“Madison,” I said quietly. “Who’s in your trunk?”
She started crying—deep, desperate sobs. “My brothers and my sister. They’re eight, six, and four. I got them out. I finally got them out. But if you call the police, they’ll send us back, and he’ll kill us this time. I know he will.”
“My stepdad.” She was shaking so hard she could barely stand. “He’s been… he’s been hurting us for two years. Me the most, but he started hitting the little ones too. Mom won’t leave him. She doesn’t believe us. Last night he put a gun to my head and told me he was tired of me being alive.”
She wiped her face with her sleeve. “So I waited until everyone was asleep. I packed a bag. I got the kids. I took Mom’s car. I drove. I just drove. I didn’t know where to go. I just knew we had to get away.”
“I have seventy-three dollars,” she said, her voice breaking. “I was trying to get to my grandma’s house in Tennessee. She doesn’t talk to Mom anymore because of him, but I thought maybe she’d help us. But the tire blew out twenty miles ago, and I kept driving because I was too scared to stop, and now I don’t know what to do.”
I looked at this fifteen-year-old girl who’d stolen a car and kidnapped her siblings to save their lives. This child who was so terrified of the system that she’d rather risk everything on a desperate highway escape than call for help.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Madison. First things first. Let’s get those kids out of the trunk. They need air.”
“But someone might see—”
“It’s midnight on a country highway. Nobody’s seeing anything. Come on.”
She opened the trunk with trembling hands. Three little kids were curled up inside—two boys and a tiny girl, all holding each other. They were wearing pajamas. The oldest boy was clutching a stuffed dinosaur. The little girl was crying silently.
