“I know,” Leo said, squatting in front of me. He rubbed his hands together and then pressed them against my cheeks. They were rough and cold, but the friction burned. “But the bakery closes in twenty minutes. Bagels, Mia. Maybe even a bear claw if the new guy is working. He’s sloppy.”
We lived for sloppy. We lived for mistakes. We lived in the cracks of the world where people forgot to look. Since running away from the foster home—a place that smelled of bleach and despair, where the foster father had hands that lingered too long—we had become ghosts. We knew which subway grates blew warm air, which tourists were likely to drop a five-dollar bill, and which alleys were safe from the older, meaner crews.
“Okay,” I sighed, forcing myself up. My joints popped. “Bagels.”
We moved toward the mouth of the alley. The city was alive out there. Christmas lights were already up, twinkling mockingly on the lampposts. People in thick wool coats and cashmere scarves hurried past, clutching shopping bags, complaining about the cold as they walked to their heated cars. They looked right through us. We were part of the scenery, like the fire hydrants or the slush.
“Wait,” Leo stopped abruptly. He turned his head, tilting it toward the dumpster we had just left.
“What?” I whispered, tension spiking. “Cops?”
“No,” Leo frowned. “Listen.”
I strained my ears against the city noise—the distant wail of a siren, the rumble of the L train overhead. Then I heard it.
Eh-eh-eh.
It was a weak, scratching sound. Like a kitten trapped in a box.
“It’s a rat, Leo. Let’s go.”
“Rats scurry,” Leo said, his voice low. “That’s not scurrying.”
He walked back toward the green industrial bin. It was overflowing with trash bags from the apartment complex above. A black plastic bag had slid off the top, revealing a grey plastic shape underneath.
Leo reached out. His hand trembled, not just from the cold. He pushed the black bag aside.
He froze.
“Mia,” he choked out.
I walked over, annoying snow crunching under my worn-out sneakers. “What is it?”
“It’s… oh god, Mia.”
I looked over his shoulder and felt the blood drain from my face.
It wasn’t a kitten. It was a car seat. A fancy, expensive-looking car seat with grey fabric. And strapped inside, wearing nothing but a thin white onesie and wrapped in a loose, embroidered blanket, was a baby.
He was tiny. His skin was a terrifying, mottled purple-grey. His eyes were squeezed shut, his little chest moving in shallow, jerky spasms. He was making that sound—that weak eh-eh—because he didn’t have the energy to scream.
“He’s freezing,” I whispered, horror gripping my throat. “Who… who throws a baby away?”
“He’s not thrown away,” Leo said frantically, touching the baby’s cheek. “He’s ice. Mia, he’s ice.”
Panic is a strange thing. Usually, it tells you to run. Run from the cops, run from the cold, run from the truth. But looking at that helpless thing, smaller than my two hands put together, the panic turned into something else. Rage.
“We have to get help,” I said. “We have to call 911.”
“With what phone?” Leo snapped. He was already moving. He unzipped his jacket—a puffy, torn thing we’d found at Goodwill—and pulled it off. Underneath, he was wearing only a thin, stained t-shirt. The wind hit him instantly, his skin turning gooseflesh, but he didn’t hesitate. He tucked the jacket around the baby, tucking the sleeves in to create a cocoon.
“Leo, you’ll freeze,” I cried.
“He’s dying, Mia!” Leo yelled, his voice cracking. “Grab the handle!”
We heaved the car seat up. It was heavy. We stumbled out of the alley, blinking in the harsh streetlights. The wind hit us with renewed fury.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my teeth shattering.
“The fire station,” Leo gasped. “It’s three blocks over on Clark.”
Three blocks. In this wind, carrying this weight, it might as well have been three miles. We walked. Step by agonizing step. My fingers, gripping the plastic handle, went numb. Leo was shaking so hard the car seat vibrated between us.
“Talk to him,” Leo stammered, looking down at the baby. “Keep him… keep him here.”
I looked at the embroidery on the blanket. Lucas.
