I’m afraid to look.
The medic works to stabilize Owen’s bleeding, tearing cloth and rewrapping his arm, removing what glass he can. He speaks into a radio strapped to his shoulder, asking for help transporting Owen, and soon two more firefighters arrive, carefully placing Owen’s arm in a splint, urging Owen to lie on his back, on the stretcher, so they can carry him down the stairs.
Owen fights them, unable to say actual words other than “no” and “leave me alone.” He eventually walks with assistance down the steps, to his living room, his mom rushing in the door, meeting him with her own tears.
Horror. Both of their faces…horror.
And I can’t help.
James was high. He was high, and he was scared. He stole a car from a mall parking lot three towns over, then led police on a chase along the highway, hitting several cars, leaving a trail of injuries and damaged vehicles along the roadway as he exited the wrong way up a ramp. He raced down the two-lane roadway to his home, down the dark stretch of country road Owen had once raced on carelessly with me, down the strip of roadway James had taught Owen to drive fast on as a kid.
He swerved through his mother’s front yard, clipping the bumper of Owen’s truck, and spinning the stolen car to the side, stopping near the end of the driveway—sideways, the hood bent open and the wheel crushing the brick of the house.
Police had him then. He was circled, the three cars that had followed him collapsed on him, six officers opening their doors quickly, drawing their weapons and ordering James to just. Stay. Put.
But James was high.
And he was scared.
And that gun, the one Owen once held to his own head in a dare, the one that I saw James threaten Owen with only a few weeks ago—it was in James’s hand.
The police called for back up, and SWAT came quickly. That’s when Owen woke up. James held the gun to his side, his other hand behind his head, scratching at his hair, rubbing his neck vigorously, his brain trying to think under a fog of impairment, his heart desperate for a solution, for a way out of this hell.
More guns were drawn. James became agitated, holding the gun up over his head. This is when officers began to order him to drop his weapon, when Owen and I ran up the stairs.
It all happened in seconds, slices of time that felt as though they took hours to pass. Owen saw his brother out that window, he saw how frightened he was, how cornered he was, and he knew there was no way out.
Owen knew.