Chapter 2
They listed me as a major suspect and threw me in a detention cell.
The people locked up with me were a bunch of young women who'd gotten arrested for fighting and causing trouble.
They looked at me with disgust and contempt written all over their faces.
"Hey, newbie, what'd you do to end up in here?" A girl with bleached yellow hair kicked at me with her foot.
I curled up in the corner and didn't say anything.
"Oh, acting tough, are we?" The short-haired girl next to the blonde stood up and grabbed my hair, dragging me to the center of the cell.
"I heard she's a human trafficker, the kind that goes after little girls."
"I hate people like that more than anything! My little cousin almost got abducted by traffickers when she was small."
"Let's teach her a lesson!"
Their fists and slaps rained down on me like a storm.
I didn't fight back, and I didn't call for help. After 10 years in those mountains, I'd gotten used to this kind of treatment.
The man who'd bought me would beat me whenever he got drunk. If I didn't listen to him, he'd beat me. If I tried to run away, he'd beat me even harder. This pain was nothing compared to what I'd already been through.
The only difference was that something inside my heart had finally died completely.
I didn't know how much time passed before the cell door opened.
A young police officer walked in, the same one who'd stayed quiet during my interrogation.
His name was David Brooks.
"Stop it! All of you!" He shouted at the group of girls to back off, then walked over to me and crouched down. "Can you still walk?"
I braced myself against the floor and slowly stood up.
He took off his police jacket and draped it over my thin shoulders, covering up my torn clothes and all the bruises on my body.
"Come with me."
He took me to the medical room, and while the doctor was treating my wounds, he stood there the whole time watching.
"Why didn't you fight back?" he suddenly asked.
I didn't look at him. I just stared at my arm as the doctor applied medicine to it.
"I'm used to it," I whispered.
"Used to it?"
"Yeah."
After the doctor finished patching me up, David handed me a cup of warm water and a piece of bread.
"Eat something first."
I took them from him and wolfed everything down. I hadn't eaten anything in a day and a night.
"Your name is Emily?" he asked again.
I nodded.
"Sophie is your twin sister?"
I nodded again.
"She's saying that you were jealous of her, so you got human traffickers to abduct her. Then you took over her identity and tried to steal everything that belonged to her."
David's voice stayed calm and even, like he was just stating facts.
I stopped chewing my bread and looked up at him. "Do you believe her?"
He didn't answer my question. Instead, he asked me one of his own. "Why are your hands so rough?"
I looked down at my hands. They didn't look anything like the hands of a 19-year-old girl.
My knuckles were thick and swollen, covered in calluses and cracks, and there were several deep old scars that had cut right down to the bone.
Those were the marks left behind from 10 years of chopping wood, working the fields, feeding pigs, and cooking meals.
"In the mountains, I had to do every kind of work there was," I said quietly.
"Sophie's hands are smooth and soft. They don't look anything like the hands of someone who spent 10 years in the mountains."
David looked at me with sharp, piercing eyes. "Her body doesn't have any signs of long-term physical labor either. But you? You've got new injuries and old scars, more than anyone could even count."
My heart felt like someone had gently lifted it up with their hand.
This was the first time in 10 years that anyone had noticed my injuries.
"I need evidence," he said. "If what you're saying is true, I'll help you."
I looked at him, and suddenly, my eyes started burning with tears.
From the moment I escaped until now, he was the first person who'd been willing to believe me.
"Thank you." My voice trembled slightly.
"But I don't have any evidence."
My only family member—my own mother—had accused me of being a human trafficker with her own mouth. What other evidence could I possibly have?
*****
Over the next few days, David didn't come back to see me.
Life in the detention center returned to its quiet routine, and those girls probably got warned by someone because they stopped bothering me.
Every day, I sat by the window and stared at that tiny square patch of sky.
On TV, there were wall-to-wall news stories about "the brave girl Sophie who'd been abducted for 10 years and finally made it home."
Jessica and Sophie became the media's favorite story.
In front of the cameras, Jessica cried her heart out and talked about the crimes of human traffickers and described all the hardship she'd gone through searching for her daughter for 10 years.
"I lived with guilt and pain every single day. I wish they'd taken me instead..."
Sophie played the part of a frightened little rabbit, hiding in Jessica's arms and crying beautifully for the cameras.
"I missed my mom so much, every single day. It was my mother's love that gave me the strength to escape..."
Their story touched countless people's hearts, and sympathy and donations poured in like snow.
They became the "heroic mother" and the "poor victim."
And me? I was the evil human trafficker hiding in the shadows that everyone cursed and spat on.