Prologue: Two Riders, One Bus序幕：同一班公車上的兩個人

The book opens on an ordinary ride home from school, written in the present tense. Sasha, a senior at a small private high school who identifies as agender, dozes off near the back of the 57 bus. A few feet away, Richard, a junior at Oakland High School, is joking around with two friends. He touches a lighter to Sasha's skirt. The author freezes the moment and tells us what will follow: Sasha will spend weeks in a hospital being treated for serious burns, and Richard will be arrested, charged as an adult with a hate crime clause, and face a possible life sentence. Then the book steps back to show the city. Oakland is one of the most diverse cities in the United States and likes to see itself as open-minded, but it also has deep inequality: the hills are wealthier and safer, while East Oakland, where Richard lives, has most of the city's violence. The 57 bus runs between these worlds, and the two teenagers shared it for only about eight minutes a day.全書以一趟平凡的放學公車開場，用現在式寫成。Sasha 是一所小型私立高中的高三生，認同自己為無性別（agender），在 57 路公車後段打起瞌睡。幾步之外，奧克蘭高中的高二生 Richard 正和兩個朋友打鬧。他把打火機湊近 Sasha 的裙子。作者讓畫面停住，先告訴我們接下來會發生什麼：Sasha 將住院數週治療嚴重燒傷；Richard 會被逮捕，以成人身分被起訴，罪名附帶「仇恨犯罪」條款，可能面臨無期徒刑。接著作者把鏡頭拉遠，介紹這座城市。奧克蘭是美國最多元的城市之一，也自認思想開放，但貧富差距很大：山丘上的社區較富裕、安全，而 Richard 居住的東奧克蘭則發生了全市大部分的暴力事件。57 路公車往返於這兩個世界之間，兩名青少年每天同車的時間只有大約八分鐘。

Slater opens with a scene in the present tense and then speaks directly to the reader, wishing someone could still stop what is about to happen. Because she tells us the outcome right away, the book is not a mystery about who did it. The real questions become why it happened and what should happen next. Her description of the bus route, running from the hills down to the flatlands, works like a map of the city's divisions.斯萊特用現在式的場景開場，接著直接對讀者說話，彷彿希望還有人能阻止即將發生的事。因為她一開始就把結果說出來，這本書不是在猜「誰做的」。真正的問題變成：為什麼會發生？接下來該怎麼辦？她對公車路線的描寫（從山丘一路開到平地）就像一張呈現城市分界的地圖。