My six-year-old nephew crawled seven blocks on a broken leg with his starving three-year-old sister gripping his shirt.

While the detectives unraveled Reena’s web of lies at the station, I sat in a sterile, sunlit room at City General Hospital. Drew was fast asleep, his right leg encased in a blue fiberglass cast propped up on two foam pillows. An IV line ran into the back of his pale hand, pumping fluids and nutrients into a body that had been starved of both for far too long.

Lily sat in a rocking chair beside the bed, curled up in a heavy flannel blanket. She was wearing a pair of oversized hospital pajamas that swallowed her small frame. A pediatric nurse had just finished brushing her tangled blonde curls and feeding her warm chicken broth.

"She's remarkably resilient," the nurse, a kind-faced woman named Clara, told me in a low voice as she adjusted Drew’s IV drip. "Her blood sugar was critically low when she came in, and her feet have multiple abrasions, but structurally she’s unharmed. Drew, however... the break to his tibia was severe. It happened at least forty-eight hours ago. The fact that he walked—let alone carried his sister seven blocks—is nothing short of a miracle. Adrenaline and sheer protective instinct."

I looked down at Drew’s face. Even in sleep, his brow was slightly furrowed, his small fists clenched over the edge of the blanket. He was guarding a door in his mind that no child should ever know existed.

The door to the hospital room clicked open, and a tall man in a charcoal suit stepped inside. It was Marcus Vance, a senior family law attorney and an old friend of my late brother Aaron.

"I got your call," Marcus said quietly, keeping his voice down so as not to wake the children. He looked at Drew's cast, then at Lily, who stared at him with wide, cautious eyes. "I’ve read the preliminary police report. Confinement, severe child abuse, and the district attorney is already upgrading the investigation into Aaron’s death to a homicide inquiry based on those recovered texts."

"Good," I said, my chest tightening. "I want her buried under the jail. But right now, my primary concern is these two. What happens next? Reena had legal custody."

"Not anymore," Marcus replied firmly, pulling a set of emergency temporary guardianship papers from his leather briefcase. "With Reena in custody and facing capital-level charges, the state granted an emergency protective custody order an hour ago. Because you are their biological uncle and have an established, clean record, the judge signed off on temporary emergency placement to you immediately. Legally, they are safe with you."