Chapter 25: 7:04

At 7:03 on a Sunday morning, my husband was leaning on the hood of his car with two coffees.

He'd parked in the no-parking zone at the ambulance bay, the way he had every shift since August.

The pregnancy test was in my scrub pocket, wrapped in a paper towel.

I'd taken it at four in the morning in the staff bathroom, and both lines came up before I'd washed my hands.

A year to the morning after the warehouse, I was going to trade him the test for my coffee and watch his face.

He saw me come through the sliding doors and pushed himself up off the hood.

"Busy night?" he said.

"I brought you something," I said, and reached into my pocket.

His eyes went past my shoulder.

A grey van was rolling up the ambulance lane with its side door already open.

Ilya dropped both coffees.

They burst on the concrete and splashed hot across my clogs.

He had his arm around my waist before I'd turned my head, and he took me down behind the car.

My hip hit the curb, and his whole weight came down over me.

The shots came flat and loud, so close I felt them in my teeth.

The car windows came down on us in pieces.

His body jerked on top of me once, and then again, harder.

He didn't make a sound.

His driver was firing back across the hood and shouting in Russian for us to stay down.

A man screamed in the lane.

Tires shrieked on the ramp, and the van's engine went away up toward the street.

Then there was only a car alarm and the coffee running into the gutter by my face.

"Are you hit?" Ilya said into my hair.

"No."

"Good."

Then he went slack on top of me, all at once.

Something warm was soaking through my scrub top, under my breast.

I thought it was the coffee.

I got a hand between us, and it came out red to the wrist.

I shoved him over onto his back on the concrete.

There was a hole in his white shirt on the left side of his chest, and the red was spreading out around it.

Blood was running out of his hair above his left ear and down into his collar.

His eyes were open on mine.

Then they slid shut.

"Trauma!" I screamed at the bay doors. "Gunshot, two down, I need a stretcher now!"

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