Left standing alone in the darkness was five-year-old Lily.
Soaked to the skin, she clutched a silver emergency foil blanket tightly around her shivering frame with both hands. Water dripped from her soaked brown hair down into her wide, terrified blue eyes. Pressed against her chest, shielded from the rain beneath her trembling fingers, was a worn children's storybook titled Gabriels.
"She said to stay here..." Lily sobbed into the howling wind, her small body trembling uncontrollably as headlights from distant oncoming trucks whipped past, spraying her with cold road water.
She stood frozen on the double yellow line of the shoulder, an island of innocence surrounded by a raging storm.