Airport parking lots at 4:00 a.m. are where hope goes to die.
Gray concrete. Flickering lights. Cold air that makes every decision feel final.
Arthur Collins drove row after row with his jaw clenched, the text message still burning in his mind.
Come get your daughter from the airport parking lot. We don’t want her anymore.
Row G.
Silver sedan.
The windows were fogged from the inside.
Arthur knocked.
The window lowered slowly, revealing his daughter’s face—hollowed, pale, barely holding itself together.
“Dad,” Rachel whispered.
In the back seat, wrapped in a single thin blanket, her three-year-old twins slept curled into each other, their breath puffing clouds against the glass.
Arthur’s chest tightened.
He opened the door and lifted Noah first.
The child was cold.
Too cold.
“We can’t go to a shelter,” Rachel said quickly, panic spilling out. “Dylan said if I do, he’ll say I’m unfit. He’ll take them. Forever.”
Arthur didn’t hesitate.
“We’re not going to a shelter,” he said.
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