She sat rigidly upright, not at her stenograph machine, but on an old wooden bench in the empty fourth-floor hallway of the North court building. It had been a long, silent wait. Clara leaned her head back against the wall, her eyes closed, her mind filled with Sam. He had occupied and consumed it, especially the dark nooks and crannies and the things in them that she’d rather forget about. Perhaps he could be her therapy. Perhaps those dark spaces could be filled with some newness, some light. Sitting there, warming with the thought of him, she knew that her body was already his, too. Only he hadn’t had the chance to take it. Not yet, not fully.

She opened her eyes and stared at the large double doors in front of her. When they finally swung open, the silence of the hall was shattered by the chattering, legalese-spewing jaws of attorneys, witnesses, reporters, and everyone else interested in the divorce of a New Orleans Saints wide receiver and his weather girl wife. When she spotted the bespectacled, jet-black-haired head of Vivian Lam, Clara rose from her bench and immersed herself in the human flow toward the stairway at the end of the hall. She had only seen pictures of her on social media, and from the official website of Vivian’s uncle’s family-law practice. But in the frenzy of the moment, and its ensuing media circus, it was the chunky red eyeglass frames of the Asian American that saved the day.

Clara was able to keep up with the young legal assistant, even following as she double-timed down the stairs, threading past a few slower-movers before taking the second-floor door. It was a bit of luck for Clara, who now had Vivian alone in a hallway as quiet as the one above had been only moments ago.

Clara called from behind, “Excuse me?”

Vivian kept striding away, high heels clicking fiercely down the hall. She seemed to be writing something on a notepad.

“Excuse me, Ms. Lam?”

Her heels and their noise came to an abrupt, spinning stop. “What?” she said.

“You’re Vivian Lam?”

“No comment,” she said. “I’m an assistant. Go talk to—”

“I’m not a reporter.”

“Then what are you?”

“A stenographer. I work downstairs, usually.”

“Okay.” Vivian smiled. “Can I go?”

“I’m also a friend of Dave Allen’s. He said I could talk to you.”

“He said that?”

“I’m Clara Miles.”

“I’m hungry for lunch.”

“Okay. On me?”

A few moments later, they were in the main-floor cafe, sitting on stools at a high table and blowing on two too-hot cappuccinos. Vivian was still making notes for herself, but in between thoughts she would look up to Clara, her eyes twitching just slightly. The woman looked tired and overworked. She returned to her notes, but when two cheese croissants were delivered to their table, Vivian looked back up and finally said something. “So how do you know Dave Allen?”

“I don’t, really.”

“You don’t, really.” Vivian sounded almost like a cop.

“I know a good friend of his, Sam Hyde.”

Vivian shrugged.

“From George Washington,” Clara said.

“Okay,” Vivian said, inspecting her croissant. “So you’re a friend of a friend of my friend.”

“Yeah.”

Vivian chuckled and said, “Cool. Thanks for lunch, by the way.”

Clara hadn’t touched her food. “I’m basically just looking for some legal advice. Dave was supposed to contact you with the heads-up.”

“Well,” Vivian said. “You know Dave. Well, you don’t know Dave, but I can assure you this is very typical.”

“What is?”

“He doesn’t always follow through.” Vivian took a bite and then talked with a mouthful. “That’s probably why he’s back at A&M.”

“Apparently you owe him a favor?”

“No, I don’t. But was this supposed to be it?”

Clara didn’t know what to say. She tried her cappuccino again.

“You said you work here?” Vivian asked.

“I need a little advice about a protection order. For me.”

Vivian’s face seemed to soften a little. She nodded and said, “Alright.”

“How do I find out what kind of, um, what kind of protection I have?”

“Against . . . a spouse?”

“Ex-spouse.”

“Well, did you fill it out? It’s an LPOR form.”

“I don’t know,” Clara said. “I don’t remember.” Everything back then had been one big blur, her only focus on keeping Molly safe and getting away from Kurt.

“Do you have a place where you keep your legal documents?”

“I couldn’t find anything about a protection order.”

“The judge, at his discretion, usually puts it in automatically with his ruling.” Vivian leaned forward, and in a low voice said, “Was he . . . abusive?”

