Seven-year-old Emily lay sprawled on the marble floor of the foyer. Her body was frighteningly thin beneath her nightgown, every bone visible. Her right leg was swollen, twisted, and purple with infection. She was crawling. Her fingernails scraped the floor, splitting and bleeding.
Behind her, she dragged her baby brother, Noah, by his shirt.
Noah was worse. Far worse. The eighteen-month-old was grayish, his lips cracked and bleeding, his breathing shallow and wet. His diaper hung loosely on his skeletal frame, unchanged for days. His skin clung to bone like paper stretched too tight.
Jonathan dropped his briefcase. It hit the floor with a sharp crack that echoed through the empty house. He fell to his knees beside his children, hands hovering, terrified to touch them and somehow make things worse.
“Emily,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “What happened? Who did this to you?”
Her eyes fluttered open—brown like her late mother’s, but dull, unfocused. For a second, she didn’t recognize him. Then she flinched, shrinking away instinctively.
Something inside Jonathan snapped.
“Daddy?” she rasped. “Is it really you? Are you real?”
“I’m here,” he sobbed. “I’m here now.”