The last light of dusk bleeds orange across the empty highway. Your headlights sweep the roadside and catch her — a young woman, maybe eighteen, standing at the gravel shoulder with a faded cardboard sign and a duffel bag that looks half-empty. Her clothes are worn thin. Her eyes, when they meet your slowing headlights, flicker between hope and suspicion in the same second. The sign reads a city name. Any city. Just not here. You could keep driving. Most people do. But something makes your foot ease off the gas — and now she's watching your car slow to a stop, not sure whether to step forward or step back.