He was already crouching, his small body pressed low.

She could see the blue handle.

She fixed her eyes on it and ran harder.

At the bottom of the ramp, sunlight lay across the road in a broad white strip. The crossing was empty.

For one hopeful moment, she thought she had time.

Then an engine sounded from the right.

Daniel almost took the other exit.

He had paused at the supermarket junction, considered the longer route past the traffic lights, and chosen the road along the lower parking area instead.

Nothing about the decision seemed important.

He was driving a gray sedan with a jacket folded on the passenger seat and a paper cup cooling in the console. The window was open slightly. Warm air carried the smell of clipped hedges into the car.

As he approached the ramp, movement appeared between the concrete borders.

A shopping cart.

Then a woman behind it.

At first, his mind supplied an ordinary explanation: someone moving groceries.

But the space between her and the cart was wrong.

So was her face.

Daniel lifted his foot from the accelerator before he understood what sat inside the basket.

Then the dog turned its head.

He pressed the brake.

Mara saw the sedan’s front bumper enter her view.

Her body reacted before she could form a thought.

She threw her right arm forward.

The handle remained beyond her fingers.

A horn sounded.

Toby flinched so sharply that his muzzle dropped behind the basket’s rim.

Mara’s next stride landed hard. Pain flashed through her ankle, but she barely registered it.

She could see the sedan’s headlight now.

She could see the driver behind the windshield.

His mouth was open. Both hands gripped the wheel.

Her own fingers stretched until they hurt.

There was still air between her hand and the cart.

That was where the world seemed to slow.

Not peacefully.

Not beautifully.

She felt the terrible length of a moment in which everything was still moving and nothing had yet been decided.

The wheels continued turning.

The bumper continued entering the space ahead.

Toby looked up again.

Mara leaned beyond the point where she could comfortably recover.

Her middle finger brushed the underside of the handle.

Then slipped.

The contact lasted less than a heartbeat.

But it changed her position.

Her arm dropped slightly, and her next step brought her shoulder closer to the rear of the cart. She reached again as part of the same stumbling forward motion, this time bringing her palm beneath the blue bar.

Her fingers closed.

The cart pulled against her hand.

Its momentum surprised her. Something so ordinary, something she had guided casually around a parking bay, suddenly felt heavy and stubborn.