Finally, I could breathe. I could breathe a little better knowing it was over. They had gotten them.
“You’re confirming, the premises are secure?” one of the cops asked.
“That’s affirmative, sir.”
The police chief motioned for the other officers to move in, then shouted, “Get that ambo over here. We have two boys in serious condition, one with a gunshot wound!”
My whole world seemed to come to a halt. My life was on the line.
“No,” I whispered. “No…”
The officer who had been holding me loosened his grip as he felt me go slack. My strength was gone. I heard the radio. I heard the words of the officer inside, telling his boss what he saw.
“There are bodies everywhere, sir. This is…” The police officer’s voice trailed off, and I felt like I was dying.
I kept my eyes glued to the front door. Thiago’s mother was crying, but I could barely hear her. I didn’t care about the parentstrying to push through the line of police, demanding to go in and look for their children.
That’s when I saw the paramedics pushing two stretchers through the front door, rushing toward the ambulances. I saw Thiago, shouted his name, and ran up to him, jerking away from the officer behind me. Then I screamed, “Oh my God!”
He was bleeding, badly. His eyes were closed, his body was slack, I would have sworn he was dead, but if so, why was he still bleeding?
“Is he all right?” I asked. “Is it serious?”
“Stand aside!” a paramedic ordered me.
Thiago’s mother reached us and screamed, “No!”
He’d been shot. In the head. He wouldn’t make it. There was no way he would make it.
“That’s my son! That’s my boy! Let me through, I need to see him!” Ms. Di Bianco shouted. And finally, they let her through. As she climbed into the ambulance with her older son, she looked back and said, “Kami, you have to look after Taylor.”
I nodded, half blind with sorrow, my heart beating out of my chest.
“Bullet wound to the left side of the cranium. Pulse is weak,” I could hear the paramedic shout right before the ambulance door closed.
Bullet wound to the left side of the cranium.
How could this be happening?
I almost jumped in front of the ambulance, I was so desperate to get inside, but that was when I heard my name—someone calling out to me in a weak and desperate voice. I turned and saw another stretcher, this one with Taylor, beaten so badly I hardly recognized him.
“Taylor!” I ran toward him, crying.
“Kami, my brother… My brother…”
“He’s alive, Taylor.” That was all I knew, the one thing I could hold on to, and Taylor needed to know that, too.
The medics hurried Taylor into another ambulance. I begged them to let me go along, but they insisted, “family only.” “He’s alone!” I screamed, but they ignored me, leaving me there. I took a deep breath to try and control my thoughts and turned around to see what was going on. I heard screams—screams everywhere. Crying. Sirens. Ambulances coming and going, journalists, photographers, cameramen trying to get comments.
“How many other survivors are there?”
“Did you know the killers?”
“Was that kid your boyfriend?”
My head was spinning, and at one point I looked up and saw helicopters filming. They were already making a story out of it. Trying to be the first to put our tragedy out there in the world.
Paramedics carried the wounded out, and people in hazmat suits were going in. How many people had lost their lives? Everything started spinning…
