Moments later, paramedics rushed inside with equipment. Their boots echoed against the worn linoleum as they worked quickly to stabilize Rachel.
“She should’ve been hospitalized days ago,” one medic muttered after checking her vitals.
When the stretcher arrived, Sophie panicked and grabbed the railing.
“Don’t take her without us!” she cried.
Rachel stirred faintly at the sound of her daughter’s voice. Her eyes fluttered open just enough to whisper hoarsely.
“My kids…”
“They’re safe,” Brooks reassured her.
Rachel tried weakly to lift her head. “I wasn’t leaving them.”
“I know,” Hale said quietly.
Tears slid down her temples as she looked at her children.
Outside, rain misted under the porch light as paramedics loaded her into the ambulance.
“If that girl hadn’t run for help,” one medic whispered to another, “this mother wouldn’t have survived the night.”
Hale looked back at the house.
The little boy stood in the doorway clutching Brooks’s jacket with one hand and a plastic dinosaur in the other.
That was when his eyes filled with tears.
Not because he had never seen hardship — eleven years on patrol had shown him plenty.