My own gun fires—but I don’t hear it. I phase into the Quiet once more.

Tolik’s head is frozen mid-explosion. Bits of his skull and brain are caught mid-flight toward the wall behind him. I killed him, but I don’t even register that fact. Instead I focus on something else entirely—and what I see makes me feel like I’m about to burst with joy.

Vasiliy, the guy whose head I was in just a moment ago, is on top of Mira.

He took the bullet that was meant for her.

I roll him off her and see no signs of the bullet having traveled all the way through. It hit him in the right shoulder blade.

Mira is unharmed, other than some minor bruises due to falling with the chair. She hasn’t been killed.

I know there is a possibility, however remote, that the bullet is still about to go through Vasiliy. I might’ve phased in at just the right fraction of a second to make the bullet freeze on its way out.

I run to my body and slam into myself, roughly grabbing whatever exposed skin comes my way.

I am in the real world again, hearing the sharp crack of the shot I just fired.

I rush into the room.

I ignore the sound of Tolik’s body falling to the floor where I shot him. My entire focus is on Vasiliy, now crumpled on top of Mira.

He moans in pain.

She’s quiet.

My heart sinks.

Tolik’s shot must’ve reached her through Vasiliy’s body.

Filled with panic, I roll him off her as fast as I can. His moans become screams at my rough treatment, but I barely notice his pain as I see Mira lying there, alive and unharmed.

Just as she was in the Quiet.

She’s strangely silent, however, and I decide that she must be in shock. Feeling a tiny fraction calmer, I start cutting away the duct tape from her legs.

“You’re a hero, Darren,” Caleb says from the door. For the first time, I hear no sarcasm in his voice. “You should know I don’t throw around compliments lightly.”

“Help me untie her,” I say, not knowing how to respond to that.

“Can’t,” he says curtly. “I need to bind Julia’s shoulder.”

I remember Julia’s wound and I nod, continuing to work on the tape by myself. Mira still doesn’t say a word. Her silence begins to worry me.

Finally, I succeed in cutting through the tape, and Mira slowly gets to her feet, still without speaking. Then, not looking at me, she walks to the gun that fell from Tolik’s hand and picks it up.

She’s going to finish Vasiliy off, I realize.

But instead of pointing the gun at the injured mobster, she points it at me.

I barely have a chance to register the tears gleaming in her eyes and the shaking of her hand before I instinctively phase into the Quiet.

Battling my shock and disbelief, I approach her and brush my fingers against her frozen cheek, determined to understand her strange behavior.

Instantly a moving Mira joins me in the Quiet. She wipes the tears from her eyes, looking around the room, and as her gaze lands on me, the expression on her face turns to fury. Stepping toward me, she slaps my face, the way wives do to cheating husbands in movies. Then she punches me in the stomach.

I’m stunned. What the hell is she doing?

“You fucking Pusher!” she says through clenched teeth. “Don’t you ever come near me again!”

Before I can react, she turns around and touches her frozen self.

Numb, I look at my own self standing in front of her gun. His face looks more confused than it did on the day I first discovered being able to ‘stop time.’

I now know what upset her so much.

I now understand what I did to Vasiliy.

Mira must’ve phased in after the shots went down. She must’ve Read Vasiliy. She must’ve seen the telltale signs of what happened in his mind.

Signs similar to what I saw earlier in Piotr’s mind.

Signs of what I refused to really think about, until now.

I made Vasiliy protect her with his body.

I made him fall.

I overrode his free will.

I pushed him.

I’m what she hates most in the world.

A Pusher.

I touch my confused self on the forehead.

I am back in the real world, with Mira’s gun in my face. It’s shaking more than it did before.

Is this really how it’s going to end? Is she going to kill me? I’m so numb that I just stand there, waiting for it.

But no. She slowly lowers the gun. Then, hurrying over to Tolik’s dead body, she picks up her pink phone from the table next to him and runs out of the room.

Finally shaking off my strange numbness, I run after her.

“What the fuck was that?” Caleb yells after me, but I don’t have time to explain.

I keep running after her, gaining speed, but she’s fast. After chasing her down a couple of flights of stairs, I slow down and then stop. Even if I catch her, I have no idea what I’ll say.

Feeling exhausted all of a sudden, I go back and rejoin Eugene and Caleb, who seem very confused. Julia is bleeding, her face deathly pale, and Eugene is hovering next to her. His face is almost as pale as hers.

“What’s going on?” Caleb asks, frowning at me.

“Don’t ask,” I say. “Please.”

“Is Mira okay?” he persists.

