My sister April had always been the person I called when everything went wrong.

The words hit me like a physical blow. The fluorescent lights of the nurse’s station seemed to flare white, the air turning thick and impossible to breathe.

*She left at six o'clock.*

Six o'clock. That was nearly five hours ago. Max was three. Henry was six. Abby was eight. And Nell was twelve.

"Nell," I said, my voice shaking as I grabbed my badge and car keys off the desk. "Nell, stay on the phone with me. Are you locked inside?"

"The... the deadbolt on the front door is stuck from the inside," Nell sobbed, no longer able to keep her voice down. "Aunt April has the key on her ring. Mom, Max is crying so hard he's gagging. I tried to clean it up with towels, but it’s everywhere, and Henry is burning hot. I gave him some water, but he won't wake up all the way!"

"Listen to my voice, Nell!" I shouted, already sprinting down the hallway toward the staff locker room. "Do not touch the stove. Do not open the door for anyone unless it is me or the police! I am coming right now!"

"Jasmine! Where are you going?" Nurse Brenda, the charge nurse, yelled after me from the desk. "You can't abandon the floor!"

I didn't stop. I yanked my winter coat from my locker, threw it over my scrubs, and spun around to face Brenda. Tears of pure rage and panic were streaming down my face.

"My twelve-year-old daughter is locked in a house alone with three babies!" I yelled, my voice echoing down the pristine hospital corridor. "Write me up, fire me, do whatever you have to do! I'm leaving!"

Brenda’s harsh expression instantly collapsed into horror. "Go. Go! I'll cover your patients. Just go!"

I didn't take the elevator. I threw open the heavy fire door and hurled myself down four flights of concrete stairs, my shoes slapping violently against the metal treads.

I pushed through the emergency exit into the freezing night air, the cold wind cutting through my scrubs like glass. I sprinted across the asphalt of the employee parking lot, my hands trembling so violently that it took me three attempts to jam the key into the ignition of my sedan.

The engine roared to life. I threw the car into reverse, tires screeching against the wet pavement, and sped out of the hospital gates.

April’s house was eight miles away across town, through four traffic lights and a winding suburban parkway. Normally, it was a twenty-minute drive. I drove like a madwoman, blowing through yellow lights, my high beams cutting through the dark.

I had Nell on speakerphone on the passenger seat.

"Nell! Talk to me! Where are you right now?"

"I’m in Max’s room," Nell gasped between ragged breaths. Through the phone, I could hear Max’s frantic, high-pitched wails—the sound of an exhausted, terrified toddler who had been screaming for hours. "I have him on the floor. I changed his shirt, Mom, but he’s so cold and shivering. Henry is in bed, but his forehead feels like an oven."

"Where is April's phone?" I demanded, gripping the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. "Did she leave a note?"

"She... she said she was going to the grocery store," Nell wept. "At five-thirty. She told me to feed them the mac and cheese, give them baths, do the dishes, and put them down by eight. She said if they weren't asleep when she got back, she’d take my phone away. But she never came back!"

*At five-thirty.*

A wave of nausea crashed over me so violently I thought I was going to vomit right onto the dashboard.

Five hours. My sister had left my daughter in charge of three small children for five hours.

And then, like a lightning strike in the dark, the pieces began falling into place with terrifying clarity.

The bleach smell on Nell’s clothes. The cracked, raw knuckles. The exhaustion. The missing homework.

Nell hadn’t been studying at April’s house. She hadn’t been hanging out with her cousins. She had been running a household. She had been cooking, cleaning, bathing toddlers, scrubbing floors, and babysitting while my sister did God knows what.

And I had paid April $350 a month for the privilege.

"Mom, someone's outside," Nell suddenly whispered, her voice dropping into a terrified, breathless squeak.

My foot slammed harder on the gas pedal. The speedometer climbed past seventy. "Who is it? Can you see a car?"

"A car just pulled up in the driveway," Nell whimpered. "The headlights are shining through the window. It's... it's a big black truck. Aunt April doesn't drive a truck."

"Nell, go into the bathroom right now!" I screamed. "Take Henry, take Abby, take Max! Lock the bathroom door! I am two minutes away! Do you hear me?!"