Late at night, Soot and Tasha watch a mandatory active-shooter training video for their daughter’s school enrollment. It presents statistics about school shootings and outlines the school’s “RUN, HIDE, or FIGHT” protocol (152). The narrator describes the campus alarm, explains how to call 911, and details each response action, even alluding to local hunting culture and students’ right to self-defense.

Soot repeatedly asks Tasha to turn off the video, but she insists they must complete it. When he notes she should know this content by heart, she confirms she has watched all required videos. She then admits that she is considering moving away. When Soot is adamant that he won’t leave and that she would be taking his daughter away, she assures him they would move as a family. Despite this, the narration suggests this moment marks when their relationship began to separate. The chapter ends by repeating a line from the video: “Sometimes escape is the best weapon” (157).

The narrator, Kelly, Dylan, and The Goon drive from Italy to Paris, while the narrator reflects on being stabbed. En route, Dylan obsessively edits a 17-hour apocalypse “supercut” on his iPad, combining Emmerich-style films into one cohesive global catastrophe.

The Goon suddenly pulls onto an unmarked Italian backroad, surprising the narrator when he calls for “a nice, real American shooting!” (163). He fires several deafening shots that trigger intense psychological reactions in the narrator, bringing up fragmented memories. Kelly also fires the gun. Dylan, who stayed in the car, curls into a ball, trembling. The narrator finds him shaken and staring vacantly. They continue to Paris in tense silence.

Soot calls his therapist for an emergency session, unable to distinguish whether he is in Minnesota, Toronto, or North Carolina. She explains that trauma often takes root in physical locations in the body and presses him on where he exists—in place, ancestry, or his body itself.

Soot mentions a DNA test showing ancestry from Ghana, Congo, and Europe, and recalls a book tour there. When she asks where in his body his daughter lives, he immediately identifies the soft spot in his neck below his Adam’s apple, explaining that she lives there because he has lost his memories but retains “the sounds of her name” and words he cannot say (171). However, when asked what he would say to her, he responds that he does not know.

The group arrives in Paris. The narrator signs an autograph as Colson Whitehead for a French woman. Kelly and The Goon leave to explore the catacombs. The narrator and Dylan gain entry to the embassy when Dylan introduces him as “Mr. Coates,” and the narrator’s concealed gun passes undetected.

At the embassy dinner celebrating an American writers’ festival, the narrator reconnects with Mateo and meets two literary legends: a Toni Morrison-like figure and Victor, a semi-retired Grammy-winning rapper. Over wine at a café, they discuss preferring Europe to America. The Morrison-like writer explains she has lived in Europe for seven years because the volume is lower; she no longer fears every loud sound is a gunshot. Victor recounts visiting Cape Coast Castle in Ghana, expecting a powerful homecoming but finding only culture shock. He concludes that Black Americans are “from Africa” but not “of” it, and the same is true of America (184). When Dylan challenges the idea of abandoning those left behind in America and questions whether they should try to fix things, Victor delivers a furious litany rejecting the entire country, declaring that Black people have no home and do not need one.

During a post-divorce visit, 14-year-old Mia tells Soot she has been accepted to Chapel Hill. She asks whether he sees things sometimes, though he deflects. Mia mentions Canada is easier to breathe in and encourages him to consider leaving. Soot insists he will never leave the family land where his ancestors lived through slavery and sharecropping. Mia, frustrated, says she will never live there like he does.

As they work in the vineyard, Soot witnesses unsettling imagery: blackbirds forming a circle, then an ebony peacock spreading its feathers at the spot where Mia will die years later. He perceives her saying she is going to die here, and he should return to Canada, though she claims to have said nothing. The narration reveals his unspoken questions about whether she already knows she will die by suicide and whether moving to Canada would have saved her.

Dylan storms out of the Paris dinner, and the narrator chases him through the streets. Dylan explodes in rage, rejecting Victor’s and the Morrison-like writer’s views. He forbids the narrator from calling him “kid,” his accent shifting to “raw [American] terror” (191).

Dylan breaks down sobbing, exhausted from being an “other” everywhere, tired of having to fit in while never truly belonging. He reveals he feels no home in America, which is burning, and no home in Europe, where he remains an outsider. He expresses jealousy of anyone with a homeland, including Jamaican-born Victor.

The narrator attempts to comfort Dylan with an optimistic speech about miraculous things he has witnessed, insisting “nothing in this life is duty-bound to fall apart” (195). Dylan does not respond. Instead, he collapses into a catatonic state, staring ahead vacantly. The narrator cradles him, unable to find Dylan’s medicine or help on the empty streets. As he sits with Dylan, Remus emerges from the darkness, singing and smiling.

In Minnesota, Soot prepares to leave his hotel, donning a loaned overcoat to conceal his holstered pistol. He checks the mirror to ensure the gun does not show, troubled by memories of his daughter and realizing his experiences are not time travel but a break with reality.

In the hotel hallway, a small white woman waits with him for the elevator. As they ride down, she asks where he is from, and he jokes about the cold, saying he could learn to become part of Minnesota. Mid-conversation, the pistol falls from his holster onto the elevator floor.

Soot quickly retrieves the gun and apologizes, insisting he has a permit and is not dangerous. The woman backs away, trembling but holding back a scream. They ride the rest of the way in strained silence. The narration emphasizes that even after the doors open, they remain trapped in that moment—days later, years later, they are both still there in that elevator, with his words, “I could learn to become a part of this place” (199), hanging between them.