The emergency room was an absolute circus. Police, social workers, and local news vans swarmed the hospital lobby. Timmy refused to let go of my leather vest. When a tired county worker tried to separate us, the kid screamed so loudly the glass windows actually shook.
“He has blood family,” the social worker argued, waving her metal clipboard at me. “We have state protocols we must strictly follow!”
“His blood family produced the man who almost killed his mother,” I fired back. “Sarah Walsh’s dying wish was for us to protect her son. We don’t take that lightly, and we aren’t leaving him.”
When a local news reporter shoved a microphone in my face, I didn’t hold back. I told the whole state exactly what this brave mother had sacrificed. The story caught fire instantly. The hashtag to save Timmy was trending everywhere by midnight.
The boy’s grandfather crawled out of the woodwork, demanding his flesh and blood on every morning talk show. He conveniently left out his own rap sheet for domestic violence. But the internet doesn’t forget, and they quickly dug up absolutely everything about his violent past.
