Michelle was out running a few evenings after she and Nolan last talked on the phone. He was deployed overseas again on some secret mission. Everything he did was a secret mission, but she was used to that. At least Jamie was with him. Hopefully he would call tonight; she really missed him and knew he did too, regardless of his incessant jokes.

Nolan had instilled in Michelle (as best he could) a healthy "awareness" of her surroundings and things that change within them. Usually. Today she happened to be thinking about her plans with her best friend, Nicole, and what she was going to eat for dinner. Maybe she would just eat that pint of Ben and Jerry's she bought last weekend. If she had been more focused, she would have noticed the truck parked across the street in their normally quiet, safe neighborhood. She might have noticed that the truck had no license plates. She might have even noticed the three pairs of eyes watching her greedily...or the fact that they were wearing facemasks.

Michelle went inside and threw her phone onto the side table. She closed the door and locked it...but not the deadbolt. She climbed upstairs to go shower; the sooner this was over, the sooner she could eat that entire container of Tonight Dough. As she turned on the shower, she heard what sounded like a knock. She stopped...listening. It came again, but too loud this time. It was immediately followed by a splintering sound. She thought of the times she had heard her dad split wood during the winter, but that didn't make sense. Before she could take more than a step, a loud BANG froze her heart. It was followed by glass shattering and heavy footsteps running across the landing and heading up the stairs.

She was terrified. She didn't know what to do, her brain refusing to process what was happening and tell her legs to move. In that instant, she heard Nolan in her head, as loud as if he was there screaming in her ear: "MOVE, MICHELLE. BEDSIDE TABLE, BEHIND IT. SAFETY IS OFF. GRAB IT AND PUT YOURSELF AGAINST THE WALL. DON'T HESITATE. PULL THE TRIGGER."

She scrambled and tripped, catching herself and slamming into the table next to Nolan's side of the bed. She heard a laugh and a yell from close outside their bedroom door, "Here we coooooome! Don't worry, we won't hurt you." She fumbled with the gun, pointing it at the open doorway. From this angle, she could only see a sliver of the hallway. It looked empty.
A split-second later, a man burst through the threshold. He was short, wearing a Michael Myers mask and brandishing a large knife. The cliché look of him and the way he held his body momentarily froze her. Was this real? Who the hell broke into someone's house dressed like a horror movie reject? Nolan's voice again, loud and sharp: "SHOOT HIM, MICHELLE. SHOOT AND PUSH FORWARD. DON'T STOP." She did her best, squeezing the trigger while fighting to keep her hands steady and advancing on the target like he had shown her at the range.

"You fucking bitch!" the man cried as a bullet tore into his shoulder, throwing him against the open door. He lunged towards her but was caught again in the leg. She had fired five times and only hit twice, but it was enough to completely disorient the attacker. "Please, please don't. We'll leave." She slowed her walk and dropped the barrel a couple of inches. At that point, another man appeared, his gun raised; her ears never registered the shot, but suddenly she felt an incredible heat in her stomach. She tried to raise the gun and was confused; for some reason, her arms felt heavy, like she had just finished one of her instructor's stupid CrossFit classes. That didn't make sense. She was just running, that's all. Her brain wasn't able to make sense of any of this. Why were there men in her home? Why was one on the ground? Did she do that?

She sagged, her arms lowering. An intense pinch exploded in her chest, below her right collarbone. The gun dropped from her hands as they opened on their own. She felt slow and stupid. What was going on? She collapsed to the ground at once, dizzy and unable to keep her footing. The sounds of cursing and yelling flooded the room, "You fucking idiot! What are you doing?! The neighbors will have heard this. We have to fucking go!" and "She shot me...the bitch shot me!". It was so distant to Michelle, like it was coming through several feet of water. Then all at once, the reality of the situation hit her. She had been shot. At least twice. She moved her head down to look and saw a large pool of blood under her side. When she reached to touch the spot, a blinding jolt of pain nearly made her lose consciousness. She heard the men ransacking her bedroom and couldn't help think, "no, they can't get the present I bought Nolan. He's wanted those headphones for a year. No.". Memories of things they had done together flashed in front of her eyes, disjointed but vivid. Nolan making the worst jokes, ever, and their group of friends erupting in laughter. Him raging at kids on Call of Duty when he would die. The two of them laying in bed, watching their favorite shows.

The man that Michelle shot loomed over her, bleeding from the two wounds she had given him. The knife glinted in the light from the window, but Michelle didn't notice. She lost consciousness, for the last time, thinking of all the fun times in their life together.