For years, my stepfather kept my twin sister and me living in constant fear, as though our suffering was the only thing that satisfied him. One night, after beating us until we both lost consciousness, he carried us into the emergency room while my mother quietly told the doctors, “They just fell down the stairs.”

I barely reached him before something heavy crashed into the side of my head.

The room spun violently around me.

Then everything disappeared.

When I opened my eyes again, harsh fluorescent lights filled my vision. The smell of antiseptic reached me before I even realized where I was. Turning my head, I found Chloe lying unconscious in the hospital bed beside mine, her arms covered in dark bruises while every shallow breath sounded painfully forced.

Across the room, Edric calmly washed his hands at the sink as though he had simply finished another ordinary day. Our mother stood beside him clutching her designer handbag when an emergency physician entered carrying a clipboard.

“I’m Dr. Marcus Cooper.”

His eyes moved from me to Chloe before settling on the bruises covering both of us.

“What happened?”

Before either of us could answer, our mother spoke.

“They fell down the stairs.”

Dr. Cooper didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he carefully examined the injuries on my arms before repeating the same examination with Chloe. Fresh bruises overlapped older ones that had already begun healing, and the patterns on both of us were almost identical.