Chapter 1 - PLEASE DON'T SEND US BACK
The little girl came through the emergency-room doors barefoot.
That was the first thing Nurse Sarah Collins noticed.
Not the rusted wheelbarrow.
Not the stained blankets.
Not even the two impossibly small babies lying motionless inside it.
The child's feet.
Bare.
Bleeding in tiny places from gravel and pavement.
Filthy with mud.
Running.
She could barely reach the handles of the wheelbarrow, yet somehow she was forcing it forward with everything left in her seven-year-old body.
“HELP!”
Every head in the emergency department turned.
The wheel squealed violently across the polished floor.
“PLEASE!”
Sarah dropped the chart in her hand.
The girl stumbled.
The wheelbarrow struck a row of plastic chairs.
One wheel twisted sideways.
The little girl screamed.
“MY BABIES WON'T WAKE UP!”
Sarah ran.
Dr. Benjamin Miller appeared from Trauma Two almost simultaneously.
Two nurses followed him.
Sarah caught the wheelbarrow before it tipped.
The girl collapsed against her.
She weighed almost nothing.
Her thin beige dress was so dirty Sarah could not tell what color it had originally been.
Dark brown hair stuck to the child's damp forehead.
Her entire body trembled.
“Sweetheart, I've got you.”
The girl shoved against Sarah.
“No!”
“I'm helping you.”
“The babies!”
Sarah looked into the wheelbarrow.
Twins.
Newborn.
A boy and a girl, perhaps.
Wrapped tightly in stained blankets.
Neither was crying.
That was wrong.
Newborns should have made noise.
Sarah had spent twelve years in emergency nursing.
Silence from an infant frightened her more than screaming ever could.
“Ben.”
Dr. Miller was already reaching down.
“I see them.”
He touched the boy's neck.
Then the girl's chest.
His expression changed.
“Get me a neonatal cart. Now.”
One nurse ran.
The little girl saw them reaching for the babies.
Panic transformed her face.
“No!”
She grabbed Sarah's arm with both hands.
“Please!”
Her fingers were freezing.
Sarah crouched.
“What is your name?”
The child could barely breathe.
“Emma.”
“Emma, I'm Sarah.”
“Don't let them die.”
“We're going to help them.”
“Promise!”
Sarah's throat tightened.
“I promise we're going to do everything we can.”
Emma shook her violently.
“Please don't let them die!”
Dr. Miller lifted the boy.
A nurse took the girl.
Emma screamed.
“No! NO!”
“They need treatment.”
“DON'T TAKE THEM!”
She threw herself toward the stretcher.
Sarah caught her around the waist.
Emma kicked desperately.
“I'm coming too!”
“You can come.”
“You're lying!”
“I'm not.”
Emma reached for the blanket wrapped around the little girl.
Her fingers caught the edge.
For one second she held it.
Then it slipped away.
Something inside Emma broke.
She dropped to her knees.
“Noah!”
The stretcher moved.
“Grace!”
Emma crawled after it.
People in the emergency room stopped moving.
A man holding an ice pack against his forehead stared.
A mother pulled her teenage daughter closer.
A receptionist had tears in her eyes.
Emma dragged herself across the floor.
“They're all I have!”
Sarah reached her.
“Emma.”
“NOAH!”
“Emma, listen to me.”
“GRACE!”
Sarah took her shoulders.
The girl fought her with astonishing desperation.
“They need the doctor.”
“They'll disappear!”
Sarah froze.
“What?”
Emma realized she had said too much.
Her face changed.
Fear closed over it.
“Who will make them disappear?”
Emma shook her head.
“I didn't say that.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No.”
“Emma—”
A monitor alarm sounded from the treatment bay.
Emma jerked toward it.
“Oh God.”
Sarah pulled her close.
“That's equipment. It doesn't mean—”
“Are they dead?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“I promise they're being treated.”
Emma buried her face against Sarah's shoulder.
The child smelled like rain, dirt, and something vaguely medicinal.
Sarah noticed marks around Emma's wrist.
Not bruises.
Thin pale lines.
As though something had been fastened there repeatedly.
Before Sarah could examine them, the emergency-room doors opened again.
A uniformed police officer entered.
Officer Michael Hayes.
Sarah knew him.
He worked the hospital district.
He had probably been called automatically after the receptionist reported two unexplained newborns arriving in a wheelbarrow with an unaccompanied child.
“Sarah?”
Emma looked up.
She saw the uniform.
Her entire body locked.
Then she screamed.
“No!”
Hayes stopped immediately.
Emma scrambled behind Sarah.
“Hey, hey. I'm not coming closer.”
“NO!”
“Emma?”
“Don't let him take us!”
Hayes slowly raised both hands.
“No one's taking anybody anywhere.”
Emma clung to Sarah's scrub top.
Her nails dug through the fabric.
“Sweetheart,” Sarah whispered, “Officer Hayes is here to help.”
Emma shook her head so violently her hair struck her cheeks.
“They always say that.”
Sarah and Hayes looked at each other.
Always?
“Who says that?” Hayes asked gently.
Emma hid her face.
“No police.”
“Okay.”
Hayes took one step backward.
“I'll stay right here.”
Emma's breathing remained ragged.
Sarah felt the child's heartbeat pounding through both their bodies.
“Emma, where did you come from?”
Nothing.
“Where are your parents?”
Emma began crying harder.
Sarah immediately regretted asking.
“Okay. You don't have to tell me yet.”
“I didn't steal them.”
“No one said you did.”
“They're mine.”
“Your babies?”
Emma nodded fiercely.
“My Noah. My Grace.”
Sarah wondered whether she meant siblings.
She did not ask.
Not yet.
A nurse appeared from the treatment corridor.
“Sarah.”
Sarah looked up.
The nurse gave a tiny nod.
Alive.
Both.
Sarah closed her eyes for half a second.
Then she looked at Emma.
“They're alive.”
The reaction was immediate.
Emma folded against her.
Not relief exactly.
Collapse.
Sarah held the little girl's shaking body.
“You got them here.”
Emma sobbed into her chest.
“You got Noah and Grace here.”
“I had to.”
“You did.”
“He said nobody would help.”
Sarah's hand stopped on Emma's hair.
“Who said that?”
Emma froze.
Silence.
Hayes did not move.
Sarah felt Emma's fingers clutch tighter.
“Emma?”
The child lifted her head.
Her cheeks were wet.
Her lips trembled.
She looked seven again.
Not the fierce little creature who had dragged two newborns through an emergency-room entrance.
Just seven.
Terrified.
Alone.
“Please…”
Sarah wiped hair away from her face.
“What, sweetheart?”
Emma looked toward the corridor where the twins had disappeared.
Then toward Hayes.
Then toward the hospital doors.
As though she expected someone to walk through them at any moment.
Her voice became almost too quiet to hear.
“Please don't send us back.”
Sarah's stomach tightened.
“Back where?”
Emma stared at her.
Her face drained of color.
And then, from somewhere outside the emergency-room doors, a man's voice called:
May you like
“Emma?”
The child stopped breathing.
