Chapter 3 - The Human Shield
I reached through the jagged hole, located the internal lock mechanism, and pulled the door wide open.
"I'm here," I gasped, wiping sweat and glass dust from my eyes. "I've got you, buddy. Come on."
I leaned into the cabin to lift the twelve-year-old boy.
Then I noticed something that made my breath catch in my throat.
There was another child inside.
A newborn baby.
For a long, disorienting second, my mind couldn't process what my eyes were seeing.
The infant was tucked into a tiny patch of shadow near the center of the bench seat, wrapped carefully in a soft, knitted purple blanket.
And lying directly between the baby and the blazing, unshaded side window was the twelve-year-old boy.
He hadn't collapsed across that seat by accident.
He had deliberately positioned his own body between the blinding sunlight and the newborn.
His back had absorbed the full, brutal heat of the afternoon sun through the glass.
His shoulders were sun-scalded, red, and exposed, while the baby remained completely shaded beneath the physical shadow his body created.
The boy had been using himself as a living shield.
My chest tightened with an overwhelming wave of shock and awe.
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He wasn't trapped there alone, waiting for help.
He had stayed conscious as long as he could because someone smaller needed him to survive.