Clara nodded.

“What happened?”

“Assault and battery. He got a year.”

Vivian leaned back and reached for her drink. “Then something should be in there. What’s your name again?”

“Clara Miles.”

“Have you talked to your original lawyer?”

“No,” Clara said. “Something happened to him. He was disbarred.”

“He was what?”

“So that’s why I’m stalking you down with croissants and cappuccino. I don’t want to go through the whole lawyer thing again.”

“Well, you might have to. If you want something new like a restraining order. You can do that if he’s been threatening your safety. Is he contacting you?”

“Yeah, and he’s getting out of jail soon.”

“And you’re sick of lawyers,” Vivian said. “So you come to an assistant.”

“If you can’t help, I’m totally fine with that. It was worth the lunch to try.” Clara checked the time on her phone. She had a trial in twenty minutes. “Like I said, I work here.”

“With the assault and battery, I’m sure the judge ruled-in some provisions. Do you have children together?”

“A little girl, yeah.”

“That complicates things. In that case, he might have a peaceful contact provision. Has he been contacting you peacefully?”

“ . . .Yeah.”

“He hasn’t, like, gone over the line with anything?”

“No. No yet.”

“So he’s threatened something?”

Clara thought for a moment. She felt like he had. But what? Just his threat to get back in his child’s life?

“Is he local?” Vivian asked.

“He’s . . . He’s threatening to, you know, see us, and see his daughter. But not any threat to harm us. Yet.” Clara still hadn’t touched her lunch. Even the cappuccino tasted bitter.

Vivian sighed and closed up her books. “Hey,” she said quietly. “I’ll talk to my uncle if you want.”

“Really?”

“We’ll see what we can do. It might not be anything, but I’ll talk to him.”

“Oh,” Clara said. “Oh, wow . . . I mean, I’ll pay you.”

Vivian shrugged. “It won’t be any work. You can pay us if we have to go to court.”

“Wow, Vivian . . . Thank you. So much.” Clara already felt a little better, just knowing that there would be some legal progress. Suddenly her life had been filled with supporters. For so long it had just been her and Molly. Then she met Bren, whom she had come to trust so completely. Bren was the person to suggest she branch out into the world, to reclaim a social life, to trust again. Already Clara had come away with Sam, who was such an amazing catch she still sometimes only half believed it. And now he’d led her to Vivian. Finally, the good people in her world were beginning to outnumber and out-matter the bad. They were even protecting her from the bad. From Kurt.

Vivian smiled. “It’s really nothing. And now Dave owes me. I like that better.”

Clara laughed. It was a massive load lifted off her shoulders, to know that if Kurt did decide to do something stupid, she would already have a backup plan. A team of supporters. Protectors. She might even get proactive and get that restraining order after all. It, and Molly, was well worth the cost. She could work extra to afford the bills. This kind of stuff was never easy or cheap, but the peace of mind it could provide, like actually sleeping through entire nights, was worth any number of extra shifts in court.

After her new friend had left the cafe, Clara finally got to her croissant, wolfing it down in celebration. She felt so much better. She felt hungry for lunch and for life. Even the cappuccino tasted sweeter.

After her little celebration, she had only five minutes to get into the courtroom and begin setting up. But for the first time in days, she was actually eager to get back to work, to return to the usual flow. The sooner the trial began, the sooner it would end and allow Clara to escape back home to her sweet little goblin girl.

She was packing up her things when Clara’s eardrums suddenly vibrated from the seventy decibels of a fire alarm directly overhead. It shocked and disoriented her at first, the sound transferred almost completely to pain and confusion. Others in the cafe were equally startled, until a man’s loud voice boomed over the fire alarm. “Everyone! Proceed slowly and orderly toward your nearest fire exit!” He looked like a police officer. Most of the cafe patrons spent a few seconds just staring at him before it finally set in that there was some sort of emergency. Or fire drill. It had to be just a drill. What else could it be? Everyone else apparently thought the same, their escape extra slow and orderly. It was just a routine fire frill, after all.

