"Thank you, honey. This baby's lucky to get you for a sister." Mom kisses her on the forehead. Any other time Samantha would have blushed with embarrassment, but right now she doesn't mind.
Samantha settles onto her seat next to Minnie, no longer concerned with the landscape outside. She has more important issues on her mind now. A baby sister. Too bad by the time her sister starts kindergarten Samantha will be in college. They wouldn't have much time together, but Samantha would make it count. She looks over at Minnie and smiles. Now she knows where to put the stuffed mouse.
"Not much farther," Dad says. "We're almost home."
Samantha drifts off to sleep beneath Mom's jacket. She awakens to a flash of white light. A second later she hears a screech followed by a sharp crack. The car's horn sounds. She manages to lean forward to see her father slumped over the steering wheel, his bloodstained head against the horn. Next to him, Mom is doubled over and unmoving.
Samantha takes off her seatbelt and leans over the seat to shake her parents. Neither of them moves. "Mom? Dad?" she asks repeatedly, but receives no answer. She collapses back onto her seat, her entire body suddenly numb.
She remains like this until her door opens. A sheriff's deputy leans in. "Are you hurt, little girl?" Samantha shakes her head. "Let's get you out of here."
He starts to pull her out of the car, but she claws and bites at him, fighting to stay with her parents. She can't leave them. She can't.
The deputy succeeds in getting her from the car and then she sees the black pick-up fused with her father's Impala. The driver of the pick-up is handcuffed by another deputy and led towards a cruiser.
Samantha stares at the man with hatred burning in her heart. She wants to break away from the deputy to spit in this man's face, to scream at him, kick and punch him. She wants to kill him for what he's done to her parents-and her little sister still in Mom's stomach.
The deputy tightens his grip on her shoulders. "It's all right, sweetheart. He's going to jail," he says. He leads Samantha away to a waiting ambulance.
A paramedic drapes a blanket over her shoulders and tries to ask her questions, but she doesn't say anything. She can only watch as firemen cut open the Impala to remove her parents from the vehicle. "Don't worry, honey, we're going to take good care of you. You're going to be just fine." The paramedic says as his partner pulls a blanket over Mom's face.