After a while, she realized she could open her eyes. She turned her head.

Glass everywhere, sparkling in the light.

She couldn’t see Nick.

She couldn’t breathe.

Her ears were ringing and full, and she couldn’t seem to move right yet.

Where was the man?

He’d shot Nick. She’d seen the flash, had seen Nick jerk and fall.

She had to run.

She had to get to her phone.

Her brain was racing, but everything else seemed to be moving in slow motion.

Move!

She still couldn’t breathe. The pressure was intense, as if an elephant had set up shop right on top of her chest. Her vision was turning spotty.

Had she been shot? She felt like she’d been dropped into liquid amber, and her world was slowly coming to a crystalline stop.

What was happening?

And then, without warning, reality snapped back into place. Wind rushed into the studio, chilling her face and making the glass tinkle and drag across the wood.

She could move. She could breathe. She could crawl.

But no. When she rolled over, trying to get to her hands and knees, her body shook and protested the motion. Every joint hurt. Her head swam. Her skin pricked like she’d been sliced open by a hundred tiny knives.

Oh, look. Her arms were bleeding.

The lightbulbs. Glass under her palms.

Nick.

Nick was crumpled on the floor. Not moving.

His eyes were closed. Blood had pooled on the hardwood floor, glistening where glass had collected in it.

She realized she was screaming his name. Glass sliced into her hands and knees as she scrambled toward him.

Then she caught movement from the corner of her eye and flinched, remembering the man.

Hide. Hide, Quinn.

Her brain wasn’t working. Hide where? In the open?

But no. It wasn’t the man. She didn’t see Gareth anywhere.

It was Adam. He was making the same slow crawl across the glass-strewn floor that she was. Blood streaked his forearms. His head was bleeding from the temple—what had happened?

His face was wet. He was crying.

She was yelling. She couldn’t move fast enough.

Nick.

Nick.

Nick.

He didn’t move at all.

No. No no no no no no.

Adam got to him first. Rolled him onto his back. Nick’s arm cracked onto the hardwood floor, lifeless.

Adam was crying his name, too. He was pressing his fingers to Nick’s neck, struggling to find a pulse. Adam’s words came to her in slow motion, and her brain didn’t want to process them.

He doesn’t have a pulse.

He’s not breathing.

Damn it, Nick.

The side of Nick’s face was soaked in blood. It was already caking in his hair.

Oh, Nick. Quinn choked on her sobs.

Adam breathed into Nick’s mouth.

And again.

Nothing happened.