Chapter 2
The next morning, Emily was jolted awake by the commotion of crying and shouting coming from downstairs.
She quietly crept to the top of the stairs and heard Rachel's voice, thick with tears.
"Where are my real parents now?" Rachel asked.
There was a heavy silence downstairs.
After a long pause, William finally spoke, his voice heavy.
He said, "Rachel, they've been convicted of human trafficking and abuse."
Rachel asked, "Human trafficking? Abuse?
"So does that mean I'm the child of human traffickers?"
Olivia quickly said, "Don't be afraid. With us around, nobody's going to say anything."
Rachel choked out, "But now that Emily's been brought back into the family, people will start talking about where I really come from. Mom, Dad, what if they find out... I'm scared..."
Right then, Alex's voice cut in.
He said, "Let Emily explain it. Her foster parents weren't human traffickers, and it wasn't abuse. They just wanted to find her a husband and hit her a couple of times.
"Every woman gets married, right? Every parent has to correct their kid sometimes, right? They were just trying to help her out, and what does she do? She turns around and betrays them."
Olivia hesitated.
She said, "Isn't asking Emily to deny all that a bit unfair to her? That kid's already suffered so much."
"Unfair? How is it unfair?" Alex shot back, sounding totally convinced. He said, "They raised her for sixteen years, and she never showed any gratitude. She even turned them in and got them locked up.
"Honestly, she's just after a better life. She came back just to take Rachel's spot. Now that she's got what she wanted, shouldn't she do something to make it up to Rachel?"
"But..." Olivia still hesitated, her voice trailing off.
"We'll do it Alex's way. We'll make it up to Emily later," William said, making the final call.
Emily never expected anything from them, but the way they twisted everything still set her blood boiling.
They recast her suffering as the bastards' kindness, her resistance as betrayal, and even her return to her rightful place as stealing Rachel's identity.
She'd laid her whole past bare for them, but not one of her so-called family even cared.
Instead, they were siding with those bastards who abused her.
If they were so eager to defend those bastards, then they shouldn't blame her for turning cold as ice.
Emily slipped back into her room, silent as a shadow, and dug out something wrapped in layers of plastic bags from her battered backpack.
Inside was a diary and a worn-out phone.
The diary chronicled every cruel thing her foster parents had done to her.
The phone had recordings of them, drunk and bragging about how they'd swapped the kids.
Emily cracked open the diary, and the first page was covered in messy, shaky handwriting.
It read: [I didn't get enough to eat again today. I snuck half a bun, and Mom whacked my hand with a rolling pin. Why do other kids always have food, but I'm always starving?]
As she flipped through, her handwriting grew steadier, but the stories she recorded only got more disturbing.
One read: [March 2, 2015. I broke a bowl, so they forced me onto broken glass. My knees ended up bloody.]
Another read: [August 15, 2017. I had a fever of 102°F, but they said I was faking and shut me in the woodshed.]
A third diary read: [November 30, 2020. They were plotting to sell me off to some old bachelor for 15 thousand.]
Emily's hands shook as she powered up the old phone. To her surprise, it still had half its battery left.
She tapped on the audio files, and the latest recording was two hours and forty-seven minutes long.
It was from two months ago, a night when her foster parents were dead drunk.
Emily had hidden in the corner and hit record.
"That wretched girl is starting to look more and more like her real mother," her foster mom, Lily, slurred drunkenly.
Her foster dad, Ethan, said, "If we hadn't swapped the kids at the hospital back then, our daughter Rachel would never have had it this good."
Lily said, "Totally worth it. We traded that useless brat so our real girl could live in the lap of luxury."
Ethan plotted, "Once she hits sixteen, we'll sell her off to some old guy and score some cash. Then Rachel can live like a princess forever."
Emily shut off the recording, her nails biting deep into her palm, leaving angry crescent marks.