“For those of you still here—” I gestured to the handful of diehards and press who’d ducked behind the first row of chairs, “—thank you. I hope you’ll stick around for the Q&A.”
Someone—one of the college kids—laughed. The sound was thin but real, and it rippled outward. I saw the news van crews reposition, their predatory focus swinging back to the podium. The cops started yelling orders, trying to regain control, but it was like pouring water on a grease fire. I felt the sweat slide down my back, the adrenaline burning a hole through my suit. I made myself look at the flag, the bandstand, the cracked face of the clock tower across the plaza—anywhere but the place on the support rig where the bullet had left a perfect, smoking hole. I finished the speech. My hands trembled, but I didn’t drop a single line. That’s what you pay me for. At the end, I stepped away from the podium, brushing the paint flakes from my shoulder. I locked eyes with the press pool and dared them to turn me into a hashtag.
This was how you survived in politics. Not by being clean, or clever, or even particularly good—but by being the last one toflinch. I waited until the chaos settled. Then, and only then, did I let Tatum and Moreno hustle me out, boots scraping the stage, suit jacket torn at the seam. Behind us, the crowd was already reconstructing the myth—how the Senator kept talking even as the bullets flew, how she never ducked, never blinked, how she laughed in the face of fear.
Let them have it. I’d seen what real fear looked like. I’d married it.
###
The campaign put me up at the best suite in Santa Fe, which is kind of like saying you get the biggest cell in a minimum-security prison. Even the bourbon they left out was mid-shelf, all label and no bite. I poured a double anyway and left the ice in the bucket, watching it melt into its own uselessness. The room looked like an AI had designed it after skimming ten thousand Instagram posts. Granite surfaces, fake Southwest art, the kind of couch that bruises your thighs if you sit wrong. I’d spent so many years learning to treat places like this as home, I almost forgot I had a real one, once. I took off the suit, left it puddled over a chair. Underneath, my blouse was still faintly flecked with blue paint from the bullet’s near miss. I balled it up and tossed it in the trash, then traded out my Spanx and heels for old running shorts and a T-shirt from the time I finished the Los Angeles marathon. I didn’t run anymore; my knees went after my first term, same as my illusions.
I pulled the blackout curtains, sat on the window ledge, and watched the street below. Cop cars with flashing blue lights cordoned off half the block, a layer cake of city, state, and feds all trying to out-badass each other. I wondered which one had the shooter in the backseat, if any of them did. More likely, he’d vanished back into the dust, a ghost with a cheap rifle and nothing left to lose.
I took a long sip of bourbon, let it coat my mouth, then chased it with a slow exhale. When the nerves came down, I pulled the wallet out of my discarded suit jacket. I keep photos in there, not because I’m sentimental, but because sometimes you need to remind yourself who you were before the world started eating away at you. The wedding photo was buried behind two credit cards and my medical insurance. Damron’s arm was looped around my waist, his hand splayed wide like he owned the whole world and I was his favorite real estate. I looked at my own face in the photo—hair longer, smile wider, eyes still open to the possibility of happy endings. We wore leather jackets instead of tuxes, and the wind was blowing dirt into our teeth, but we were laughing. For a second, I wanted to climb back into that day, let myself pretend we’d never started gnawing at each other’s bones.
I set the photo on the table. Watched it for a minute. Tried not to think about how the first thing I did after a brush with death was reach for him, even if it was only paper. The phone rang. Caller ID: “CAMP MGR.” I let it go to voicemail once, then picked up on the second pass.
“What,” I said, voice rougher than I wanted.
“Jesus, Carly, do you have a death wish?” My campaign manager, a Cornell grad with a man bun and a congenital inability to hide his emotions. “You could’ve been killed. The FBI is losing its mind.”
“They’ll get over it,” I said, draining the bourbon and pouring another. “Nobody votes for cowards.”
He didn’t laugh. “This is the third credible threat this month. The bureau says you need to suspend events. Maybe even the campaign. At least until they get a handle on—”
I cut him off. “Not a fucking chance. We’re two weeks out from the debate and six from the primary. I drop now, we hand it all toLister and his little army of cock-suckers. You want that on your conscience, be my guest. I’m staying in.”
I could hear him running a hand over his scalp, like maybe he’d find a solution under there if he rubbed hard enough. “I don’t care what you do, but I’m not letting you out in public without full detail. I mean it, Carly. There’s chatter—serious chatter. They think the shooter might try again.”
“Wouldn’t want to disappoint my fans.” I almost smiled, but it didn’t make it to my face.
