Ryder looked up.
Elena’s car had just pulled into the driveway. She was getting out. She was holding her medical bag.
She looked at the porch. She saw Ryder. She saw Leo standing next to him.
She dropped the bag.
It hit the gravel with a muffled thud.
And then, Elena Rosales started running.
III. The Abduction
Elena didn't run like a doctor. She ran like a mother whose child was standing on the edge of a cliff.
She covered the distance from the driveway to the porch in seconds, her white coat flying open. She charged up the steps, her breath coming in ragged, audible gasps.
"Leo!"
She reached the boy before Ryder could even register her speed. She didn't slow down. She scooped Leo up in one fluid, violent motion, snatching him away from Ryder as if he were radioactive.
Leo yelped, surprised by the sudden altitude change. He dropped the plastic bull. It clattered on the porch planks.
Elena held him tight to her chest, burying her face in his hair for a second before turning her blazing eyes on Ryder.
"What are you doing?" she hissed. It wasn't a question; it was an accusation.
Ryder blinked, stunned. He looked at his empty hands, then at the furious woman holding the bewildered child.
"We were... talking," Ryder said. "He was showing me his bull."
"You do not talk to him," Elena said, her voice shaking with an intensity that seemed wildly disproportionate to the situation. "You do not look at him. You do not exist in his world, Ryder. Do you understand?"
Ryder frowned. He shifted his leg, wincing as the cast scraped the cooler.
"Elena, what is wrong with you? He's just a kid. He walked up to me."
"Because you were sitting there!" she shouted, taking a step back, shielding Leo with her body. "Like a... like a trap."
"A trap? I'm a cripple sitting on a porch swing. I'm not exactly a danger to society."
"You are," she whispered, the fight suddenly draining out of her, replaced by a desperate, frantic fear. "You are the most dangerous thing in his life."
She looked down at Leo, who was watching the exchange with wide, frightened eyes.
"We're going," she said to the boy. "Now."
"But Mom," Leo protested, "my bull..."
"Leave it," Elena snapped.
She spun around and marched down the stairs, carrying the fifty-pound boy as if he weighed nothing. She walked to her car, wrestled the door open, and buckled him into the back seat with jerky, hurried movements.
Ryder watched them. He watched the way she checked the rearview mirror three times before backing out. He watched the dust cloud her car kicked up as she sped down the driveway, far faster than was necessary.
He looked down at the porch floor.
The plastic bull—Bodacious, with the broken horn—was lying by his boot.
