"Wanna come to the Hawks game with me?" Officer Jay Halstead asked his partner Erin Lindsay as they sat on a concrete wall at the Oak Street Beach. It was 84 degrees out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The last thing they wanted to be doing was stop people from bringing glass bottles to the beach while they wore heavy bulletproof vests and long black pants.

"What the hockey team?" she asked looking over at him, playing ignorant just to mess with him. She knew he had season tickets every year.

"No, the baseball team," Halstead replied sarcastically with a smirk, the one she couldn't stand.

Erin rolled her eyes and landed them elsewhere, "Just for that, no."

"Oh, come on."

"Come on, what?" she asked still looking around.

"It'll be a ton of fun, they're playing Minnesota, who doesn't even have a chance!"

Erin had been partners with Halstead since she got out of the academy almost three years ago. It didn't take long for her to glean that he loved hockey and naturally, the Chicago Blackhawks were his absolute favorite team.

"So which one of your friends bailed on you, Halstead?" Erin turned to look back at him with a knowing smirk.

Jay wasn't phased, "None. I'm asking you."

"How many times have you tried to get me to go to a game with you since we've met?" Erin asked. It wasn't just hockey games she'd been invited to, although those were the most common. Jay had also asked her to Bears, White Sox and Bulls games; he wanted nothing to do with the Cubs. How he got all these tickets, she had no idea.

"Why won't you come?" Jay asked, ignoring her question.

"I don't like sports, Halstead," she half snapped at him. She was actually indifferent but wasn't going to say that.

"You dont have to like them, its just a fun time," he persuaded.

"What's in it for me?" Erin asked, trying not to sound like she was giving in.

"A fun time," Jay repeated, "I'll buy you beer. Plus its a free ticket, you can't get much better than that."

"I can get a lot better than that but if you're gonna buy me beer I guess I don't have to be sober for it. Fine, I'll go, now shut up about it."

Jay smiled, proud of his first victory and didn't bring it up again.

"Want a hot dog?" Jay asked after a few moments of silence. The only upside to the scorcher was the Vienna Beef hot dog stand a few hundred feet away.

"Yeah, but last time I saw you try to put ketchup on mine and-" She was cut off.

"Lindsay, that was not ketchup that was hot sauce, which you love on them. Do you want one or not?" Jay asked; he was getting hungry.

"Sure," Erin answered, scanning the beach again. Jay nodded and stood up before heading over to the Vienna Beef stand.

The light concrete wall Erin sat on was getting as hot as an asphalt driveway. Behind her was a flight of stairs down to the the pedestrian tunnel that went under Lake Shore Drive. She could hear voices of people echoing in the tunnel, people who couldn't stand the heat and were leaving. She was almost jealous. She longed to take off the bullet proof vest that she was sweating profusely underneath.

Soon, everything was echoing. Her head was spinning. It felt like she was trying to keep herself awake. She couldn't.

"Help!" Jay heard from where he stood watching the vendor sprinkle celery salt on the Chicago Style dog he'd ordered. The patrolman's head snapped over to where the voice was coming from: the tunnel stairs. His partner was no longer perched atop the wall. The ten dollar bill fell out of his hand as he broke into a sprint. Sand wasn't an easy thing to run on but his time as an Army Ranger in Afghanistan had helped with that.

As Jay the area where he had been sitting with his partner mere minutes ago, he heard the same voice that had yelled for help, "Down here!" He peered down the flight of concrete steps and saw two people at the bottom. One was a man in his fifties, with concern written all over his face. The other was a slender woman in her mid twenties, lying unconscious on her back, with blood pooling around her head.

"Erin!" Jay cried out, running down the stairs as fast as he could and quickly mumbling a "thank you" to the man. He put a hand on her shoulder and lightly shook her, "Erin can you hear me?" he asked, even though he knew she was unconscious. He was about to radio for an ambulance before he realized that it would take them a while to get down the tunnel and up to the beach. Thinking on his feet, he tore off his shirt and wrapped it around her head to somewhat stanch the bleeding. Sweeping her up into his arms he made his way into the cool damp tunnel. It was like a black hole from the sunlight. The fluorescent lights between the wall and the ceiling were coated with black spiders and their webs. He smiled as he remembered Erin saying once that she hated that.

As soon as he got back up to street level and to their squad car he gently laid his partner in the passenger side. He felt a pang in his chest at the sight of her unconscious and bleeding, and knew that were she awake, she'd be ripping into him for the fact that he was bare chested with his shirt around her head.

Jay flipped on the lights and sirens and drove off.