. “In ten years? In five? You want her in that crowd next to you?”

He froze.

The thought of Avery—tall, angry, with his same stubborn jaw—standing in front of a line of armed men made his stomach roll.

“I… don’t know,” he admitted.

“Well, I do,” Claire said. “I don’t.”

They stood there, inches apart, the TV still on mute behind them. On the screen, Anderson Cooper spoke earnestly while footage of Evan’s ER interview replayed in a small box over his left shoulder.

Claire glanced at the TV, then back at her husband.

“Turn it off,” she said quietly.

He did.

The room fell into a softer darkness, lit only by the standing lamp in the corner and the faint glow from the kitchen.

From upstairs, Avery called, “Mom? Are we doing stories or what?”

Claire wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand, steadying herself.

“I’m coming,” she called back.

She looked at Evan one more time—at the bruises, the eyes that still burned with the day’s fight, the man she married and the man the city was slowly turning him into.

“This isn’t over,” she said softly.

He nodded once.

“I know.”

She turned and walked down the hallway toward the stairs, bare feet silent on the hardwood.

He stayed where he was, alone with the muted TV screen and the hum of the dishwasher, as the house settled around him.