They Called Her Trash She Called The Army

The phone call from Lily’s teacher came the moment I pulled out of the daycare parking lot.

“Ms. Thorne, you need to get to the hospital. Lily… she injured a classmate.”

By the time I rushed to Crestwood Metropolitan, my vision tunneled on a sight that froze the blood in my veins: my five-year-old, Lily, lying on a gurney with a knife—a simple, nasty kitchen paring knife—sticking out of her small abdomen, the floor slick with her blood.

The other kid, a boy named Preston, had only a scrape on his finger, already clotting. I grabbed the nearest teacher, demanding an explanation.

She stammered, avoiding my eyes. It wasn’t until I fought my way into the school surveillance room that I got the truth.

He had called Lily a “street trash mongrel, raised by sluts.” When she fought back, he pulled out the knife and stabbed her.

With the footage in hand, I faced his parents. The mother, Tiffany Wells, met my gaze with a sneer.

“Trash raised by trash,” she spat, her voice dripping with venom. “If she dies, she dies. Her life isn’t worth a single hair on my Preston’s head.”

“Every hospital in this city has Wells Group money in it. She dared touch my son, and now she doesn’t leave here alive.”

She didn’t know who Lily was.

Lily’s mom and dad were the dearest souls in our entire battalion. After they fell, she became the daughter of the whole unit—the treasured niece, the little sister, the light of the women’s barracks. Everyone fought for a holiday rotation with her. Even General Marcus, our retired Commander, spoiled her like his own grandchild.

Now, someone had called her a mongrel? A tramp’s kid?

I turned away from the entitled woman, pulled my phone from my pocket, and dialed the emergency internal line for the 1st Battalion.

“Lily’s been stabbed. They called her a low-class tramp’s kid. Leave is canceled. I want every available sister at Crestwood Hospital now.”

1

The phone was violently snatched from my ear and slammed to the ground.

Tiffany Wells, the alleged wife of a CEO, laughed—a harsh, entitled sound. She looked at me like I was something she’d scraped off her designer shoe.

“What, you hear ‘Wells’ and you call all your little… chicken sisters for backup? Ha! Birds of a feather, I suppose.”

“Bottom-feeders who hook up with any man they can find, raise little runts who are just as out of control. Probably trying to hook her claws into my son, too.”

The rage in my chest was a bomb about to detonate. I started to rise, but a faint, trembling whisper stopped me.

“Momma… Momma’s not a… chicken…”

Lily’s face was bloodless, her eyes squeezed shut, her whole body shaking.

“My momma… she’s a hero.…”

My heart clenched. I immediately knelt and grasped her tiny, ice-cold hand.

“I’m right here, sweetheart. Don’t be afraid. Lily’s mother is a hero who protected people. She’s—”

“She’s lying!”

Preston Wells, Tiffany’s son, shrieked, cutting me off.

“Different women drop her off every day. How can one person have so many moms?”

“She’s just a wild kid raised in a trash heap by someone nobody knows! Her mother is not a hero!”

Preston’s face, puffy and pale with baby fat, was contorted with a viciousness that belied his age.

“She lies all the time and she doesn’t listen to me! Low-class people deserve to be punished!”

“My mom said our family runs this city. Even if she dies, someone will clean it up for me!”

I stared at the five-year-old boy, stunned by the sheer malice in his words and his actions. I looked back at Tiffany.

“Is this how you teach your child?”

She wore it like a badge of honor, tilting her chin up.

“Is it not the truth? Did I say anything wrong?”

“A child shuffled between different women every day? What else would you call it but a hovel?”

“I’m teaching my son the truth about the garbage at the bottom of the social ladder. What’s wrong with that?”

She took a step, pointing a sharp, manicured finger almost into my face.

“I’m telling you, in Evergreen City, the Wells family says what goes!”

“My son punishing her was an honor! She dared to fight back and injure him, so she deserves whatever she gets!”

“The lives of people like you—all of them combined—aren’t worth a single strand of my son’s hair!”

