Chapter 3
Sarah’s mouth fell open.
For once, no sound came out.
Mr. Alvarez held the tablet like it was something sacred.
“I didn’t understand why he asked me to keep it,” he told the officers. “He said if his kids ever came running, I should check the garage feed.”
One officer took the tablet.
The other moved toward Sarah.
She stepped back.
“No. That’s private property.”
The officer looked at the screen.
His face hardened.
“Ma’am, put your hands where I can see them.”
Sarah’s mask cracked.
“I was disciplining them.”
Ethan shook against me.
“You tied me up.”
“You broke my mother’s vase.”
“It fell when you shoved me!”
I wrapped both arms around him.
The officer turned to Sarah.
“You need to come with us.”
She laughed.
“You don’t know what you’re doing. Their father was not the man everyone thinks.”
Mr. Alvarez went still.
I saw it.
A flicker.
A secret.
“What does she mean?” I asked him.
He looked away.
Sarah smiled.
“There it is. Ask your sweet old neighbor why your father put cameras everywhere.”
“Stop talking,” the officer said.
But Sarah looked at me.
“Ask him what your father was afraid I’d find.”
They cuffed her.
She kept staring at me as they walked her out.
Not defeated.
Promising.
Ethan was taken to the hospital.
I rode in the ambulance with him.
He sat wrapped in warm blankets, his small hand gripping mine.
His lips slowly turned pink again.
A paramedic checked his temperature.
“You’re safe now,” she told him.
But he looked at me.
Not her.
“Is Sarah coming back?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
I wanted to say yes.
I wanted to make the word strong enough to become a wall.
But I had just learned adults lied when they were scared.
So I said the truth.
“I will fight until she can’t.”
He nodded.
That was enough for him.
For now.
At the hospital, a doctor documented bruises on his wrists.
Cold exposure.
Rope marks.
An older bruise on his shoulder.
A small cut on his lip.
Each discovery landed inside me like a stone.
“How long?” I asked Ethan when the doctor left.
He looked at the blanket.
“Since after Dad died.”
My heart cracked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“She said they’d send us to separate homes if I did.”
I closed my eyes.
Sarah had known exactly where to press.
Our mother died when I was eight.
Dad died when I was sixteen.
Ethan was all I had left.
And I was all he had.
“She said you’d hate me,” he whispered.
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“She said if you knew how much trouble I caused, you’d leave too.”
I pulled him into my arms.
“I could never hate you.”
“But Dad left.”
The words were so small I almost missed them.
I held him tighter.
“Dad didn’t leave on purpose.”
Ethan didn’t answer.
Because now neither of us knew what was true.
That night, Child Protective Services came.
A woman named Nora Fields sat across from me in the hospital waiting room.
She had kind eyes and a tired voice.
“You’re seventeen?”
“Yes.”
“And no adult relatives nearby?”
“My aunt lives in Oregon. We haven’t seen her in years.”
“What about Sarah?”
I stared at her.
“No.”
Nora nodded.
“We’re not placing Ethan with her.”
Relief hit so hard I nearly cried.
“But you are still a minor,” she continued. “We need emergency guardianship arrangements.”
“I can take care of him.”
“I believe you want to.”
“I already do.”
She studied me.
“Olivia, tonight was serious. We need safe adults involved.”
I hated that she was right.
Mr. Alvarez arrived at the hospital after midnight.
He brought my backpack, Ethan’s favorite hoodie, and a folder.
A thick one.
“I found this in the package your father gave me,” he said quietly.
My hand hovered over it.
“What is it?”
His eyes were wet.
“Things he wanted you to have if Sarah ever hurt either of you.”
I opened the folder.
Inside were printed bank records.
Medical reports.
Photographs of broken locks.
A copy of Dad’s will.
And a letter in his handwriting.
Pumpkin,
If you are reading this, then I failed to get you and Ethan away from Sarah in time.
I’m sorry.
My breath stopped.
Ethan whispered, “Liv?”
I turned the page.
May you like
The next sentence made my hands go numb.
Sarah is not who she says she is.
