The silence that settled over the administrative courtyard of Shanti Sadan Orphanage after the heavy iron gates slammed shut was not an ordinary quiet; it was a suffocating, physical weight that pressed down upon the earth.

Six-year-old Khwahish remained on her knees in the damp dirt just inside the rusted perimeter. Her tiny frame shuddered with silent, dry hitches of her chest, her dark hair falling in tangled, unwashed strands over her face to obscure the fresh, dark purple scar that slashed diagonally across her left eyebrow and brown cheek. The gravel had bitten deep into her bare knees, leaving small red indentations that slowly trickled thin beads of blood, but she felt no physical pain. Her entire world had just been loaded into the back seat of a dark-windowed white sedan and driven away down the dusty winding road toward an airport she could not even comprehend.