Sandra saw Orrin lunge forward and grab the gunman’s right arm. Orrin who wouldn’t so much as step on a bug, Sandra thought. Unless he was provoked. He had wrenched the gun to a vertical angle when it went off. The bullet cut a flanged hole in the roof of the car, allowing in a fine spray of rain. Findley jerked open the passenger-side door and threw himself out, landing and rolling on the wet street. Sandra realized she should do the same. But she couldn’t bring herself to move. She had become a still point around which the universe was revolving. Her body was leaden and her ears were ringing.

She wanted to help Orrin, who had one knee braced against the back of the driver’s seat and was struggling to leverage the gunman’s arm backward. The pistol looped around like a rattlesnake looking for something to bite. Orrin grunted and redoubled his effort, clutching the gunman’s arm and pumping with both feet. The pistol went off again.

Then Bose pulled open the driver’s-side door. He moved with a speed that took Sandra by surprise. His Fourth reflexes, maybe. He reached in and gripped the gunman’s arm just as Orrin fell back, exhausted, letting it loose. Bose took the gun away and tucked it into his belt. He pulled out the gunman, who crouched in a pool of ponded rainwater like a cornered animal, clutching his wrist, teeth bared, looking at Bose and at the gun. Then he turned and ran. Bose let him go.

The burning van was the brightest light on the block, casting long and hectic shadows down the slick street. Sandra looked over at Orrin, who was slumped against the seat. He turned up his face, wincing with pain. “I’m all right, Dr. Cole,” he said. But he wasn’t. The second shot from the pistol had cut across his shoulder, furrowing a wound. Sandra looked at it professionally, as if she had been transported from this madness back to her internship. The med school basics. Apply pressure. The wound was bleeding, but not too badly.

She guided him out of Findley’s car and into Bose’s. When she straightened up Bose put a hand on her arm to keep her still and examined her face where the gunman had hurt her. She said, “It looks worse than it is,” then contradicted herself by spitting a wad of blood onto the wet sidewalk.

“We need to get away from here,” Bose said.

*   *   *

Findley stood in the road, staring at a figure across the street.

The figure was his son, Turk. Sandra imagined she could see waves of surmise and dismay working their way into Findley’s shocked consciousness.

“He knows what you are,” she said—sternly and loudly, though the words were slurred by her loose tooth and swelling cheek. “He knows all about it, Mr. Findley.”