The second gunshot didn't affect Ellie quite like the first. Her mind was failing her, falling slowly into nothing: a machine turning off.
She teetered unsteadily, looking down at the body of Tom as if she'd never seen him before, and then at Elliot and Rory with the same distant, murky expression. You've been hurt, Rory was saying to him. She looked like a bunch of colors and tears. Why was there blood everywhere? That was a limited resource.
I can help, Ellie felt rather than thought. She staggered forward, feeling curiously along the rim of her injured eye. "I'm -- I'm --"
Not seeing straight. All at once the adrenaline that should have been there arrived in one wild burst; she let out a pained gasp, suddenly frightened. It was then that she turned, stabilizing herself against a table still covered in diagrams and notes. "I can't, I can't die--"
Ellie ran, stumbling along the tiles before disappearing up the stairs and into the sedative blur. No one would stop her. She was sure this had happened before.