Pop.
The sound was so soft my mind refused to recognize it.
Not thunder.
Not an explosion.
Just...
a wet crack.
The stained-glass window beside the altar shattered inward.
Colored fragments burst through the sanctuary like a storm of shattered jewels.
The old man moved before anyone else.
"Down!"
His shout collided with Damien's roar.
The world exploded.
Another suppressed shot slammed into the stone pillar where I'd been standing less than a second earlier.
Chunks of granite sprayed across the pews.
Someone outside wasn't firing wildly.
They were measuring every shot.
Every round landed exactly where a person had been moments before.
Too precise.
Too deliberate.
They hadn't come hoping to kill us.
They had come expecting to.
My body reacted before my mind caught up.
