Inside lay a newborn baby, wrapped in dirty newspapers. His head was abnormally swollen, far larger than it should have been. His skin was pale—almost translucent. His tiny chest fluttered with shallow, struggling breaths.
Rita gasped, covering her mouth.
“Oh my God…”
The girl immediately stepped between them and the box, throwing out her thin arms like a shield. Her eyes burned with a kind of fierce protection that didn’t belong to someone so small.
“He’s not a monster!” she shouted through sobs. “Mom said he was broken. She said she was going to throw him away. But I didn’t let her. I saved him. I saved him!”
The ER went dead silent.
Callahan felt something crack open in his chest—a place he’d locked away five years earlier. Since the night his daughter Emma died in a car accident, he had avoided pediatric cases whenever he could. The grief was too sharp, too familiar.
But standing in front of this terrified little girl and the fragile life gasping for air, he knew that promise was already broken.
“Rita, call pediatrics. Now,” he said firmly. Then he turned back to the girl.
“What’s your name, sweetheart?”
“Marlo,” she whispered, still guarding the box.