It was 3:07 in the morning when I first heard the boots.
Heavy. Deliberate.
The kind of sound you don’t expect in a pediatric cancer ward, where everything is supposed to be soft and sterile.
Fifteen men. Leather vests. Chains clinking. Tattoos crawling up thick arms.
I froze when I saw them through the glass at the end of the hall.
For a split second, I thought I was dreaming—or having some kind of night shift hallucination.
But no. They were real.
Fifteen bikers had just stormed into my unit, carrying stuffed teddy bears and toy motorcycles.
And they were headed straight for Room 304.
Room 304 was Tommy’s room.
Nine years old. Bald from chemo. Skin pale as the sheets he slept under.
He hadn’t smiled in weeks.
His parents had walked out a month ago when the bills piled higher than the hope.
They changed their numbers. Stopped answering calls.
I’d been doing this job for twenty years, and I thought I’d seen abandonment before. But nothing like this.
Tommy was dying.
And he was dying alone.
