The Stranger
The woman’s grief tore through the air as she screamed into the fading light.
She cradled Archie’s head, lay beside him, begging him to wake. She shook him, and let her own sorrow consume her as she tried in vain to keep him beside her.
One of the men helped her up from the ground, then literally dragged her away, his face no less tortured than hers as he looked back at where Archie lay.
I stood heavy in the silence as the woman walked away, glad that she had finally left. Because her grief was a howling, living thing.
It crawled under my skin and stayed there.
I’ve seen men die, watched life leave a person’s eyes more times than I could count. But it never bothered me like this. Because seeing her grief; the way she broke over him… The sound she made when he stopped breathing…
I dragged a hand down my face, jaw tightening.
I was glad she was gone. Because another second of that, and I would’ve put a bullet in my own head just to make it stop.
I looked down.
Archie lay on the tarmac, still in death, blood soaked through his shirt, his chest unmoving beneath the hands of men who had already started to give up.
I saw it in their faces. That shift. That quiet resignation. The moment they looked up at each other and decided to call it.
No. Not Archie. This was not the end of his story.
“Keep going.”
The words spilled out of me without warning. Flat and cold.
One of the medics looked up at me, sweat running down his temple, eyes flicking between me and the body beneath his hands.
“We’ve done all we can—”
I pulled the gun before he finished speaking and pressed it to his forehead.
The metal clicked softly as it settled into place.
“You’re not done,” I hissed.
The man froze. His partner went still beside him.
The air tightened again.
Around us, the last of the fight bled out into silence, but here—right here—there was only this.
Archie’s life… or death. In their hands.
My finger rested just shy of pulling the trigger. I knew the medic could see it in my eyes.
“Keep. Going.”
He swallowed, then nodded.
Their hands went back to Archie’s chest. They restarted compressions.
Pump.
Breath.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Time stretched. Ugly and endless as I waited.
I watched on in silence, unmoving.
I lowered the gun, but it stayed by my side at the ready, waiting for them to announce they’d given up again.
There was only one way this ended. And he wasn’t allowed to die.
“Come on,” one of them muttered under his breath, voice tight with strain. “Come on—”
The machine beside them stayed silent. Flat. Dead.
My chest tightened, but I refused to give up. Something ugly and violent coiled beneath my ribs, threatening to break loose.
No.
“Again,” I said, quieter now—but no less lethal.
They worked. Harder. Faster. Desperate.
And then, there came a flicker. So faint they almost missed it.
One of them stilled.
“Wait—”
The other looked up. “What?”
“There—”
His fingers pressed to Archie’s neck.
Searching, seeking, until his eyes snapped up, wide.
“I’ve got something.”
Everything in me went still.
“What?”
“A pulse.”
It was weak. Barely there. But it was something.
The shift was immediate. Electric. The air changed. Both medics surged forward, movements snapping into overdrive, voices overlapping as adrenaline hit hard.
“Get him prepped—defib—”
“We’ve got him—keep pressure—”
“Move, move—”
The gun in my hand lowered.
They moved fast, loading him onto the gurney with practiced precision—hands steady, voices sharp, working to stabilize him like his life was a thread stretched too thin, ready to snap if they lost focus for even a second.
“Charging.”
The word cut through the noise.
Pads pressed to his chest.
After a pause, the shock hit.
His body jerked violently off the stretcher, muscles locking as the current tore through him, lifting him for a split second before he dropped back down, lifeless again beneath their hands.
“Again.”
They moved him into the ambulance, still working on him.
The doors slammed on my brother, sirens cutting through the air as they tore off toward the hospital.