Floodlights blinded me.

Hands, more hands than I could count, reached down into the muddy pit.

“We’ve got them!

Lift them out — careful, careful!”

Strong arms took my shoulders and drew me up out of the grave.

Through my streaming, burning eyes I saw paramedics lay Mason and Wyatt onto the wet grass and fit clear oxygen masks over their small faces.

I reached for them, my knees folding under me in the mud — and then the exhaustion took me, and the world went black one more time, but this time I went into it knowing that hands had my children, and that the hands were kind.

Chapter 11 — Detective Vance