I balled my fists, wanting nothing more than to wipe that smug look off her face.

Lily’s parents, both decorated service members, fell in the line of duty a year apart. Our two families, generations of military service, had only her left. We couldn’t send her to a state facility, so we raised her in the battalion.

The reason different women dropped her off was simple: we all loved her, and every single one of us on leave fought over who got to have her that day. It was my turn today, and now this.

If anything happened to Lily, I wouldn’t know how to face the sisters or the General.

Reason, however, had to win over pure, visceral fury. I was a soldier. I had to remember who I was, who I represented.

Knowing that anything I said to this woman would be useless, I took a deliberate step back and looked at her, my eyes cold.

“The Wells family, you say?”

Fine. I’d remember. Some scores take time to settle.

For now, Lily was all that mattered.

2

The nurse had mentioned a massive pile-up on the highway, flooding the hospital with trauma victims. Personnel were stretched thin.

I had given Lily the emergency trauma powder I carried—a military-grade clotting agent—which should stabilize her for a short time, but time was a weapon now. I was about to scoop her up and race to the next facility when a doctor in scrubs sprinted toward us.

“Where is the injured child? Status?”

I stepped aside instantly. The nurse quickly reported.

“Five years old, abdominal stab wound. Depth unknown. Still conscious, but severe blood loss.”

The doctor swiftly and carefully checked the wound, using a penlight to examine Lily’s pupils and complexion.

“Thank God. Preliminarily, no major organ damage, but the blood loss is critical. We need immediate cleaning, suturing, and hemostasis.”

He frowned.

“All operating rooms are full with the I-5 crash victims. We can’t wait. We have to perform emergency closure here to stabilize her vitals.”

He whirled toward the nurse. “Prep the sterile suture kit, anesthesia, and get the emergency blood unit ready!”

The nurse started to run but was yanked back by Tiffany Wells.

“Hold it!”

Tiffany roughly shoved Preston in front of the doctor.

“You treat my son first! His finger is broken and he’s bled so much!”

The doctor glanced at Preston’s index finger—a small abrasion where the blood had already dried.

His brow furrowed deeper, his expression turning stern.

“Madam, please! You need to stop this nonsense!”

“Your son has a minor surface injury. He doesn’t even need stitches. Have a nurse swab it with iodine. Step aside! Hospital resources are critically low. We prioritize major trauma. That’s the basic principle!”

Tiffany was outraged that a doctor would dare contradict her. She raised her hand and delivered a stinging slap across the doctor’s face.

“Principle? I am the principle here!”

Everyone was stunned by the sudden violence.

She pointed a furious finger at the dazed doctor. “A staff physician, yelling at me? Do you know who we are?!”

“I am the daughter-in-law of the Wells family! This is their grandson! Your own CEO bows to me! You talk to me like that?!”

“My son’s finger touched that low-class brat’s blood. He might get some disease! I demand that you, now, immediately, perform a full-body scan on my son! Head to toe, don’t miss a single thing! Otherwise, I will have you fired from this hospital today, and you will never work in this city again!”

The doctor, Dr. Alpert, clutched his cheek, his eyes wide with humiliation and disbelief.

“You can’t…”

The small crowd gathered began murmuring their outrage, but Tiffany ignored them. She pointed at her bodyguards.

“Take him! Take him to my son for the full checkup! A doctor’s job is to save important people, not the rats from the gutter!”

Two dark-suited men immediately grabbed Dr. Alpert, covering his mouth as he tried to protest, and forcefully dragged him away.

Tiffany turned to me, a smirk of triumph and malice twisting her lips.

Furious, I started to charge, but the nurse beside me desperately gripped my arm.

She whispered urgently, “Mom, please, calm down! We can’t fight people this powerful. It’s Lily who will suffer! We have to save her!”

My eyes were stinging with frustrated tears. “They just kidnapped the only doctor! Who is going to save my child? Do money and power make you untouchable?!”

