I radioed the captain and explained everything. Shocked, he alerted the ground crew and security. As we landed, the plane was surrounded. I stayed by Ben’s side, holding his hand tightly. He looked at me with fear in his eyes. “Don’t leave me,” he whispered.
A woman from child services, Lily, arrived. She knelt down and spoke gently, but Ben clung to me. “They’re gone. I don’t have a home,” he told her. Lily’s eyes welled up. Later, she told me the orphanage he escaped from wasn’t safe—he’d been right to run.
They placed him in temporary care, but Lily warned me: kids like Ben often get lost in the system. I looked at him sleeping on a chair, clutching his paper bag, and I knew—I couldn’t let that happen. I walked over and knelt beside him. “Ben… would you like to come home with me?”
His face lit up. “You want me?” he asked, voice shaking. “I do,” I said, holding back tears. That night, I took him home. And months later, I adopted him. He may not have been on the passenger list—but now, he’s the most important person in my life. We found each other in the sky.