Jack screamed like he had never screamed before. It was a deep-throated cry, as if it was coming from the roots of his very soul.
He was firing his gun in an instant. He couldn't ever remember taking it out in the first place. Everything was just suddenly happening too fast. All at once.
Six shots went off in rapid succession, and he barely registered them as he dropped the gun and made a mad dash towards the corpse.
It was not the corpse he had just shot at that worried him. No, it was the one that mattered. The one who was supposed to keep going until the day she accepted death on her own terms.
This wasn't her time, it wasn't her moment.
Knees hit the pavement. He couldn't feel the pain that erupted as cloth and skin tore. Just trying to apply pressure to the wound.
It was useless, he knew that. It was quick. Might have been painful. Maybe not. Maybe there was still a chance.
Yet he knew, deep down, that chance did not exist. Jack knew that and yet he still tried, lifting her up and hugging her in a tight embrace as the sirens went off around him.
"Phryne, my Phryne, please come back. Please come back."