The car stopped beside the muddy shoulder. Victor looked through the rearview mirror, hesitating. The storm roared outside, rain slamming against the windows.
Finally he lowered the window.
The sound of the storm flooded the car instantly.
Through the red glow of his taillights and the heavy rain, he looked again—and what he saw made his heart stop.
Under a thin tree branch that barely blocked the rain stood a girl.
She looked about ten or eleven. Her clothes were soaked and clung to her thin body. She was shaking violently from the cold.
But what caught Victor’s attention wasn’t just her condition.
It was how she stood.
The girl wasn’t trying to warm herself. Instead she held a small bundle tightly against her chest, bending her body forward to shield it from the rain and wind.
Victor didn’t think.
He opened the car door and ran through the storm, ignoring the rain soaking his expensive suit.
When he reached the tree, the girl looked up.
Victor expected fear. Maybe begging.
Instead he saw fierce determination in her dark eyes—the kind of expression you might see in someone fighting a battle they refuse to lose.