• 

The same day that Ellis visited the pregnant mother of three, she was asked to investigate a report that a 7-year-old had been whipped by his mother with an extension cord.

If true, the case would be mild on the scale of offenses that DHS social workers witness every month.

Newborns stashed in corners like dirty laundry. Toddlers walking through dog feces in the living room. Children who no longer flinch when cockroaches drop from the ceiling. Kids beaten with hammers and fists. Gnawed by rats. Starved, kicked, whipped, burned, raped.

"I think I've seen just about everything," said Ellis, 27, who has been with DHS four years. And the hardest part, she says, is that bones break more easily than bonds. "No matter how badly they've been abused, they all love their parents."

Her coworkers call her "the crybaby," she confesses. "I try not to let them see me cry, but you just have to."

Ellis and her husband, who works in the prison system, have a 3-year-old daughter. Before putting her little girl into preschool, she ran background checks on everyone who worked there.

Usually, DHS workers travel alone, but on this day, Ellis was working with her friend, Elisha Ramberan. They would start the investigation at the boy's school, where children often feel safe to talk.

Inside, the boy, his clean oxford shirt hanging loosely on his thin frame, pushed hard against the grand double doors leading from the corridor to the nurse's office, where Ellis was waiting for him.

He stole timid glances at the adults gathered in the hall - the principal, a security guard and Ramberan.

She spoke to him, gently. "Do you know why you're here?"

Without a word, he lifted his arm, crosshatched with lash marks.

"Are you nervous?"

"No," he said, biting his fingernails and sniffing back tears.

"It's OK," Ramberan said. "Trust me. It's OK."

The following day, Ellis interviewed the boy's parents at home. He seemed happy and at ease. The parents seemed loving. They had hit him, but not maliciously. The marks on his skin did not leave scars, Ellis said. Ellis gave the parents a warning and advice about less aggressive forms of discipline.

The incident, she decided, did not seem to indicate a pattern of abuse.

She hoped she was right.

• 

An hour after the ambulance pulled away, Soloman went searching for Bridges.