Hovering.
“Okay, Evan,” I said gently, showing him the saw. “It’s loud, but it won’t hurt you.”
Most kids panic.
Cry. Pull away.
Evan didn’t.
He just… shut down.
Completely still.
Gone somewhere else.
I turned the saw on.
The buzzing filled the room.
I started cutting through the cast.
Dust rose into the air.
And the smell—
Got worse.
So much worse.
I had to breathe through my mouth to keep from gagging.
“Almost done,” I whispered.
I made the second cut.
Turned off the saw.
Picked up the spreaders.
The room went silent.
Rain outside.
Heavy breathing behind me.
I inserted the tool into the cast and pressed.
Crack.
The shell split open.
And the smell exploded into the room.
The mother recoiled, covering her nose.
But it wasn’t the smell that froze me.
It was what fell out.
As the lower half of the cast dropped onto the tray—
Something else dropped with it.
A small.
Heavy.
Metal object.
Clink.
The sound echoed.
Loud. Sharp.
Wrong.
I stared at the tray.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
My brain refused to process what I was seeing.
Because it didn’t make sense.
It wasn’t medical.
It wasn’t accidental.
It wasn’t anything that belonged inside a child’s cast.
And in that moment—
I knew.
Whatever I had just uncovered…