Hummingbird
Copyright© 2026 by Krista*
Chapter 1
Oakland, California.
“But she just turned ten! You can’t be serious! She’s a child!”
“I know exactly how old she is, and you too. I been supporting your lazy ass for how long now? Time to get a return on that investment. She’s young enough that if she vanished from school it’s no big deal. We say she transferred. Kids like her vanish in the system every day.”
“No! Please don’t! She’s my baby!”
“Quiet! We do this my way and it’s all okay. You keep flapping your yap and I can see about you being the star of a donkey show. Give you a little nose candy to relax you and you won’t give a damn after the first few times!”
Ysabella d’Santos lay in the narrow bed in the next room of the dreary apartment. Huddled under the blankets, she heard her mother, Monique d’Santos, argue with ‘Tio Orlando’ about the fate of her daughter. Orlando was a few steps up from being a thug in the Oakland, California, gang organization. Just shy of two years prior, he had somehow ended up with Monique as his ‘old lady’ and she had a child with her that for the most part, stayed quiet and out of the picture.
He had decided that he had enough to deal with, especially with the debacle in the central valley when Pedro Sanchez, a low level mobster, had decided to kidnap the granddaughter of his rival in Lodi. This resulted in the death of a highly respected police officer and several henchmen. Sanchez ‘vanished’ shortly thereafter and there were some power struggles to fill in the missing gaps. Orlando wanted none of that. He was happy where he was in the game, and had no desires to ruffle feathers or draw attention to himself.
However, having a child in his life created complications he didn’t want. He saw in her financial gain. She was young, pretty and a virgin. The right man would pay a lot of money for her. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. The white slave trade was very active, especially just south of the boarder. For the right price, you could have anything or anyone you wanted.
Pretty, pre-teen girls were in high demand.
“Orlando! Please! Don’t do this! She’s just a child. She doesn’t know anything about how to survive that life.” Monique had dropped to her knees to beg.
“Tough. She goes this weekend. I can make a few calls and she is gone. Then we get some cash.”
Laying in the bed, shaking in terror, Ysabella had no idea what to do.
Wednesday morning. Ysabella stood in the line that entered the school lunch room and shuffled forward. The school district had a program that fed students breakfast and lunch on a daily basis. Ysabella was grateful for the meals because there were times that this was all she was fed for the day. The server ladies were kind, and when possible, would slip her an extra piece of fruit or a small carton of milk. A quick nod of thanks and a brief smile was all she could do to express her gratitude.
“Ysabella? Is something troubling you?”
Looking up quickly at one of the ladies who worked in the school office and also helped in the lunch room, she realized she had been standing in the same spot near the door, looking around. “No. I just wanted to see and remember.” One of the survival tactics she had learned, years ago, was to speak little and say even less.
“What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing. Doesn’t matter.”
“What doesn’t matter?”
“All this,” Ysabella looked across the room and people in it. “Tio and Mama are finding me a new place to live this weekend. I can bring good money.”
The teacher was horrified at the implications of the statement. “Sweetie? Go eat and after you’re done, come to my office so we can talk more.”
“Okay.” This was just another complication in her life and Ysabella knew that she had to not say much or get into trouble. Otherwise, she would be hit again. Never in the face, but other parts of her body.
“You wanted to see me?”
Angela Margolis, one of the outreach administrators for the school district, looked over at Ysabella. The child had the same haunted and hunted look that so many children in the rough sections of the inner city had. Thin, almost to gaunt, with a tired and cautious look always lingering in her dark eyes. Each movement calculated, body tense and ready for physical violence that could range from a smack to a gunshot, ready to flee.
“Sweetie, earlier you said something about ‘bringing good money’. What did you mean?” Angela sat with Ysabella at a small table, so she didn’t intimidate her.
“Last night. Mama was arguing with Tio Orlando. He said it was time for me to live somewhere else. He said that he knew someone who will pay a lot of money to keep me. Like a pet, I think.”
‘Oh honey, if you only knew!’ Angela thought to herself.
“So this weekend I have to go. He said kids like me vanish all the time and nobody cares.” She looked at her backpack, clutched in her hands. “Mama kept begging him no, but he said he would send her away also if she didn’t be quiet.”
“Ysabella? What is it that you want? Do you want to stay with the person that this Tio Orlando finds for you? Stay with your mother? Or something else?”
“I don’t know,” a few tears trickled down the childs face. “It’s not like anyone cares. And I don’t have any place to go to or live.”
“If I can find a safe place for you, where you can live, keep going to school, and be supported, would that be something that would interest you?”
“Si. But what about Mama?”
“That I don’t know. It might be some time before you could see her again. You’re ten years old and it might be complicated. I think that you would need to be older to be with her again.”
“I guess I can manage that. But it’s not like anything will happen. Nothing good happens to people like me,” Ysabella looked down at her feet.
“Let me make a few phone calls and see what I can find out.”
The bureaucracy of the California Department of Child Protective Services is legendary for delays, and system failure. But that day, the right people within the organization saw what needed to happen, and made it do just that.
By the end of the school day, Ysabella found herself in the custody of a caring pair of social workers who brought her back to the apartment to gather clothes and personal items, as her mother sputtered about parental rights. She, as well as Orlando, found themselves presented with a court order to appear in front of a review board made up by three judges, to explain their side of the story. Based on what little was known, and what actually WAS known about the two in question, the chances of Ysabella being returned were about as remote as Orlando being elected Prime Minister of Antarctica.