The chapter opens with a reflection on fear’s effects on the body as Ted and Louisa run across train tracks to escape the two men who assaulted them. Louisa vaults a fence while Ted tears his pants on barbed wire and falls, using a passing train as temporary cover. Overwhelmed and wanting to give up, Ted is pulled onward by Louisa, who insists they must hide before the men circle the station in their car.

They slide down a grassy bank to a deserted parking lot where Louisa shoves Ted into thick bushes. As a car approaches with its headlights sweeping the area, Ted drifts into a memory of his father’s funeral twenty-five years earlier. He recalls the sparse service, his family’s silence, and how, after the ceremony, Joar, Ali, and the artist quietly joined him in the empty church and let him cry, not alone.

Back in the present, the pursuers’ car creeps by and one man peers toward the bushes. At that moment, a taxi stops, its headlights blinding the men. The driver, initially appearing to be an old man, steps out and pretends to urinate near the bushes. When the men ask if the driver has seen an old guy and a girl, the driver denies it, and the car leaves.

With the danger passed, the driver tells them it is safe. Louisa emerges holding a stick and realizes the driver is actually an older woman. Ted crawls out, battered and limping. Louisa asks for help catching up to the train that left with the painting and ashes, and the taxi driver enthusiastically agrees to try.

Ted hesitates about getting into a stranger’s car, which Louisa misreads as rejection, but he clarifies his concern about safety. The driver jokes about being as dangerous as a meatball. A distant dog bark makes Ted jump, prompting teasing from Louisa and the driver; Ted insists he is not afraid of dogs, despite obvious nerves. The scene closes with the plan to pursue the train by taxi.