It should’ve been another body. Another case. Another statistic to fold into the noise.

But it wasn’t.

The girl on the stretcher wasn’t a stranger.

Will saw her before the name reached him. His eyes caught the shape of her mouth, the tilt of her nose—those small, stubborn details that memory clung to like barnacles on a sinking hull.

His breath hitched.

He stepped forward slowly, like one wrong move might wake him from a dream.

The paramedic looked up. “She’s alive, but fading.”

That’s when he dropped to his knees beside the stretcher.

She looked like someone who’d been dragged through years. And she had.

“Hey,” he said, voice raw. “Hey, babygirl. You hear me?”

Her eyes cracked open, just barely. Enough for him to see the storm still in them. Enough to know she hadn’t let it take her completely.

“They told me you were gone. Years ago.” “But here you are. Not gone. Just lost. And now…” “Now I’ve got you.”

He reached for her hand—dirty, bruised, trembling.

“You’re safe now. I’ve got you, sugar. And I swear, I’m not letting go.”