The mention of needing to evacuate only served to feed Cress's imagination how dangerous it must have been for him, how close to dying Chili might have come. His mind got tossed far back to last summer, when in a plane of existence that didn't count for reality, he'd lost him. Cress lied to him constantly about being over it, lied about how it was nothing but a bad dream, but in truth, he clung to the fear like a painful addiction he was viciously trapped in. The white neon pedestrian on the other side of the road replaced burning red hand, but Cress still did not budge.