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’m here.

For the first time since Edric entered our lives, neither of us was afraid anymore.

Part 2: Eighty-Seven Nights of Evidence

The smile on Chloe’s face caught Edric completely off guard. For years, he had relied on fear to control every person inside our house, and seeing my sister look at him without the slightest trace of it unsettled him more than any argument ever could. He frowned, tightened his jaw, and searched her face for the panic he expected to find.

“What are you smiling at?”

Chloe simply tightened her fingers around mine before looking toward the locked examination-room door.

“You’ll find out.”

For the first time since he entered our lives, I watched uncertainty replace Edric’s usual confidence. The feeling lasted only a moment, but it was enough to remind me that he didn’t know the truth we had been hiding for months.