At Frenchie’s villa, the narrator, Dylan, and The Goon enter the vast library containing a Volkswagen-sized globe that spins in sync with the Earth. Frenchie shows the narrator handwritten works by James Baldwin and Langston Hughes, plus a secret Nina Simone album recorded near Paris that only five people have heard. He explains his father acquired these directly from the artists. Frenchie declares the narrator belongs to the final generation that will remember America before its irreversible decline into violence and political division. He offers to pay the narrator to live in Europe as a salaried artist writing books that preserve memories of old America, funded by a multi-million-dollar trust. The condition: He can never return to the United States, or he will lose the money. Frenchie calls this “The Big Score” (81). The narrator appears to accept. He contemplates never going home and concludes that “leaving America just might be the new American Dream” (83).

Through time travel, Soot revisits a summer day after his divorce but before Mia’s death. He stands on his family land in North Carolina near where she will die and walks to the family cemetery. A car brings Mia home, and Soot is overwhelmed that she is alive. Tasha appears, and Soot’s foggy memory frustrates her. She insists Mia needs to leave this place. The three work together cleaning graves and make a bonfire.

Inside, Tasha implores Soot to come to Toronto, arguing that he cannot “save anyone by staying”; he replies he “can’t leave” (88). Soot then reminisces about shooter drills that Mia and her classmates used to do in school. He wonders if they were the “start” of it, confusing Tasha. On the porch, Soot feels anchored by his family land and graves and resolves not to leave.

After confirming Frenchie’s offer was real, the narrator, Dylan, and The Goon begin the European book tour. The narrator secretly carries a gun he smuggled into the country. The Goon discusses his admiration for H. P. Lovecraft and says he can sometimes feel what Lovecraft wrote about in the ocean. The narrator thinks he sees a massive ripple on the horizon. Driving through Italy, he feels an unexpected sense of homecoming. At a Pordenone book festival, an Italian woman asks if he loves America. He sees a shadowy figure resembling Remus but cannot alert The Goon. The woman rejects his answers, stating Africa is his “home.”

At a bar afterward, the narrator becomes fixated on a Black waitress he insists is American. He orders whiskey but doesn’t drink it, instead confronting the waitress, demanding she admit where in America she is from. She finally speaks English, angrily saying she is “Not. Like. You” (104). Dylan approaches but suddenly freezes mid-sentence, entering a catatonic state.

The day before his Minnesota event, Soot grades creative writing papers with his gun on the desk. He reflects that student writing now contains contemporary violence, as he reads different interpretations of the recent school shooting. In one story called “I Hate This” (108), a boy is holding a girl hostage while planning to shoot another student. In the climax, the intended victim is revealed as a school shooter, and the hostage-taker kills him, becoming a hero. Feeling a headache, Soot gives the student an A.

As Dylan remains frozen, the narrator panics and calls for help. Bystanders summon emergency services. The narrator lays Dylan down and repeatedly reassures him. Dylan regains consciousness, explaining he has “a condition” but refuses to expand on it.

The narrator retreats to the bathroom. Remus appears in an old, ill-fitting suit, cheerful and talkative. He tells a rambling story about quitting a lucrative Park Avenue job to see the world and relates an anecdote about the first Black man in Japan. Remus suddenly produces a knife. The narrator freezes, unable to reach for his gun. Remus stabs him.

Through time travel, Soot consciously relives when Mia was 16 in Toronto. He hugs her tightly at his hotel door. Soot, Tasha, and Mia walk along the frozen riverfront and find a young woman named Vivian crying. Soot recognizes this as the moment “where it starts” (121). Mia insists on helping Vivian. Soot frantically tells Tasha that Vivian came to die by suicide and will pass the idea to Mia. He confronts Vivian, screaming she is the one who kills his daughter. Mia intervenes, and Soot realizes he cannot change this event. In his mind, he flashes forward to the friendship between Tasha and Vivian and recalls Vivian calling after Mia’s death, asking if she had infected Mia. He remembers telling her it was not her fault but privately wondering if that encounter began Mia’s suicidal ideation.

The narrator wakes in a luxurious hospital wing. Dylan and The Goon tell him the stab wound was not fatal and show him a note from Remus reading “Keep brushing!” Dylan then talks about his medical condition, explaining that he briefly returns home to Baltimore during the blackouts. When he awakes, he has no memory of it, only vivid sensory feelings from his childhood. Frenchie arrives, arguing the stabbing proves the narrator must escape American gun violence. The narrator begins to agree. He drifts off and sees a vision of Dylan dead with a bullet in his chest. He wakes to Dylan returning his jacket containing his illegal gun. Dylan confesses he hid it after the stabbing and admits knowing the narrator had the gun made him feel strangely happy and at home.

Days later, healed, the narrator dresses and puts on his gun. As he enters the elevator, a naked woman runs toward it, pursued by another woman with a weapon. He has a strange sense of déjà-vu and decides to hold the elevator. The naked woman gets in and the doors close. The narrator recognizes her as Kelly, a woman from his past.

Soot walks across the college campus with a woman from the faculty he cannot name. She points out where the shooting occurred. At a classroom for his scheduled talk, no students appear. After half an hour, they leave.

At lunch, she asks why he brought a gun to campus. He says it is for “protection.” She reveals her ex-husband carried one and presses for a real answer. Outside his hotel, he finally confesses he is scared. He claims the gun he carries is the one that killed his daughter, and he keeps it loaded. She hugs him. They go to his room and have sex with the gun on the nightstand. As she leaves, she kisses his forehead and says they are all scared. Soot reflects it is “the first time in years” neither has “felt alone” (141).