GABRIEL

It had been a week since the day Maddie was lost and found and my life came back to the way it was. Even now, I didn’t understand this strange bond that had grown between us.

I didn’t quite know how to describe this feeling. It was like a bond, a connection that I never knew existed until now. When I found Maddie wandering near the old church, scared and alone, my first instinct was to comfort her, to make her feel safe. And as I held her tiny hand in mine, I felt this overwhelming sense of protectiveness, as if she were my own daughter?

This thought scared...