Officer Cole raced down the highway at over 100 hundred miles an hour with his thoughts on fire about what to do. He ran the blood from his fingers with a vise grip on the steering wheel. Cars pulled over and some couldn't get out of the way when he swerved around them. Pulse pounding. Anger spewed. A gaping hole in his mind where all the toxic waste erupted. "Someone needs a message," he said to himself, as he put his foot to the floor.

The medium, the tall trees, and the signs all looked like some reel slapping away on a screen. Suicide by car hijacked his thoughts. His car was a torpedo on wheels, and collateral damage was a real possibility. There was nothing more dangerous than a rogue cop.

Luke looked at himself through his reflective sunglasses, knowing someone different lurked behind those brown eyes. He laughed inside. Then a bridge above caught his eyes. A cinder block crashed down, narrowly avoiding the car passing under from the other side.

Luke tamped down on the brakes. His car skidded into the medium leaving a trail of smoke and wheel ruts on the grassy divide. As he looked up, a group of teens looked stunned to see him. Two lanky boys froze for a moment until arms and legs dug down and they disappeared from the side road of the bridge into the woods. A blonde girl in navy windbreaker followed after them. Officer Cole's car slipped through the grass and over a knoll until it bucked up on to the other side of highway. When the officer leveled his car and found the entrance ramp to the bridge, the teens were gone. He raced up the on ramp where he caught shadows and branches swaying. He rolled up on the gravel cut.

He leaped from the car, leaving the door open and unlocked his weapon. No time to cap his hat on his head. With a rush no drug could match, he dove over the bank into the woods. He pulled out his gun, branches slapping him in the face. He blinked and watched shadows come and go. As he slowed and stalked after them over another rise, he spotted the blue/white jacket of someone curled behind a tree. He crept slowly, leveling his gun at the tree.

"You can come out now, slowly with your hands up."

She stepped from the tree. Her body shook with fear.

Luke knew she was no threat, but he didn't know how far the boys ran. He figured they'd be half-way to Canada. "You can put your hands down." He kept the gun trained on her.

She kept looking at the gun, unwilling to let her hands down completely. He figured shock factor was working. But he wanted to send a message to the others.

"What's your name?"

"Katie."

"Got a last name Katie?" Luke nudged his sunglasses down enough to see better in the thick forest where some sun filtered through.

"Katie...Blair."

"Must have started out as a boring summer to be out throwing concrete on to cars from a bridge." Katie looked like she wanted to throw up. "How old are you?"

"Sixteen," She said, eyes glued to his gun. Her dirty-blonde hair got tangled in her eyes. Sweat made her hair stick to her forehead. Tears ran freely from her bloodshot-blue eyes.

It was then he realized how much he scared her with his gun. Flashes of how his daughter would be scared to look down the barrel of a gun brought him back. He put the gun down to his side, safety on. "You got family?"

"Yes."

"You got a mother and father. Parents who love you?"

"Yes." She said with a tremulous mouth. He could tell her mind must have gone in reverse, wishing she'd never left home.

"You know you could have killed someone today?"

She nodded, not willing to look him in the eye.

"You could have gone to prison for your whole young life. This is your crossroad. A second chance to save yourself." As he talked, doubts crept in. She must have thought there was something not right, not even with him, something darker brewing. The notion caught him by surprise. "You remind me of someone. One wrong move, and you could lose everything you love. Do you love your folks?"

"Yes," she said, as if she'd explode, a spontaneous combustion.

Luke holstered his gun. "Then go home to them. Be the best daughter a parent ever had. And stay away from those boys. You see how much they care about you. They're probably swimming across to Canada by now."

"Yes, yes sir." She finally dropped her hands and turned toward a deer path.

"And don't forget to tell yourself, 'There's no place like home. And if you say it enough you will find yourself there, and it will all have been a bad dream."

"Yes sir." Her voice fading away among the thickets and thorns.

As Officer Cole turned and headed back toward his patrol car through the woods along the highway, he knew then that he'd crossed a line or two. He'd broke with protocol. He'd never once done so, but it was intoxicating. Buzzed.

When he got back to his car, lights flashing, and car door open, he heard the radio static, talking to itself now and then. It was Allison, the dispatcher. He slid inside his car with no intention of turning the incident in. He smirked at himself in the mirror. He had wished he could have dangled the boys over the bridge long enough to teach them a lesson they wouldn't forget.

As he looked into the rearview mirror of his cruiser, a sinister smile appeared before him, and his once brown eyes looked on fire.