“I think she is, yes,” I answer wearily. “I mean, she’s not hurt—physically, at least.”

“Fine. Then help me,” Caleb says. He gives Eugene the keys and tells us to get the car. Meanwhile, he picks Julia up like she weighs nothing, and starts down the stairs. Everything seems to happen in a haze.

Eugene and I get the car in silence. He looks back toward Caleb and Julia once, then looks around, probably hoping to spot Mira. She’s nowhere to be seen, but we find the car in the Costco parking lot, where we left it. I drive to the curb, pull up, and Caleb carefully puts Julia in the back. Caleb reclaims the driver’s seat, while I ride shotgun. Eugene gets in the back with Julia. I hear them talking quietly, but make out only her repeated insistence that she’s fine.

In five minutes, we’re parked at the Lutheran Medical Center. Caleb gets out as soon as the car’s stopped. He leans in Julia’s window. “You holding up okay?”

“Fine,” she says. “Really. I’m okay.” She doesn’t look okay—she looks like she’s about to pass out. Eugene doesn’t look much better.

“I’ll be right back,” Caleb says. “Give me a minute.”

As soon as he’s gone, I hear the sound of Eugene’s text alert go off. I don’t know why, but the sound alone fills me with dread.

“Darren,” Eugene says after a few seconds. “Mira just texted me. She’s on her way here on foot. She says she wants you gone when she arrives.”

I don’t know what to say. “Okay. I’ll go then.”

“What happened?” Eugene asks, his face the very definition of confused.

“Talk to Mira,” I say tiredly. “Please don’t make me explain.”

We share an uncomfortable silence. Through the haze surrounding me, I’m aware of Caleb returning a few minutes later with a wheelchair for Julia. How did he get one so quickly? Did he show his gun to someone in the hospital? Surely not, or security would be right behind him, I reason dazedly.

Caleb says something to Eugene and sends him on his way with Julia. Something about making sure she’s okay and about being back once he drops ‘the kid’ at his house. He also suggests some bullshit cover story to explain the gunshot wound. I listen, but I’m mentally somewhere else.

When Eugene and Julia enter the hospital, Caleb starts the car.

“Are you okay, Darren?” Caleb asks me as he pulls out of the hospital parking lot.

“Yeah, sure,” I say on autopilot. I’m far from okay, but he doesn’t need to know that.

“All right then, I’ll take you home. Give me your number, and I’ll get in touch with you soon. I’ve almost made up my mind about the first person whose fighting we’ll experience.”

“Great.”

“You’re in shock,” Caleb says. “It happens sometimes after a battle. Even with the best of us.”

I just nod. I don’t care about his theories or approval. I don’t care about anything. I don’t want to think.

My phone rings. It’s my mom Sara.

“Do you mind?” I ask Caleb. I think it’s very rude to talk on a cell in front of someone.

“No worries,” he replies, and I answer the call.

“Hello?” I say.

“Darren, I was beginning to worry,” Sara says. This makes my stupor fade a little. Beginning to worry is Sara’s default state. I don’t believe the woman has ever called me when she was chill. Of course, if she thought I was in even a fraction of the trouble I’ve been in today, she would go to her second-favorite state—panic about me.

“I’m okay, Mom. I was just busy today.” Understatement of the century.

“You aren’t mad at us?” she asks, and I immediately realize I’ve been an ass. I should’ve called to reassure them about the adoption business from the day before.

“No. We’re good, Mom,” I say, forcing certainty into my voice. Better late than never, I always say.

She seems to believe me, and we move on to the usual ‘how are you’ chat that we have every day. The whole thing is surreal.

When I get off the phone, Caleb is just a few blocks from my place. We ride in a companionable silence the rest of the way.

“This is you,” Caleb says when we get to my building.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say, extending my hand to Caleb. “And for helping us out. That was some good shooting you did.”

He shakes my hand firmly. “You’re welcome. You weren’t bad yourself, and I know these things. Get some sleep,” he says, and I nod in agreement.

It’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.

I get to my apartment, eat something, shower, and get into bed. Once there, I just sit for a moment, looking outside. It’s still light out there, the sun only beginning to set. I don’t care, though. I’m exhausted, so I lie down.

When I’m this tired, time seems to slow. It’s like my head approaches the pillow in slow motion.

I think about everything that’s happened to me today. I think about the things that are about to happen. In those couple of seconds it takes for my head to hit the pillow, I think of anything but the fact that Mira will hate me now. Anything but the biggest question of all.

What am I?

And then my head finally touches the pillow, and I’m out, falling asleep faster than I have in my entire life.