“So what happens to a kid like Lucy?” D.D. asked presently as they made their way to the nurses’ station. Only two nurses were on duty this time of night, and neither had seen a stray child. They promised to keep an eye out, tending to their own duties as D.D. and Danielle started searching each patient room.

“You said she’s primal,” D.D. continued. “What does that mean? You give her enough meds, stick her in enough therapy, she transforms from wild cougar to tame pussycat?”

“Not exactly.” Danielle stuck her head into the medical supplies room. No nine-year-old child magically hiding here. They moved on, footsteps faster now, seeking the next target.

“Lucy’s missed most of the key developmental stages,” Danielle explained. “It’s improbable for a nine-year-old to make up that kind of ground. We once worked with a primal child who was three. If he was hungry, he trashed the refrigerator. If he was thirsty, he drank out of the toilet. If he had to go potty, he found a corner. It took a year of intensive training to get him to recognize his own name, and another year for him to come when he was called. That was at three. Lucy’s nine. These developmental stages aren’t hurdles anymore, they’re mountains, and there are dozens of them she needs to climb.”

“So she’ll stay with you guys until she figures them out?” D.D. asked. They ventured into a darkened room where a heavyset man sprouting half a dozen wires and tubes snored in the middle of the bed. They worked by the glow of the monitor lights, peering under the bed, behind the chair, inside the shower.

Danielle shook her head. “We’re acute care, remember? Lucy will require lifelong assistance. Only place that can handle her is a hospital run by the Shriners. They do unbelievable work and have the waiting list to prove it.”

D.D. felt uncomfortable. She was better with felonious adults than broken children, though she supposed one became the other. They exited the snoring man’s room, hit the next one. Danielle took the chair, while D.D. peered under the bed.

“Do all primal kids escape?” D.D. asked. “Is it like … the call of the wild?”

“Oh, they’re wilder, touch of Tarzan, yada yada. Still, never had a kid escape once, let alone twice.”

“What set Lucy off?”

“Don’t know. We haven’t had time yet to get a sense of how she experiences the world.”

They exited the patient room, hit a unisex bath.

“‘A sense of how she experiences the world’?” D.D. repeated.