Across from her, stuck to the bar, was a fragment of bone, glued to the surface by a glob of viscera. It made Elizabeth queasy, but somehow her intense focus on it prevented her from throwing up. The white shard eventually fell. No one noticed but her.

The old man snatched the discarded weapons and disassembled them with unsettling ease. His fingers blurred as he removed the top from the pistol and the wooden handle from the longer gun. As he emptied the bullets onto the floor, his eyes never left their faces, and his lips moved as though he continued to issue instructions. Both men began to wrap the makeshift bandages around their wounds.

He stood up and made some sweeping gestures to the patrons on the other side of the diner. He turned to Elizabeth and made the same gesture while he spoke words she could not hear.

Jules, Kaylee, and Chloe moved out of the booth around her; she still sat on the floor with her back to it. Jules leaned down and spoke softly in her ear, but she didn’t react. She stared straight ahead at the ring. Jules’ hands slipped under her arms and lifted her to her feet. She and Kaylee hoisted Elizabeth past the blood and the men.

They pulled her to the benches outside the restaurant and sat her down. The sisters sat on either side of her. Jules kneeled in front of the bench and looked Elizabeth in the eyes.

“Liz, say something.”

She heard Jules’ voice. It quavered, and she was trembling, but she was clearly trying to speak as calmly as possible. The sounds around her began to come back into focus: the busy street, the sirens making their way to the diner, the crying and screaming of various distressed patrons. They all gathered outside; none were leaving. Kaylee and Chloe were disturbingly quiet; they never sat without bickering for long. They held hands behind Elizabeth to comfort her as well as each other. Jules seemed the least shaken by the whole event, or at least was trying to seem more composed. Even with her wavering voice, she was making a concerted effort to be the adult in the group, a role that usually fell onto Elizabeth’s shoulders.

Elizabeth took a few deep breaths and then spoke.

“Is everyone okay?”

Jules let out a sharp bark of laughter. All three girls on the bench jumped. She quickly stopped and looked around, embarrassed.

“You do not get to ask us that question; you’re the only one who got hurt,” she said, annoyed. “What were you thinking? You could have been hurt a lot worse, or even killed.”

Elizabeth broke her gaze. She looked up at the skyline instead of Jules’ sad, blue eyes. She didn’t have a real answer to Jules’ question. It wasn’t really a decision she’d made; it was a gut reaction. She did what she needed to. It didn’t make sense to her, and she doubted it would make sense to Jules. She didn’t know where it had come from. Elizabeth had never been in a fight before. She always was the type of person to try to solve problems presented to her, but this was a category of problem she was ill-equipped to handle. Yet she did; she had saved the old man’s life, and in turn, he had saved hers. She’d done what she had to, but how could she explain that to someone when she didn’t understand why she thought she had to in the first place?

“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t really think about it; I just did it.” It was as good an explanation as she could give. Jules narrowed her eyes and raised an eyebrow, but relented.

“Well, don’t you ever do that again, okay? You can’t scare me, us, like that.” Elizabeth knew that was not the end of the conversation. She would bring it up later, but Jules knew her well enough to know nothing would be gained by pushing now.

“I think it was incredible, Liz,” said Chloe. As she spoke, she took a workout shirt out of her backpack and reached over to Elizabeth’s face. “Bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. Come here, you’re covered in…well, you’re a mess.” Chloe avoided using the word blood.

She couldn’t tell if the self-censorship was more for her sake or Chloe’s. Elizabeth didn’t resist as she started to wipe the blood from her face and dabbed the cut on her cheek.

“I know this probably isn’t the best time to say it, but I told you so,” Kaylee piped up. “He did sell drugs.”

“That’s really what you’re thinking about right now? Are you shitting me?” As annoyed as Chloe sounded, a slight smile crept across her face as she continued to work at cleaning Elizabeth’s. Elizabeth found herself smiling, too.

The police arrived within a few minutes; Bunsen’s was in Downtown Boston after all.

Things started to get blurry after that. An EMT gave her something he said would make her feel better through the IV she never noticed get put in. It had to have happened before they started to drive, but she couldn’t place when. She didn’t remember when the EMT showed up; one second, there was no one there, and the next, sirens echoed.

She realized that she’d never thanked the old man for saving her life. The EMT tried to placate her, telling her that he was sure the old man knew she was grateful. It still was going to bother her. Knowing someone is grateful for something you did is different from being told “thank you.” Her mom made sure she knew that.

Then she woke up. She didn’t remember falling asleep. The blue gown and pair of sweatpants she wore weren’t hers. She felt the gown move against her stomach, which meant she didn’t have her shirt on anymore. The lights in the room were off, but a light was on in the hallway; she was in a hospital. The smell of rubbing alcohol filled her nostrils.

Jules moved to her right; she was asleep on a chair that looked miserably uncomfortable. She vaguely remembered that at some point she had grabbed her best friend’s hand and said something to her that made her blush. She couldn’t remember what it was.

Elizabeth’s phone was on the pullover table next to her. Checking it revealed too many missed messages to count, and that the time was 11:49 pm. It had only been four hours since the shooting. Her face felt odd. There was a large bandage over the cut, but she couldn’t really feel anything beyond its presence. The sensation of not feeling was disturbing, but she was too exhausted to care. She closed her eyes and drifted out of consciousness.

Editor: Shannon Hensley