Her parents were already gone.

When a nurse tried to guide her toward a quieter room, Avery panicked and clung to my arm with both hands. Her grip was fierce, desperate. I could feel her tiny heart racing through her fingers.

“I’m Avery,” she whispered. “I’m scared. Please don’t leave me.”

Those words didn’t fade. They rooted themselves inside me.

I knelt beside her with a cup of apple juice and read her a children’s book about a bear who couldn’t find his way home. She made me read it again. And again. Always the ending. Always the part where everything turned out okay.

When she traced the edge of my badge and murmured, “You’re the good one,” I had to step into the supply closet just to breathe.

By morning, social services arrived. They asked about family. Avery shook her head. No grandparents. No aunts. No uncles. Only fragments—pink curtains, a stuffed rabbit named Mr. Hopps.

And me.

That night became a week. The week became a future.