I took a huge, shuddering breath, forcing my heart rate down. The nurse was right. Lily’s life was paramount.

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t for you.”

“Where is the nearest hospital? We’re transferring her now!”

I bent to pick Lily up, but the nurse stopped me again.

“The highway crash has swamped every major hospital in the city. A transfer will mean waiting in line again, and she’s too fragile!”

“She’s lost too much blood. She needs a transfusion immediately. Our blood bank is almost certainly depleted. You need to find a donor now. If we can get a bag of blood in her, we can stabilize her vitals.”

3

My heart plummeted, but I didn’t hesitate. I shoved my arm out.

“Draw mine! We’re both B-positive!”

The nurse shook her head.

“Direct transfusion from a close relative is highly dangerous. It can cause Graft-versus-Host Disease.”

“I’m not her biological mother!”

I practically roared it, my voice raw with desperation and the beginning of a breakdown.

“She’s a Gold Star Kid! Her parents died for this country! I’m begging you, you have to save her! Take my blood!”

Shocked by the revelation of Lily’s status, the nurse immediately grabbed a sterile kit.

In the small collection room, I watched my dark red blood snake down the tube into the bag. Time stretched out, each second a year, with Lily struggling on the edge of the abyss.

My shattered phone was buzzing in my other hand, the internal group chat exploding with messages.

“What happened? Why is she hurt? On my way!”

“How is Lily? We’re bringing Major Thompson’s medic with us!”

“Tell her the 2nd Guard Dads are coming too! Ten minutes out!”

The knowledge that my sisters and brothers were coming with their own medical team was the only thing keeping me standing.

I’d just finished the 400cc draw when the nurse pulled the needle and prepared to rush the life-saving blood to processing. Suddenly, a hand with bright red, aggressively long nails shot out and snatched the bag.

“There! You said you had no blood! You lied!”

“Give this to my son immediately! He’s shocked and his sugar is low! He needs nutrition!”

Fighting the sudden vertigo from the blood loss, I stood up, my eyes locked on her.

“Put the blood down.”

Tiffany Wells was momentarily startled by the intensity of my gaze, but quickly recovered her arrogance.

“You… you think you scare me? This blood belongs to the hospital now. I can do whatever I want with it!”

The nurse, gathering her courage, stepped forward to appeal to her.

“Mrs. Wells, please. That little girl is a Gold Star Kid. Her parents sacrificed everything for our country. She has no one else…”

“Please, just think of it as a good deed. Give us the blood. Save her life.”

Tiffany didn’t just ignore her; she shoved the nurse hard.

“A martyr? Ha! More pity party lies, I bet.”

“Who knows if it’s true? Even if it is, I don’t care! My son’s health is the only priority!”

I didn’t waste another word. With a clean, lightning-fast movement, I executed a reverse wrist lock.

Tiffany let out a yelp of pain, her fingers involuntarily splaying open. The bag of warm blood fell perfectly into my waiting hand.

“You hit me?!”

She screamed, scrambling back. “You heard that, you incompetents? Teach her a lesson!”

The two remaining bodyguards closed in. They moved with heavy, trained steps. They wanted a fight? I felt the dam of my suppressed rage and helplessness finally give way.

“Guard this.” I placed the blood bag carefully into the trembling nurse’s hands.

In the same breath, I dropped my center of gravity, pivoting just as the first bodyguard threw a clumsy punch. My right leg became a piston—a sharp, brutal side-kick to his diaphragm.

“Gah!” The man folded over, his size irrelevant to the sheer force, and he flew back, crashing into the wall.

The second guard, seeing his partner drop, lunged, attempting to lock my neck from behind. I ducked low, avoiding his arm, then planted my left foot and drove my right heel up in a blindingly fast reverse spinning hook kick right under his chin.

His eyes rolled back. He dropped like a stone, unconscious.

The hallway was silent. The whole exchange took less than three seconds.

I slowly turned, taking a step toward Tiffany Wells, who was now frozen, fear leaching the color from her face.