“Hey, Lucas,” I said, my voice trembling. “Don’t you dare sleep. You hear me? You hang on. We’re… we’re the best tour guides in Chicago. You don’t want to miss this.”
The baby didn’t respond. His lips were blue.
We made it one block. Then two. Leo was stumbling now, his feet dragging. He was turning a color that scared me. Hypothermia. I knew the signs.
“Leo, stop,” I begged. “Let’s put him down for a second.”
“No!” Leo grunted. “Almost… there.”
We turned the corner onto Clark Street, and that’s when the flashing lights blinded us. A police cruiser was crawling down the street, its spotlight sweeping the sidewalks.
We froze. Instinct kicked in. Hide.
“Cops,” I hissed. “Alley. Now.”
We turned to duck into the nearest gap between buildings, but the spotlight swung. It hit us. Two dirty kids carrying a car seat.
“HEY!” The amplified voice from the cruiser boomed. “FREEZE!”
I looked at Leo. He looked at me. His eyes were glassy. “We can’t run, Mia. Lucas won’t make it if we run.”
Leo set the carrier down gently on the snowy sidewalk. He stood up straight, shivering so hard he looked like he was vibrating, and raised his hands in the air.
“We didn’t steal him!” Leo screamed into the wind, tears freezing on his face. “Please! Help him!”
The police officer who stepped out of the car looked like a giant. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had a face made of stone. His hand was resting on his holster.
“Step away from the carrier!” he commanded, walking toward us with purposeful strides.
“He’s cold!” I yelled, stepping in front of Leo. “He was in the trash! Look at him!”
The officer stopped a few feet away. He looked at me—fierce, dirty, defensive—and then down at the carrier wrapped in a ragged, filthy jacket. He crouched down, peeling back Leo’s jacket.
I saw the officer’s stone face crumble.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered. He ripped his radio off his shoulder. “Dispatch, this is Unit 4-Alpha. I need EMS at Clark and Kinzie immediately. I have an infant, critical condition. Hypothermia. Rush it!”
He stripped off his heavy police issue jacket and threw it over the carrier, completely engulfing it. Then he looked at us. Really looked at us.
“You kids,” he said, his voice rough. “Where did you get this?”
“The alley,” Leo managed to say. His lips were blue now, matching the baby’s. ” behind the… the Italian place. In the bin.”
The officer stood up and looked at Leo’s t-shirt. “Where are your parents?”
“Dead,” I said flatly. It was safer than saying we ran away. “It’s just us.”
The officer rubbed his face with a gloved hand. The siren wail was getting louder, approaching fast. “Okay. Okay, you stay right here. You did good. But I need you to stay.”
Within minutes, chaos erupted. An ambulance screeched to a halt. Paramedics swarmed the baby. Another police car arrived.
Then, a black SUV, sleek and terrifyingly fast, roared up the street, ignoring the red lights. It screeched to a halt right behind the ambulance.
The doors flew open before the car even fully stopped.
A woman scrambled out. She was wearing a silk dress and heels, totally inappropriate for the weather, with a coat flapping open. Her hair was a mess of blonde tangles.
“Lucas! WHERE IS HE?” she screamed, a sound so raw it made my skin crawl.
A man followed her. He was dressed in a tuxedo, tie undone. He looked like he had just run out of a gala. He caught the woman before she could run into the street.
“Sarah! Wait!” he yelled.
They ran toward the ambulance. The police tried to stop them, but the man flashed something—an ID or just the sheer force of his authority—and they let him through.
Leo and I stood by the brick wall, forgotten. We watched as the woman collapsed by the stretcher where the paramedics were working on Lucas. We saw her sob, her shoulders shaking violently. We saw the man hold her, his face buried in her hair, his shoulders heaving.
“He’s alive,” I heard a paramedic say. “Pulse is weak, but it’s there. We’re moving him now.”
The ambulance doors slammed shut. The siren wailed again, peeling away toward the hospital.
The woman—Sarah—tried to chase it, but the man held
