After reading what Nix left behind, Saint jolts Deputy Michaels awake and orders him to contact anyone with the power to intervene: U.S. District Judge Mark Cully, the attorney general, and the Missouri Supreme Court. Saint tells Michaels that Marty Tooms is innocent, but Michaels warns that Tooms is scheduled to be executed in a little over an hour. Because the prison lines are jammed and Tooms has no lawyer to press an emergency appeal, Saint realizes ordinary channels may fail.

Saint races toward the prison in her cruiser with the lights flashing, trying to call the prison and the Life Project as she drives. Michaels reports that he still cannot reach Cully because the lines are clogged by protesters, so Saint orders him to go to the judge in person. Her urgency intensifies when her cruiser runs out of fuel on a dark highway, threatening to end her last chance to stop the execution.

To keep going, Saint flags down an old Jeep, pulls the driver out at gunpoint when he resists, and steals the vehicle. Without her phone, radio access, or any certainty that Michaels has reached the right people, she drives recklessly toward the prison, listening to a radio debate about capital punishment that underscores what is at stake. The obstacles on the road, including blockades and closed access points, force her to abandon hope of an easy official entry.

When Saint reaches the prison grounds, she finds a chaotic vigil of reporters, protesters, prayer groups, candles, and heavy security. Guards ignore her badge and refuse to let her through, even when she demands Blackjack and Warden Riley. As the crowd begins to sing and Saint sees the final seconds of the day approaching on her watch, she understands she may already be too late.

Overwhelmed, Saint thinks of Nix, Tooms, Patch, and Misty, and of how innocence and guilt have been twisted together for decades. She silently prays, then chooses a desperate, physical act when words and procedure fail her: Saint draws her gun and fires into the sky, trying to shatter the moment and stop the machinery of an unjust execution.