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There is a scar on Clarie's left leg, a small crater, gone shallow and small with age. Sometimes she remembers the sensation of being shot, in dreams or in unpredictable spasms of pain that wrack her thigh and back. Sometimes, she remembers the solid pain of shattering bone, or the endless surgeries; and often she remembers the limp that still plagues her walk today. But mostly, she remembers, with relief, that her chances of being shot again are next to none. As one man trains the Glock to her forehead and another digs through her purse, probability suddenly means nothing to her.

The man with the gun is not looking at her, but Clarie is frozen with terror. Her purse is a big, ugly leather bag from Target that cost less than thirty dollars. Her clothes are cheap, her skirt modest, her heels small and casual, so why me, why am I looking down the barrel of a gun again, God please tell me I've fallen asleep in the office and will wake up now now now.

Her notes and journals and receipts and magazines are strewn on the wet pavement, her cell phone is in pieces nearby, and her wallet comes out at last. They pocket the few dollars of cash and her cards and then upturn everything else-- more receipts, membership cards, drivers license, her cat's microchip information, all of the small, important things she owns. It is only sheer horror that keeps Clarie from crying.

The man with the Glock waves it at her. She flinches. “Where's your cash?” he's asking, and it takes a moment for her to realize that they think she has more.

“There isn't any.”

He laughs.

“There isn't any,” she says again.

The second man turns her around by the shoulders and pulls at her jacket, and Clarie begins to struggle. When the cold barrel of the Glock touches her neck, she freezes again. Her jacket comes off. It is cool and cloudy outside, with the morning's rain still slick on the streets, and Clarie fights off a shiver. When her coat is confirmed empty, it is dropped on the ground, and the pockets of her skirt are next.

A clammy shiver wracks her spine and fills her with cold as the man touches her. He dips his hands into her pockets and pushes hard, tugging the skirt down on her hips. He pinches at her thighs. He feels her further on the pretense of frisking her for her cash, but when his hands cup her breasts, he tenses suddenly, spasms, and falls, pulling her with him.

The gun is fired. Clarie rolls off of her assailant and curls into a ball, clenching her hands over her neck, perfectly still until the hollow ricochet of the bullet goes silent. When she looks up, one man is laying still next to her, one clutches the side of his neck and coughs, and one is crossing to her in a gray suit, flipping through a shining silver tin shaped like a cigarette case. He glances down, regarding her behind a dark pair of sunglasses, then removes one syringe.

“You'll start to feel good in about fifteen seconds,” he says, plucking a cap from the needle, kneeling, and injecting the syringe into her arm.

Clarie awakes early the next morning, so early that the sun has not yet risen. She reaches for her phone, which ought to be on her bedside table, but does not find it. Then she remembers her alarm clock, a new addition to her room, which does very little other than cast a green light around her room. She turns the clock toward her, squinting until the blurry lines come into focus. 9:27.

Clarie flops back down. She is late to work, but finds it hard to care. She glances at her window.

“Oh, shit.”

9:27 in the evening. Her day comes back to her- the