It all made sense, except that in six years of working in the North building, there’d never been a fire drill. Still, she followed the others to a queue at the cafe’s side exit. The line had backed up slightly, but there was a slow and steady progress out of the narrow fire escape. Under the regular blasts of the alarm, Clara could hear tiny little murmurings, worried and hushed tones puzzling on what it was all about. There were others who seemed hardly fazed by the event, cafe workers emerging from the kitchen, smiling and laughing with one another, perhaps glad for the extra paid break from work.

The drill would certainly eat into Clara’s work time. Her trial might not even happen at all today. And in that case, she might be able to walk out of the cafe and then just keep walking to her car in the parking garage down the block. But when she stepped outside, the atmosphere turned tense. The evacuation, or drill, had not ended even outside in the stately courtyard. And still more voices, mostly those of big-bodied men in uniforms, barking now at the evacuees, ordering them to move, move, move, keep moving, keep moving. The people who just seconds ago had seemed entertained by the whole thing now shared that same half scared look as everyone else.

The danger suddenly seemed real. Clara responded with a quickened pace across the short grass, around the statues and modern sculptural art, around the stationary police officers who kept waving their arms perpetually with their move, move, move. It all stayed orderly and fine until she heard screaming from the other end of the courtyard. The frightened wailing of women, mostly, probably women she had known, the staffers and attorneys’ secretaries she had worked with on a daily basis, the ones who were usually so controlled and level-headed.

“Keep moving,” barked the latest man in all black. He wore no markings on his shoulders or bulletproof vest. “Cross the street and just keep going, just keep going, just move.”

Clara looked back at where the screams were coming from.

“Don’t turn around,” he said.

Fuck that. She could turn around if she’d like. She wanted to see what the hell the problem was. She wanted to see what had been so scary about a simple fire drill, and why agents who looked like they were straight from Homeland Security were already on the scene.

The answer came in the form of a loud firecracker, or gunshot—or a fucking bomb!—its explosion sending a shock wave thudding into her ribs. She turned and saw smoke rising from where there had been screaming, and then a wall of people charging away, scrambling, some falling and being stepped over in the chaos. It was unlike any fire drill she’d ever known. It was unlike anything she’d ever experienced at all.

There came a whole new wave of emergency vehicles, sirens wailing, lights flickering wildly down the street like a hypnotic twinkling of Christmas lights. Some of the vehicles popped up over the curb and began rocking and bobbing as they drove over uneven grass, some coming straight toward Clara. Even some of the officers now were speechless. Some had stopped waving and barking, some now looked around for direction, their arms simply outstretched in big confused shrug. What the hell was going on?

“What the fuck!?” Clara cried out to no one in particular. She wanted to ask again, but her voice came out half choking on her gasps. She was tired already, from hardly running, her chest starting to get that cold, hurting feeling. What about Vivian and her impossibly high heels? Had she gotten out? Her shoes were either clutched in her hand, or strewn off into a corner somewhere like pretty little casualties of war. One thing she was certain of, there would be no escape with them on.

“Clara.”

She turned and saw Stewart, a middle-aged law clerk. “What the hell’s going on, Stew?”

He jogged up next to her, panting. “Where are you headed?”

“My fucking car.”

“Parking garage on L street? Don’t do it.”

“What?” She was panting, too.

“It’s on lockdown. They found some kind of package.”

“Like a bomb?”

“They’re doing a controlled detonation. I heard about it before all this shit.”

“What about back there?” Clara asked. “Is everyone okay, though? What the fuck!?”

“I don’t know. Just keep moving.” Stewart sounded like half friend, half police officer. Still she was glad to be able to talk with someone, even if that meant just releasing a bunch of curse words.

Together they crossed the street, which was now completely blocked by a variety of emergency vehicles. Fire trucks, ambulances, police. And now, an array of big black vans slowly needling through the mess. Men who looked more like soldiers filled the streets now, all in black and with long-barreled guns. They were huddled in clusters around each black van.

On the sidewalk, finally, Clara felt safe to slow her now-gimpy run. She even came to a dead stop, trying to catch her breath against the glass siding of a bus stop until yet another shadowy authority figure told her that the whole area was “off limits.”

