I dropped my son off like I always did—until his teacher pulled me aside and whispered, “Don’t leave yet.” My stomach sank when I heard my baby screaming from a locked room.

She didn’t answer.

That silence said enough.

At last, she unlocked the computer and pulled up the recordings.

She didn’t turn the screen toward me—kept it angled away like it might contaminate the room.

I stepped closer anyway.

And my stomach dropped.

It wasn’t isolated.

It was repeated.

Day after day.

Child after child.

And my son—small, shaking—being dragged toward that locked door while the same caregiver laughed and warned, “Stop crying, or you’ll go back in.”

Something inside me hardened.

I looked down at Miles, his eyes searching my face.