Indy was already there, kneeling beside us, but I could tell by the look on her face that this wasn’t going to end well. She felt for the wound and blood bubbled up through her fingers.
“Okay, baby, you need to call an ambulance,” she said calmly, her experience in a trauma ward taking over. She looked at me, the sharpness in her eyes telling me to hurry. When she looked back down to Isaac, her voice was reassuring. “Okay, buddy. You’re doing all right. You’ve been shot, but I’m going to help you, okay?”
With my hands covered in blood, I rang for help, and while I yelled into the phone for an ambulance, I watched my cousin fight for his life at my feet. He stared up at me with terrified, wide eyes. He was gurgling and trying to move, his arms flaying at his side.
“I need you to try and stay still,” Indy said. “You have a wound to your chest, Isaac, so I need you to try and stay calm. Cade is calling for help and they’re going to be here real quick. I promise you, okay.”
But then Isaac started shaking and shuddering, and coughing up big mouthfuls of dark red blood. His shaking got more violent, and then all of a sudden, he stopped moving.
The second bullet got him right between his eyes, killing him instantly. Blood splattered across Indy’s face as the impact of the second bullet hit him with high-powered velocity.
I dropped the phone and reached for Indy. I couldn’t see the gunman, but I knew the direction he was firing from and I had to protect her. I pulled her into my arms and turned my back toward it, sheltering her with my body.
All the air in my lungs vanished in an instant, and I was only vaguely aware of headlights and the sound of a vehicle disappearing into the shadows of the dawn.
For a long moment, the world was still. Then slowly, it all started up again as my brain processed what had happened.
Isaac was dead.
Someone had just murdered my cousin.