No shit. Like she’d wanted to really stick around?

When she got moving again, she noticed that Stewart hadn’t waited around for her. But there were plenty of other people, some more familiar faces, people she’d seen almost every day but never talked to. She felt so close to them now.

“Hey,” she called. “Abby!”

Abby kept running.

“Abby?”

Instead of waiting to be overtaken by the rest of her coworkers who were in better shape than she, Clara forced herself into a speed-walk, at least, a speed that she could manage. She had never run in her office shoes before, and although it had only been for a few minutes, she was sure there were blisters or cuts or something. Nothing felt right. Her joints, too. The hard contact of running was something she hadn’t experienced for years. Her hamstrings could tell her the same, the way they ached and tightened after she’d stopped the initial run. Clara limped along, trudging forward with the rest of the courthouse staff. She saw another familiar person, and tried calling out their name, but she barely had the breath for it. Even though she’d stopped running a minute ago, there had been no recovery. Her heart was still pounding. Her lungs ached. Even her nose and throat felt raw, stinging, the type of burnt feeling you got when inhaling too close to a sizzling frying pan of hot peppers.

And there was Stewart again. She had found him again, hunched over and coughing.

“Stew?”

Clara stopped by him, her arm draping over his back, patting him. “Stew, what’s wrong?”

He tried speaking, but his answer was cut off by another wet-sounding coughing fit.

“Stew . . .”

“I can’t breathe,” he growled, his hands scratching at his throat. Stewart spit out some white foam and then he said it again, “I can’t breathe.”

Clara could feel a tightness, too.

“Hey!” yelled another uniform. “Everyone back! Back up!” He and a dozen other officers had been walking in a line, closing off the street ahead. They waved their arms as if rustling up cattle, calling, “Back up. Street’s closed.” They were joined by other uniforms, someone even stretching a yellow band of police tape across the road. “Turn around and start moving in the opposite direction. You need to clear this block.”

Clara was pointing to her doubled-over friend. “Look at him!”

“Ma’am, there’s a medical triage for him on the corner. Now get moving.”

Could Stewart even move? Clara asked him if he could and he finally stood, groaning, his chest rattling as he sucked in air. Clara’s own breathing had picked up a mysterious wheezing sound, a little whispery whistling that brought back memories of childhood asthma in Chicago. Summers there were the worst, with the smog and the breezing pollen. Her airway would be inflamed at night, her lungs struggling for breath until she was finally prescribed an inhaler. Maybe that was what she and Stewart needed right now, something to open up their airways.

“Do you have asthma?” she asked.

“No,” he barely said. “I’m choking.”

“Can you make it to the corner?” His face was scarily pale, his eyes red and weeping. She looked at the rest of the evacuees. Many shared the same horrific look. Not everyone, but enough of her people were either hunched over or walking slowly, coughing through a pained expression. Even she felt it a little bit. Whether it was all in her head or not.

“Oh, Jesus!” Clara cried when Stewart stumbled off the sidewalk and fell against the door of a squad car. He crumpled into it without a sound, except for his head banging off the door and then thudding against the street. There were no words, no groaning, nor any other sound to indicate that he was conscious even before smacking into the car. And now he was just lying there like a piece of meat.

“Someone!” she cried at the top of her lungs. “Someone help!”

All over the street, there were medics and other first responders, and a bunch of other people calling for their help. They seemed too busy with other collapsed bodies to hear or do anything about Stewart.

“Someone please!” Clara cried. The yelling closed her throat further and she started coughing, a long fit of raspy, hacking coughs that made it impossible to utter another word. Even breathing was difficult.

“Hel—” More coughing, the spasms becoming painful now. It felt like she had smoked a whole pack of Parliaments at once.

God. It felt like she was drowning.

Wheezing hard, she bent down to her knees, wobbled, and then fell on her side right next to Stewart. Lying empty on the street, she felt her energy, and her life, leaving her. Leaving her cold. Her body, so heavy now. Everything so slow. The lights getting so dim. And then she remembered she was late for something. Her trial. She had her trial against Kurt. Didn’t she? Where was Molly?