He exited the kitchen and squatted by Charlie’s side. The kid looked even worse, and this time there wasn’t so much as a squeak from him. His airways were closed. Maybe for good.

“C’mon, kid,” Joe said, sitting the boy up in his lap. “C’mon!” He pried open Charlie’s pasty-dry mouth and shoved the inhaler inside. The side of the device was cracked, and the first depression of the cartridge only managed to make the inhaler fall apart again.

Joe swore. Maybe he should just give up.

He looked down at Charlie’s face. A few freckles. A scratch on his chin, probably from slipping on his skateboard or something. A touch of chocolate on his upper lip, a sure sign the kid had finished off a full glass of Ovaltine or whatever kids drank these days for an after-school snack.

He couldn’t let this kid die.

Joe reassembled the inhaler and curled his fingers around it to hold it together. He crammed the mouthpiece between Charlie’s lips and squeezed down on the cartridge. Pffffffft! Charlie didn’t move. He hit the cartridge again. Pffffffft! Again. Pffffffft!

Nothing.

“Wake up!” Joe screamed. He slammed his fist down onto Charlie’s chest and watched the child’s eyes blink open. Joe sat in shock for a moment, before blasting a fourth and final shot from the cartridge. Pffffffft!

Joe felt tears well up in his eyes as he watched Charlie suck in the bitter, lifesaving air. He sat fully upright, coughing and choking, but breathing. He was going to make it.

“Grandma,” Charlie said weakly.

Joe looked over to the chair where Grandma Rose was fixed. A pool of blood had collected under the chair. Not good.

“You shot her,” Charlie said.

“Your grandma would be fine right now if you hadn’t been messing around with that stupid gun,” Joe said, his relief vanishing. “This is your fault.”

“Is she dead?”

Joe walked across the room and put a couple fingers against Grandma’s neck. “No. She’s still alive. But just barely.” He took a closer look at the bullet wound in her leg, which was actually two wounds: entry and exit. He hoped the fact that it wasn’t still in her leg was a good thing.

“What are you going to do?” Charlie asked.

Joe began to wonder if he had done the right thing by letting the kid live. “I don’t know,” he told Charlie.

“Call a doctor. Call 9-1-1.” His pale skin had a little more pink in it now.

“No doctors. No police. Nothing like that,” Joe said. “We have to figure this out ourselves.” He began to untie the ropes holding Grandma. She wasn’t exactly going to dash away in the condition she was in. He turned to Charlie. “Go into the kitchen and run the water in the sink until it’s hot. Got it?”