He had always scoffed at the trite phrase time stopped, but in that instant he became a believer, for it did. He more sensed than heard two more bullets whine over his head, one of them striking the carriage and spooking the horse. The agent swore loudly and hurried to its head.
And if the agent were the one soothing the horse, then that meant…
Time began again, as well as his breathing, with a sickening lurch that twisted his stomach. He scrambled up as the agent hurried back toward them – him? Was he alone now?
His brain categorised in disgustingly clinical terms the deep graze to the temple, the amount of blood already seeping into the brick-work underneath, the deathly pallour of the face…
…the fact that had he not leaned down, the bullet would have lodged in his own brain.
His hands were too numb, his mind too terrified, to check for a pulse; and the agent knelt to do it instead. Even the evening wind paused, holding its breath for a wrenching second, until the agent looked up and began to remove his jacket.
"He's alive at least," he answered doubtfully, tearing at the sleeve-seam. "But heaven only knows for how long…"
He did not need to be told that; he could see the ghastly amount of blood.