POV: Desi Whitmore

The ambulances arrived twenty minutes later with police escort.

Paramedics separated us immediately. Emilia to one ambulance for her gunshot wound. Ian to another for his head injury. Otto into a police car because witnesses reported him shifting and attacking.

I tried to explain what happened. How Ian had manipulated Otto for months. How the gun had escalated a confrontation that Otto was trying to de-escalate by walking away. How everything that happened was self-defense ...