Chapter 178: Angels Without Wings

Like them, Isobel had been abandoned too.

The difference was that she had been lucky enough to find her family after more than two decades. But finding them had never erased what had happened.

Once, she had been nothing more than a helpless infant—a tiny, unwanted life placed inside a bamboo basket and left beneath the shelter of a tree.

If not for Richard finding her, she could have died.

Someone had walked away from her...and she had been too young to understand why.

Isobel slowly released the breath she was holding.

She drove through the narrow parkway of the small community hospital, her hands tightening around the steering wheel.

It was strange, almost cruelly ironic, that a place like this existed within Novare.

She had only meant to stop by her favorite bakeshop before buying her toiletries. They sold the most delicious<anno data-annotation-id="f3512817-bfc1-fffd-1462-bb262b41c1a2" data-title="&lt;em&gt; empanadas&lt;/em&gt;"> empanadas¹</anno> she had ever tasted, and despite years of trying, she had never found another place that could make them quite the same way.

She had discovered the little shop back in college.

Unfortunately, it was tucked away in the poorest section of Novare.

And today, that small detour had brought her here...

...to two children she almost hit with her car.

Isobel parked in the only available slot and turned off the engine.

For a moment, neither child moved.

They sat stiffly in the back seat, as though afraid that getting out of the car might somehow make whatever happened next even worse.

Isobel opened the door.

"Come on."

The boy immediately reached for the girl’s hand. He didn’t let go.

Isobel noticed that.

The boy was trying to be brave. But he was only a child himself.

Once they were outside, Isobel crouched slightly so she could look at them properly.

"By the way, what’s your name?"

The boy swallowed.

"I am Randy," he answered quietly. Then he pointed to the girl beside him. "And she is Yana."

"And your surname?"

Randy’s fingers tightened around Yana’s.

His eyes darted toward Isobel, suspicious and frightened.

"Why?"

"The nurse will ask for your names later. I need to know."

Randy didn’t answer. Yana peeked at Isobel from behind her brother.

"But you’re a stranger," she whispered.

The words struck Isobel harder than they should have.

A stranger. Of course. To these children, every adult was probably a stranger.

Every helping hand might come with a price.

Every promise might be followed by pain.

Isobel forced a gentle smile.

"My name is Isobel Lancey."

The children exchanged a glance. They wanted to say something.

Isobel could see it.

But whatever words were trapped inside them were buried beneath too many years of fear.

Finally, Randy spoke.

"Yalo."

Isobel waited.

"Our last name is Yalo."

"All right."

She didn’t ask why he had hesitated. Some questions were better left for later.

She simply held their hands and guided them inside.

The moment they entered the outpatient department, heads turned.

People stared.

The two children were filthy. Their clothes were torn and stained, their hair tangled, their skin covered with dirt. The smell of sweat, dust, and something much worse clung to them.

A few people frowned. One woman visibly covered her nose.

Isobel saw it.

She also saw Yana lower her head.

Randy moved closer to his sister, as though he had already learned that people looked at children like them with disgust.

Isobel’s jaw tightened.

She didn’t care. Not about the dirt. Not about the smell. Not about what anyone thought.

She had seen enough of them to know that dirt could be washed away.

Fear was harder.

When their turn finally came, the nurse looked at the children and frowned.

"Are you their mother?"

Isobel blinked.

"Look at you," the nurse continued. "You’re clean, but the children are—"

She stopped herself, but the judgment had already been spoken.

Isobel frowned but chose not to respond.

"I’m not sure if my car hit them," she said instead. "I found them near the road, and I want them checked."

"I see."

The middle-aged nurse’s expression softened slightly.

She had assumed Isobel was one of those young, careless mothers who spent more time worrying about herself than her children.

But the more she looked at Isobel, the more uncertain she became.

Isobel was far too young to have children this old.

"The girl’s name is Yana," Isobel explained. "She scraped her knees. I cleaned them with disinfectant in the car, but I’m worried there might be internal injuries."

The nurse examined Yana’s knees.

Her expression changed.

These weren’t ordinary scrapes.

The injuries looked as though the little girl had been forced to kneel on broken glass or shards of stone.

The nurse carefully cleaned the wounds and checked her vital signs before sending her into the inner room where the doctor could examine her more thoroughly.

She did the same with Randy.

Then she paused. Her face went still.

"Both children are severely malnourished."

Isobel wasn’t surprised. She could tell by the children’s look.

But hearing the words spoken aloud still made something inside her crack.

Severely malnourished.

As if they had been surviving rather than living.

As if their bodies had forgotten what it felt like to be full.

The nurse continued examining Randy.

Then she lifted the back of his shirt.

She froze.

Across the boy’s thin back were angry red welts.

Some were fresh, the skin still swollen around them. Others had already darkened into ugly bruises.

The marks crossed his back in long, cruel lines.

Someone had beaten him with a belt.

Isobel stared.

For several seconds, she couldn’t breathe.

Her chest tightened as she looked at the small, battered body before her.

She had thought she knew what it meant to suffer.

She had grown up in an orphanage, after all. Her childhood had been far from easy. There had been days when she went hungry, nights when she cried herself to sleep, and countless moments when she wondered why no one had wanted her.

But she had never been hurt like this.

Not like Randy.

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