She stammered, backing away. “Wha—what do you want? Don’t… don’t think a few moves scare me!”

“I’m warning you! I am Grant Wells’s wife! You touch a single hair on my head, and the Wells family will destroy you! You won’t get away with this!”

I stood over her, staring down into her terrified, contorted face, and clamped my fingers around her throat.

4

“Cough… L-let go!”

I leaned in close, my eyes burning into hers.

“You should thank your stars you’re in peacetime, protected by a flimsy piece of paper called the law.”

“Otherwise…”

I tightened my grip, just enough to make my point undeniable.

“Based on what you just tried to do, I would beat you until you couldn’t speak or stand.”

The raw, murderous intent in my eyes made her shudder, her fight draining away completely.

Then, Preston’s voice cut through the silence, eerily calm.

“Let go of my mom. Or you will regret it.”

I spun around, and my blood ran cold.

Preston, with the help of the two bodyguards who had recovered and returned, had forcibly dragged Lily from the gurney.

She was being hauled by her arm across the rough floor like a rag doll, leaving a streak of angry red blood behind her. The simple gauze bandaging on her abdomen was soaked. Her small face was contorted in pain, a weak moan escaping her lips.

“Momma… it hurts…”

My heart was pierced a thousand times. Preston was five! How could he possibly be this cruel? Was he a monster?

“You little bastard! Let go of her!” I screamed, a guttural cry of pure anguish.

As I lunged, Tiffany, released from my grip, grabbed a handful of my hair from behind and yanked.

In the split second I flinched, she scrambled back to her son. She looked at Lily, crumpled and bleeding on the floor, and her eyes flashed with a hideous mix of triumph and indulgence.

“See that? This is what happens when you cross us! My son is destined for great things!”

Preston swelled with pride at his mother’s praise, a terrifying, warped smile on his face. He even kicked Lily once more with his small foot.

Tiffany pointed a demanding finger at me.

“Now, you will get on your knees and apologize! If my son ‘accidentally’ causes any more damage to the little brat, it’s all on you!”

The sight was unendurable. A depraved, entitled mother. A cruel, demonic child. They were using a critically wounded girl as leverage.

I clenched my hands, my nails digging deep into my palms. Lily was in their grasp. I had no choice.

Every fiber of my pride, every ounce of my military dignity, crumbled before the life of that child.

I slowly dropped to my knees.

“I’m sorry. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have used force.”

“Please, I beg you. Let go of the child. She will die if you don’t. Please.”

Tiffany’s face lit up with a sickening rush of pleasure at my defeat.

“Ha! Now you’re sorry? Too late!”

She ordered a bodyguard to snatch the blood bag from the nurse’s hand, then took it herself and tossed it onto the ground…

“So proud! You fought me for this trash?”

She brought her stiletto heel down on the bag, crushing it.

“No!” The nurse and I cried out simultaneously.

Tiffany watched the dark red liquid splatter across the pristine floor, her grin widening into a mask of pure evil.

“You want me to let go of this little mongrel? Fine.”

“You will strip down right here, right now! Take off that ugly uniform! Let everyone see the cheap, trashy whore you really are beneath the clothes!”

She saw me glance toward the entrance.

“What? Waiting for your other little chicken sisters to rescue you? They show up, they strip, too!”

“You don’t want to? Fine. I’ll just help the little mongrel loosen up her ground a little!”

With a grotesque laugh, her hand slowly reached for the handle of the knife still buried in Lily’s abdomen.

Without a doctor’s intervention, pulling that knife out would cause instant, massive hemorrhage. Lily would die in seconds.

“Stop! Don’t you dare!” I shrieked, all composure gone.

“I’ll strip! I’ll strip! Just don’t touch her!”

Just as my fingers touched the first button of my shirt, Tiffany’s wrist was struck by a sharp projectile. The impact made her yelp and clutch her arm, stumbling backward.

At the end of the hallway, a voice boomed—a thunderous, commanding shout.

“I’d like to see who has the guts to touch them!”