The silence stretched, heavy with all the things he wanted to say but didn’t. Eventually, he settled for, “I’ll call you at eight with an update. Don’t leave the room.” He hung up before I could tell him I wasn’t in the habit of taking orders from anyone under thirty-five.
I refilled the glass, walked over to the TV, and flicked it on. Every local and national network had spliced together the shooting with footage of my non-reaction. They played it on loop, panel after panel of doughy talking heads dissecting my body language like they’d found a new virus. Some of them called me reckless, others said I was brave, but the only thing they agreed on was that I’d become “a symbol.” Symbols don’t bleed, or sweat, or wake up at two a.m. convinced that every sound is the start of another shot.
I muted the TV, sat cross-legged on the end of the bed. The bourbon was starting to settle my nerves, or at least replace them with a softer kind of ache. I looked again at the wedding photo. Damron’s face was tanned and cocky, eyes daring the world to fuck with us. I’d hated that look, once. Now I missed it so bad my chest hurt. He would never have allowed another man to send a bullet my way. I traced his outline with my fingertip, then set the photo facedown. I let the glass hit the nightstand a little too hard. If the shooter wanted to try again, he’d have to find me sober.
The room was silent except for the hum of the AC. Out the window, the city lights flickered over the bloodstain of sunset. I made a mental list of everything I needed to do tomorrow. None of it included dying.
###
I spent the next hour staring at my phone like it was a snake that might bite or a pet that might die. I must’ve picked it up a dozen times, scrolling through my contacts, thumb hovering over the one name I’d spent three years trying to erase from my muscle memory. It sat at the bottom of the list, like a stubborn infection you thought you’d beat but never quite cleared.
Damron St. James. I didn’t even let myself read the number, just felt the click of old calluses when my finger stopped over his name. I’d changed a lot of things after the divorce—hair, address, even my taste in whiskey—but I’d never been able to delete the number. The only thing harder than cutting a man out of your life was admitting that you still needed him.
Outside, the patrol cars did lazy circles around the hotel, blue strobes washing the stucco with sickly light. I wondered if anyone out there was actually paying attention or if it was just more security theater for the evening news. If I walked out right now, maybe I’d make it a block before anyone noticed, maybe less, if the shooter was half as good as the FBI said.
I pressed my forehead to the glass and watched my own breath fog up the reflection. I looked like hell—eyes red, mouth set in a hard line, a smudge of old mascara making me look haunted. I ran my hands through my hair, digging in with my nails until the scalp tingled. There were three fresh voicemails from my campaign manager, and two from my mother, which was one more than she’d left in the last year. I ignored all of them. Finally, I sat at the desk and unlocked my phone, resting it on the flat surface like a loaded gun. I waited another five minutes,sipping bourbon and letting the buzz crowd out everything else. When I’d worked up the nerve, I hit call.
It rang twice, then three times. On the fourth ring, it kicked to voicemail. His greeting hadn’t changed: “This is St. James. You know what to do.” No nonsense, no warmth. No sign I’d ever existed except as a ghost in the wires.
I opened my mouth, closed it. What was I going to say? “Hey, it’s Carly. Someone’s trying to kill me. Thought maybe you could punch the problem until it went away.” I hit end call and dropped the phone on the desk, hard enough to crack the plastic case. I got up, paced the room, checked the locks on the door—top, bottom, chain—and then did it again, just to be sure. Security said they had the place locked down. I believed them as much as I believed in the tooth fairy.
The TV still played the loop of my near-miss, the bullet’s trajectory drawn in red digital ink like a game of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey. I muted it and turned the screen to face the wall. In the silence, every sound in the suite became a threat: the elevator’s distant ding, the low creak of the HVAC, the dull thump of footsteps in the hall. I imagined each one as a loaded gun.
I stood by the bed, hands in fists, breathing slow. If Damron had answered, maybe I’d have felt less alone. Maybe not. Either way, I was done being prey. I pulled on jeans and boots, tossed the T-shirt for a black zip-up, and pocketed the wallet with the wedding photo still inside. I grabbed the key card, checked the hallway through the peephole, and counted to ten. When I opened the door, I moved quiet—low and fast, like the bad habits never left.
The two security guys assigned to my floor were arguing over a box of takeout. I slipped past them, hugging the wall until I found the stairwell. Four flights down, out the side entrance, into the clean night air. Nobody followed. Maybe they’d find megone in ten minutes, maybe less. Didn’t matter. I was running on adrenaline now, the old Carly, the one who knew how to outpace her problems by sheer force of will. I hit the street and turned east, away from the lights, toward the shadowy part of town where bikers didn’t ask questions and the bars didn’t have cameras. My heart thudded in my chest, but every step made it a little easier to breathe.
