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Ivy has time, in the split second before Carmen's henchman loses it and starts shooting, to think how pissed Carmen is going to be that he ruined her carefully orchestrated scheme.
Then time freezes, fractures, disconnects into snapshots.
Carmen, pulling her to safety.
(Carmen. Not Zack.)
Carmen's hands, stained red with what Ivy later realizes is her own blood.
(Not Zack, not Zack, still not Zack.)
Carmen, looking utterly alien, utterly normal, in a blood-spattered sleeveless turtleneck and short split skirt, as she wraps her signature red coat around Ivy's shoulders. The coat is warm, hot against Ivy's cold skin.
(Damn it, where's Zack, she wants to scream; she doesn't think she manages even a moan.)
Carmen's lips, forming words Ivy can't hear over the roar of blood in her ears, but which look like, Stay with me, detective. Ivy. Ivy, look at me.
Carmen's face, haloed by the darkness creeping in on her vision. Worried. Carmen never looks worried.
(Ivy blinks, blinks again, forces herself to focus, because she's not passing out - dying, no, don't think that - until she knows where Zack is. )
Zack, tears on his face, crouching next to Carmen, saying something that makes Carmen's tense shoulders relax.
Some part of Ivy that's been frozen like time relaxes, too. She lets herself slip away, into darkness that's no longer a threat, darkness that's warm and comforting, like Carmen's coat, like the slender hand pressed against her cheek.
"I'll see you next crime, Ivy. And that's a promise."