Page 127 of Black to Light

If I had to guess, the shooter had positioned themselves directly across the street from where the building exploded.

They appeared to be shooting into the crowd.

I watched bullets scatter and panic the surprisingly large number of bodies that remained upright in the rough area of the storefront. Smoke continued to billow out between the stone pillars, but some of it cleared enough in gusts of wind for me to catch glimpses of the area right by the gaping wound left by the shattered windows and twisted metal.

Bodies were strewn across the sidewalk like bloody, broken dolls.

Chunks of window frame and cement lay in the street. I saw manikins dressed in charred clothes, burning wooden stands and broken tables, chairs and glass and stone rubble. A smoking cash register lay sideways next to scattered electronics and burning signs. Phones, laptops, and tablets covered much of that part of the street, along with what looked like a copper door, bent nearly in half from the explosion.

People seemed to be running in all directions now.

Some of them ran towards the smoking building, obviously wanting to help.

A number of the fallen were still moving but couldn’t get up. They screamed and thrashed and called out for help, eyes wide in pain and fear.

The gunshots confused and panicked that crowd even more.

They began pushing in and out on all sides, trampling and shoving and crashing into one another to get away or to continuerunning towards the burning store and towards the people crying out for rescue.

I pulled myself warily to my feet. Angel got up when I did.

I helped up Alisha, who had been next to me and Angel.

For the moment, at least, we three stayed in the entranceway to the storefront where we’d taken shelter. I pulled the gun I had in my ankle holster, and handed it to Angel. She stared at it in confusion for only a second, then her eyes clicked into focus.

While she checked the magazine and chamber, I drew the other gun I carried, the one I wore inside my jacket in a shoulder holster. After I’d checked my own gun, I handed Angel two magazines to go with the Glock I’d given her. She nodded thanks and shoved them into her jacket pocket. She looked a lot more awake now.

I was guessing I did, too.

“We need to get down there!” I said, over the sound of gunfire and burning inside the building ahead. “We need to help them!”

She nodded, her eyes showing full agreement.

I glanced inside the store near us to see people pressed up near the glass, eyes wide as they stared out at the chaotic scene in disbelief. I motioned for them to stay back, and a few obeyed by retreating deeper into the store. A few stared at the gun in my hand, obviously shocked, but when I read them in a quick scan, they assumed we were police, or maybe from some part of the domestic anti-terrorism force.

They weren’tentirelywrong.

Groups of people ran by us, most of them now headed east and away from the gunshots and fire. I saw a woman with six or seven shopping bags clutched in one hand, the hand of a child who looked roughly four-years-old in the other. She tripped and stumbled past us on high heels over the broken, glass-covered sidewalk, her hair falling out of an elegant chignon, gasping outlittle sobs as she ran and exhorting the child to keep up with her in rapid French.

Another rifle report echoed between the buildings.

“ELVIS!” Angel yelled at her husband.

My eyes followed hers.

Cowboy, (full name: Elvis Dawson Graves, although none of us but her husband and Black used any part of that), didn’t look over.

He stood partly sheltered by a magazine kiosk on the other side of the sidewalk and about twenty feet closer to the bomb site than where we stood. His posture fully straightened from his previous crouch as I watched. Cowboy kept his back to the curved green metal as he aimed his gun upwards at a target across the street, likely in one of the windows a few stories up.

He shot steadily, jaw clenched, blue eyes filled with fury.

I saw the man inside the kiosk staring at us, his eyes bugged wide.

“Get down!” I snapped at him, waving my hand.“À terre! Maintenant!”

His eyes bugged even wider, but he dropped down below the counter until I couldn’t see him anymore.

Another steady series of gunshots erupted from our side of the street.

---