The paramedic’s expression tightened.

They stabilized me and prepared for transport.

Gabriel asked where they were taking me, then looked to Piper.

“Can you come with me?” she whispered.

“Every step,” he promised.

His next call was to my older sister, Lena, who lived twenty minutes away and had been trying to reach me since the previous evening.

He told her only what he knew and asked her to meet them at the hospital.

Then he called the police nonemergency line and reported that a child had described an intentional act immediately preceding a serious injury.