Editing Native Son (section)

=== Book Two: Flight ===
Bigger's current girlfriend Bessie Mears suspects him of having done something to Mary. Bigger goes back to work.

Mr. Dalton has hired a private detective, Mr. Britten, who interrogates Bigger accusingly, but Dalton vouches for Bigger. Bigger relates the events of the previous evening in a way calculated to throw suspicion on Jan, knowing Mr. Dalton dislikes Jan because he is a Communist. When Britten finds Jan, he puts the boy and Bigger in the same room and confronts them with their conflicting stories. Jan is surprised by Bigger's story, but offers him help.

Bigger storms away from the Daltons'. He decides to write a false kidnapping note when he discovers that Mr. Dalton owns the rat-infested flat that Bigger's family rents. Bigger slips the note under the Daltons' front door and then returns to his room.

When the Daltons receive the note, they contact the police, who take over the investigation from Britten, and journalists soon arrive at the house. Bigger is afraid, but does not want to leave. In the afternoon, he is ordered to remove the ashes from the furnace and make a new fire. He is terrified and starts poking the ashes with the shovel until the whole room is full of smoke. Furious, one of the journalists takes the shovel and pushes Bigger aside. He immediately finds the remains of Mary's bones and an earring in the furnace, and Bigger flees.

Bigger goes directly to Bessie and tells her the whole story. Bessie realizes that white people will think he raped the girl before killing her. They leave together, but Bigger has to drag Bessie around because she is paralyzed by fear. When they lie down together in an abandoned building, Bigger rapes Bessie and falls asleep. In the morning, he decides he has to kill her in her sleep. He hits Bessie on the head with a brick before throwing her through a window and into an air shaft, then realizes that the money he had taken from Mary's purse was in Bessie's pocket.

Bigger flees through the city, during which he sees newspaper headlines and overhears various conversations about the crime. Whites hate him for the murder and blacks hate him even more for the shame he brought to the black community. After a frantic chase over the city rooftops, the police finally catch him.