The bullet tore through Claire Bennett’s shoulder before she understood she had decided to be brave.
One second, she was crouched behind table six with both palms pressed against the sticky tile floor of Bellini’s Cafe.
The next, she was running toward a child.
Gunfire had destroyed the ordinary rhythm of the lunch rush in less than ten seconds.
Coffee cups shattered.
A plate of lasagna hit the floor.
People screamed beneath tables while chairs scraped violently across tile.
Claire did not know how many men had entered the restaurant.
She did not know who they wanted.
She only knew a little girl was standing alone near the center aisle.
Six years old, maybe.
Dark curls.
Mint-green dress.
White tights.
Tiny black shoes.
The child had frozen exactly where her chair had overturned.
A man near the front windows raised a gun.
Claire saw where it pointed.
Everything after that happened faster than thought.
She crossed the dining room.
One step.
Two.
Three.
Four.
She grabbed the little girl around the waist and turned her own body between the child and the windows.
Then something struck her left shoulder.
Heat came first.
Then pressure.
Then pain so violent that her vision went white.
Claire stumbled.
The child screamed.
Claire tightened her grip.
“Hold on.”
She pushed through the swinging kitchen doors.
Steel counters flashed beneath harsh fluorescent lights.
A cook crouched behind the freezer.
Another employee lay flat beneath a prep table.
Somebody was crying beside the dish station.
Another shot sounded from the dining room.
Claire kept moving.
The girl wrapped both arms around her neck.
Claire felt blood spreading beneath her white uniform blouse.
The wound burned with every step.
She reached the largest prep counter and dropped behind it.
The child stared at Claire’s shoulder.
“You’re bleeding.”
Claire looked down.
There was more blood than she wanted to see.
“I know.”
The girl’s lower lip trembled.
“Are you going to die?”
Claire swallowed.
“No.”
She had no idea whether that was true.
But children deserved certainty when adults had nothing else to give them.
Claire pulled her closer with her good arm.
“What’s your name?”
“Sofia.”
“Okay, Sofia.”
Claire forced herself to smile.
“I’m Claire.”
Another shot cracked through the restaurant.
Sofia flinched so violently that her entire body jerked.
Claire covered the child’s head.
“Stay with me.”
Sofia nodded against her chest.
Claire knew Bellini’s kitchen better than she knew almost any other place in Chicago.
Eighteen months of double shifts had taught her every refrigerator, every exit, every blind corner, every warped floor tile that caught the wheels of the vegetable cart.
The fire exit was twenty feet away.
The problem was the last twelve feet had no cover.
Claire listened.
Shouting.
Footsteps.
Glass breaking.
Then a burst of movement in the dining room.
She could not tell whether the men were getting closer.
She decided waiting was worse.
“We’re moving.”
Sofia grabbed the front of Claire’s apron.
Claire crawled.
Her injured shoulder screamed.
Black spots flickered across her vision.
Five feet.
Ten.
A bullet slammed into a metal cabinet behind them.
Claire threw herself over Sofia.
“Don’t look.”
The child pressed her face against the floor.
Claire reached the exit.
She pushed the crash bar with her hip.
Cold Chicago air struck them.
They fell into the narrow alley behind the restaurant.
Claire kicked the door shut.
Then her legs stopped working.
She slid down the metal door.
Sofia immediately climbed into her lap.
Claire wrapped one arm around her.
“I’ve got you.”
Sirens were already approaching.
“I’ve got you.”
She kept repeating it until she could no longer tell whether the words were for Sofia or herself.