Marcelline and Owen hadn’t seen each other in more than four years. The last time she saw him, she wasn’t convinced she’d survive the next time she did. And that had nearly been true, but in no way resembling what she’d lived in fear of all this time.

The sun lit up the sheen of his dark blue suit. She was bleeding, shaking, stunned motionless in the after-ring of gunshots. Two vehicles were on fire. And he looked as if he’d walked out of a magazine.

He surveyed the truck, measured the column of smoke rising skyward from it, then craned back to check the bend of the road in the distance where it turned toward them.

“We really do have to get out of here,” he said, picking it up like the next line of a casual conversation they’d never had.

It was the first thing he’d said to her since he’d told her to get some rest in his guest room. She hurt all over, but it was remote. She wanted to talk to him, wanted to know what he thought about what had just happened, and to know if he understood her part in this.

But the weight of the moment seemed lost on him. Maybe. She felt him not allowing their eyes to meet. He kept a step too far from moving the air around her. He walked past, stripping off his jacket. In Jonathan’s car, the flames were halfhearted, smoldering and belching smoke, not even scary compared to their big brothers bellowing in Roy’s truck. Owen beat the blaze down with his jacket, then grabbed up the garment bag from the back and pressed it against the seat to finish it off.

The fire snuffed out. The upholstery had holes through to the springs in places, and the dashboard was dusted in soot, but the damage was cosmetic. Owen started the car and smiled at her through the open passenger window.

He popped the trunk and was out again, charred box top in hand. He strode in a full graceful, giant bustle that didn’t get any less unreal as he went. How was he unrattled? What was he thinking? He skirted the red and beige glistening clutter in the grass by Jonathan’s head and dropped the cardboard next to it.

Marcelline looked for Carly at the edge of the clearing, but she hadn’t come back. They couldn’t let her see this. Owen walked over and plucked the shredded cheery wrapping paper out of the grass, crossed back, and tossed it into the waiting trunk.

Then he finally looked at her. Everything. He knew it all.

The trees tilted in Marcelline’s vision, the fire was above and beside and the sky was in the wrong place. A gray mist pulled the green and orange from the image, speeding in to swallow her.