Danny's Promise

Danny Santos's POV

Danny Santos woke up screaming.

"It's okay, mijo! It's okay!" His mother rushed into the hospital room, grabbing his hand. "You're safe now. You're safe."

Danny looked around wildly. White walls. Clean sheets. His little sister Maria sleeping in a chair by the window. Not the warehouse. Not tied to a chair with a gun pointed at his face.

"How long was I asleep?" Danny asked, his throat dry.

"Two days," Mama said, tears in her eyes. "The doctors gave you medicine to help you rest. You were so scared, Danny. So scared."

Danny remembered everything. The kidnapping. Judge Brennan's cold smile. The gun. Jake and Maya saving his life just in time.

"Where's Tommy?" Danny asked suddenly. "Is he okay? Jennifer Morrison got shot and—"

"Tommy's alive," Mama interrupted gently. "But he's in surgery. Dale Morrison shot him in the shoulder before the police arrested Dale. The doctors say Tommy will be fine."

Danny felt relief wash over him. Tommy had become his friend through all this craziness. They'd both been framed by the same evil people.

A knock on the door made Danny jump.

Maya Chen walked in, carrying her notebook and a sad smile. "Hey, hero. How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a truck," Danny admitted.

"You kind of did," Maya said. "But your bravery helped us catch the bad guys. Your testimony is going to put them in prison forever."

"Good," Danny said. Then he remembered something important. "Maya, the photos on my phone! The pictures I took of the trucks dumping barrels behind the factory—did the police find them?"

Maya's smile faded. "Danny, your phone was destroyed in the warehouse fire. We don't have those pictures anymore."

Danny's heart sank. Those photos were proof of the poisoning. Without them, how could they prove what the criminals had done?

"But," Maya continued, pulling out her own phone, "you can tell me exactly what you saw. Every detail. We'll find those barrels and prove everything."

So Danny told her. He described the white trucks with no license plates. The men in protective suits. The barrels marked with skull symbols being dumped into the ground behind the factory.

"I counted twenty barrels that night," Danny said. "Maybe more. They were burying them in a big hole."

Maya wrote everything down, her pen flying across the pages. "This is perfect, Danny. The EPA—that's the Environmental Protection Agency—they're investigating the whole town now. Your testimony will help them know where to dig."

Over the next week, Danny watched from his hospital bed as Millbrook exploded with activity. Government scientists came to town with special equipment. They dug up the ground behind the burned factory and found exactly what Danny had described—dozens of barrels full of toxic chemicals.

"This is worse than we thought," Jake Morrison told Danny during a visit. "Those chemicals have been leaking into Millbrook's water supply for years. The EPA says hundreds of people might be sick because of it."

Danny felt anger building in his chest. "My papa died of cancer three years ago. The doctors said they didn't know why. But we drank that water every day."

Jake's face grew serious. "I'm sorry, Danny. I'm so sorry. But because of you, we're going to make them pay for what they did. Every family that got hurt is going to get compensation—money to help with medical bills and everything else."

The day Danny finally left the hospital, reporters were waiting outside. Cameras flashed in his face as people shouted questions.

"Danny! How does it feel to be a hero?"

"Danny! Are you scared of revenge from the criminals?"

"Danny! What do you want to say to the families who were poisoned?"

Maya stepped in front of the cameras, protecting Danny. "He's just a kid who did the right thing. Give him space."

But Danny surprised everyone by stepping forward.

"I want to say something," he announced, his voice shaking but strong.

The cameras turned to him. His mother squeezed his hand for courage.

"I'm not a hero," Danny said. "I'm just a kid who saw something wrong and tried to tell the truth. But the adults who were supposed to protect us—the judge, the sheriff, the mayor—they tried to silence me. They tried to kill me just to keep their secrets."

He took a deep breath. "My papa died drinking poisoned water. Sarah Martinez died because she found out the truth. Tommy Whitfield almost went to prison for a murder he didn't do. All because powerful people cared more about money than people's lives."

Danny looked directly into the cameras. "I'm going to become a journalist like Maya Chen. I'm going to make sure the truth always comes out. I'm going to protect my community so this never happens again."

The reporters erupted with more questions, but Maya guided Danny to his mother's car.

That night, Danny couldn't sleep. He kept thinking about the barrels, the poisoned water, all the families who were sick. The EPA had found twenty barrels, just like he'd remembered.

But something bothered him.

Danny grabbed his notebook and started drawing a map from memory. The factory. The hole where they'd dumped the barrels. The trees nearby.

His hand froze.

In his mind, he saw that night again. The trucks coming and going. The men in protective suits working for hours.

Twenty barrels going into the hole behind the factory.

But Danny had counted the trucks. There had been six trucks. Each truck carried at least ten barrels.

That meant sixty barrels total.

If only twenty were buried behind the factory, where were the other forty?

Danny's blood ran cold.

The EPA had stopped digging. Everyone thought they'd found all the poison. But there were forty more barrels somewhere in Millbrook, still leaking into the ground, still poisoning people.

Danny reached for his phone to call Maya, but before he could dial, his window exploded inward.

A brick crashed onto his bed with a note attached.

Danny's hands shook as he read the message written in red marker:

"STOP ASKING QUESTIONS OR YOUR LITTLE SISTER IS NEXT."