Jared laughed and I looked up, seeing Claire ten feet away, her back against a concrete pillar.

“Thought I’d come join the party!” Claire called to us, throwing a gun to Jared and then situating herself with her rifle.

“I love you, baby sister!” Jared cried.

Claire winked at him. “I told you that you’d figure that out one of these days!” She cocked her gun and then looked up, took a deep breath, and then twisted her body, taking several shots before turning back around to escape the return fire.

She turned to Jared, then. “You’ve got four in the upper floors of the North building, two behind the dumpster, four each on both roofs, and three on the ground, on your ten, twelve and two. I’ll stay here with Nina. You go clean house.”

Jared smiled and turned to me. “Hang on, honey. I’ll be back in a sec.”

“Have a good day at work,” I smiled.

Claire tossed him a few more clips of ammunition, and then he leaned into me, his lips pressing hard against mine. “Promise me you’ll stay awake.”

“I promise,” I whispered, and then he disappeared.

Claire was beside me in the next moment, and she immediately pressed down on the table cloth.

“Agh!” I screamed.

“You’ve got to keep pressure on that, dummy, or you’re going to bleed out before we get you to the hospital,” she barked, taking a few shots behind us with her rifle.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “Bitch,” I said, laughing when Claire did.

“Open your eyes, Nina! You have to stay awake!” she yelled, patting my cheek.

I widened my eyes and blinked a few times. “I feel nauseous,” I said, swallowing.

She looked down at my hand on my thigh, both covered in scarlet. “It’s because you’re losing so much blood. I’ve got to cover Jared, but you stay awake!”

Claire pulled a hand gun from the holster on her back and shot several rounds, simultaneously whipping a rifle over her head and stabilized it on top of the remaining wood of our make-shift fort. Staring down her sights, her tiny frame jerked back with each shot as large brass casings flipped out and over, landing all around me.

“Your SIX, Jared!” Claire screamed as she took more shots with her rifle with one hand, and intermittently straightened her head to use her hand gun with the other.

The bullets no longer showered the restaurant as they seemed to be mostly out in the street. Claire repacked her guns on her person and grabbed the back of my dress, pulling me across the floor. She side-stepped down the hall to the kitchen in a crouched position, and I swallowed back the nausea as I noticed the thick trail of blood along the white tile behind us.