“Get out. I’m sick of looking at you.”
The car door flew open, and the twins were shoved onto the wet pavement.
“But it’s raining,” Ethan cried. “Where do we go?”
“Not my problem.”
Their stepmother slammed the door, hit the gas, and disappeared into the storm.
Emma and Ethan huddled beneath a tree, soaked and shaking, when a pair of bright headlights cut through the rain. A sleek black car slowed beside them. The back window rolled down.
“Grandma?” Emma whispered.
And in that moment, everything changed.
Emma Parker woke in darkness to Victoria’s voice slicing through the locked bedroom door.
“Get up now, or you eat nothing today.”
Emma sat up on the thin mattress, every bone aching. The small clock beside her bed read 6:00 a.m., Wednesday, November 15.
She was twelve, but hunger had made her look smaller. Her long brown hair was tangled. Shadows lay beneath her green eyes. She reached under her mattress and pulled out the only thing that still felt like hers—her secret journal.
She opened to a blank page and wrote:
Dear Mom,
It has been 783 days since you died.
Victoria locked us in our rooms again last night at seven. Ethan cried because he was so hungry. We only had bread and water. She took our lunch money again. Dad is gone again. She bought herself new shoes. I saw the box in her closet.
I’m so tired, Mom. I don’t know how much longer we can do this.
Love, Emma.
She shoved the notebook back under the mattress just as the lock clicked.
Victoria opened the door.
She was thirty-six, always polished, always flawless, always cold.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said. “Get dressed. Come downstairs. Don’t make me wait.”
Emma crossed the hall to Ethan’s room once Victoria moved away.
Her twin stood there already dressed, too thin, biting his nails until they bled.
“She seems angry today,” he whispered.
“Stay close to me,” Emma said. “We’ll be okay.”
They went downstairs together. On the kitchen table sat two slices of dry bread and two glasses of water.
“Eat,” Victoria said. “Your father is calling in five minutes.”
They ate quickly. Emma’s stomach cramped. They had not had a real meal in days.
At school the day before, Emma had stolen an apple from the cafeteria and split it with Ethan in the bathroom hallway. That had been their only lunch.
The phone rang. Victoria answered and immediately changed her voice, turning sweet and gentle.
“Good morning, honey,” their father, Richard, said from New York. “How is everyone?”
“We’re wonderful,” Victoria said brightly. “The kids are right here eating breakfast before school.”
“Hi, Dad,” Emma said.
Victoria stood so close Emma could feel her perfume.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Richard said. “How’s school?”
“It’s fine,” Emma said.
She wanted to scream the truth. She wanted to tell him about the locks, the hunger, the fear. But Victoria’s eyes warned her: say one wrong word and you will regret it.
“Hi, Dad,” Ethan added softly.
“I miss you both,” Richard said. “I’ll be home in two weeks. We’ll do something fun.”
“That sounds great,” Emma said.
When the call ended, Victoria’s smile vanished.
“Good. You kept your mouths shut. Now get your backpacks and leave.”
Outside, rain soaked through Emma’s broken shoes during the six-block walk to Roosevelt Middle School. By lunchtime, Emma stole another apple and broke it in half for Ethan. Hidden in the hallway, he ate too fast, then began shaking.
“I can’t breathe,” he gasped.
Emma took his hands. “Look at me. Breathe with me. In… out… slow. I’m here.”
After two minutes, he calmed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I’m weak.”
“You’re not weak,” Emma said. “You’re strong. We both are.”
After school, they were surprised to see Victoria’s car waiting at the curb.
“Get in,” she said through the open window. “I’m taking you to soccer practice.”
They had no practice that day, but neither dared argue.
She drove in silence. Soon Emma noticed they were headed the wrong way.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“Shut up,” Victoria snapped.
They drove forty minutes through heavy rain, off the highway, onto narrow roads lined with trees. No houses. No stores. No people.
Victoria stopped on a deserted roadside near a forest and turned to the twins with pure hatred in her face.
“Get out.”
Emma stared at her. “What?”
“I said get out.”
Victoria yanked open Ethan’s door, dragged him by the arm, and threw him into the mud. Emma jumped out to help him up.
“Please,” Emma said. “If we did something wrong, we’re sorry. Please don’t leave us here.”
Victoria opened the trunk, flung their backpacks into the mud, and looked at them with complete disgust.
“I don’t want you anymore. You are not my children. You will never be my children. I’m tired of pretending.”
“But where will we go?” Emma asked, shaking from cold and terror.
“I don’t care.”
Ethan burst into tears. “Please! We’ll be quiet. We won’t eat anything. Please!”
Victoria laughed.
“You think I care? I only married your father for his money. You two were just in the way.”
She got back into the car.
Emma lunged for the door handle.
“Please! We don’t know where we are. We don’t have phones. Please!”
Victoria locked the doors, stared at Emma through the window with empty eyes, and drove off, splashing muddy water across her face.
Emma stood frozen in the road, watching the taillights vanish.
Behind her, Ethan collapsed into the mud and sobbed.
She dropped beside him and wrapped her arms around him while the rain pounded down.
“What do we do?” he cried. “Emma, what do we do?”
Emma didn’t know. She was twelve years old, stranded beside a forest in the dark.
But she forced herself to stand.
“We have to move. We have to find help.”
They picked up their muddy backpacks and started walking.
Five minutes passed. Then ten. No cars. Only trees and rain and cold so deep Ethan said he couldn’t feel his fingers.
Then headlights appeared behind them.
A large black car slowed and stopped.
The rear window lowered, revealing an older woman with silver hair, a tailored coat, and piercing blue eyes Emma recognized from old photographs.
“Grandma,” Emma whispered.
