“You know I didn’t hurt you, right?”
She trembled.
She pointed at Mark.
She started crying.
“See! She wants to be with me! Get out!”
Mark dragged me out of the house.
I was forced to the courthouse.
The clerk approved the divorce.
I had to wait a month.
I was thrown out on the street.
This time, I wasn’t hurt as badly.
I had made preparations.
I wasn’t homeless.
I went to the hospital.
I patched myself up.
I checked into a hotel.
I turned on my phone.
What I saw made my blood run cold.
His mother was feeding Lily.
She was shoving hot cereal into her mouth.
Lily choked.
Her mouth was covered in blisters.
She couldn’t speak.
His mother was impatient.
She forced the spoon into her mouth.
“Why won’t this brat die?!”
“We set up the car accident! How did she
make it to the hospital?!”
His father looked angry.
L
The kindness was gone.
“If it wasn’t for her meddling mom, she’d be
dead!”
“A bastard with a different father! I can’t
believe you fell for it!”
“I told you to divorce her! You could have brought Vivian over! Now we have this mess!”
Mark snapped.
“Vivian’s dad is a big shot! If she didn’t want
another baby, I wouldn’t be doing this! But
Jennifer was so messed up, what else could I
do?”
His parents nodded.
“Yeah, it’s her turn to pay you back! Vivian’s
carrying a boy. You need to marry her!”
“I was stupid back then. I wanted to save
Jennifer from ruin.”
Mark was proud.
“Vivian’s dad trusts me. She loves me. I’m set
for life! Her dad is rich!”
“Lily is crippled. She’s no threat to her baby.”
I was shaking.
I recorded everything.
It was them.
All along
く
They had found someone richer.
They wanted Lily dead.
They wanted me gone.
Why?
He could have told me.
I would have taken Lily and left.
Why did they want me in hell?
What did they do to make Lily lie like that?
I was trembling.
His mother asked the same question.
L
“Isn’t it dangerous to leave Lily here? What if
she tells someone we threatened her?”
“No. As long as Jennifer is alive, she won’t
betray us.”
Mark’s eyes narrowed.
He looked at Lily.
“You’re a good girl, Lily. You know what you
can say and what you can’t, right?”
“If you say the wrong thing, your mom will
die.”
Lily nodded, tears in her eyes.
My heart shattered.
<
That’s why she was acting.
She was trying to save me.
I couldn’t breathe.
I slapped myself.
I was doubting my own daughter!
She was the kindest, most loving person I
knew!
My fingernails dug into my skin.
The pain helped me think.
Mark, Mom, and Dad.
I would send you to hell myself.
<
I went to the police station.
I showed them the video.
The police were furious.
They asked how I got the video.
There were no cameras in my house.
I told them I’d snuck a camera on Lily when I
visited.
It was a tiny camera.
It looked like a flower pin.
Lily loved it.
く
They would never notice.
They had confessed everything.
The police went to arrest them.
They were shocked to see me.
“Jennifer! What are you doing here? Haven’t
you done enough?”
His parents screamed at me.
Mark tried to attack me.
“You bitch! Trying to hurt us?!
“Officers, she’s crazy. Don’t believe her!”
I laughed.
L
I played the video.
His parents froze.
Mark turned pale.
“No… how could you have recorded that…”
I told them about the camera.
Lily was crippled.
But she could still move her hands.
She had no tongue.
But she could still see and feel.
She knew I was trying to help her.
く
Like the note she had slipped me when the
kidnapper had left.
We were connected.
I begged the police to interrogate them.
I wanted them to pay for what they did to Lily.
They were questioned in separate rooms.
Lily was taken to an office.
She started crying when she saw me.
I held her and cried.
“You’re so good! Why didn’t you tell me?”
She snook ner nead.
She was scared.
I gave her a pen and paper.
She wrote.
“They said they’d kill Mom if I didn’t…”
“I didn’t want you to get hurt…”
I cried harder.
She was only six!
She didn’t even know how to write.
But she was trying to protect me.
She didn’t understand everything.
But she knew she loved her mother.
She was trying to take on the world.
I was falling apart.
The cops were angry.
“They’re not human!”
“A bunch of animals!”
Mark and his parents confessed.
They each had a different story.
They were lying.
<
They found phone records.
They found a phone number.
They found old deleted texts.
They found messages from his father to his
mother.
He had told her to signal the kidnapper.
The police found the kidnapper.
He was trying to leave the state.
He wouldn’t say he kidnapped her.
all
“The old lady told me to wait outside the
hospital, take her, cut off her legs, cut out her
tongue, and dump her.‘
<
I wanted to kill him.
They arrested him.
They started looking at the video I recorded,
frame by frame.
