“I’m with the bratty one, you two and your little arguments is cute for a while, but then it just gets fucking annoying,” Jake spoke up, grinning at me over the rim of his glass.
I held up my hand and backed away. “Quiet in the cheap seats.”
When we walked into Sugar’s store, the sounds of our laughter filled the silence and Jess, and I both instantly froze. I could hear soft sounds of crying, my feet started moving toward the back of the store, my heart beating twice as fast as it had been moments ago.
When I got to the dressing rooms, I found Sugar comforting my sister who was crying softly in her arms. I sunk to my knees at their feet and placed my hands on Emerald’s legs. “Hey,” I said quietly, rubbing my thumb soothingly across her jeans. “What’s going on?”
Sugar’s face was unreadable as she pointed to the television on the wall that we often used to play music videos or sometimes just trashy television shows, entertainment for friends who were waiting on people to try on clothes.
Right now, though, it was tuned into the national news channel.
The sound was muted, but I felt like the air had been sucked from my lungs as the pictures and video on the screen showed a very familiar place, a place I once called home.
“What the hell,” Jess spat angrily, snatching up the remote and turning up the volume.
“Mothers are storming the San Antonio courthouse today, demanding that their children be returned to them,” the reporter said, and my eyes began to grow wider. “Government agencies searched the small religious community known as the Colony, hoping to find known felon Brock Obrien. While they did not find the fugitive, what they did find was something that seemed a lot worse.”
Pictures flashed across the screen of the run down homes, some I recognized, some I didn’t, all in conditions that weren’t fit for cockroaches to be living in let alone families with children.
There were pictures of young boys, as young as maybe seven or eight, out working hard labor in the hot sun, the news anchor reporting that they would not be paid for the time they worked, that the money was being paid straight to the organization.
“Child Protective Services have removed over fifty children so far and are expecting to remove even more over the course of the next week as they make a point to visit each house, and demand to see the conditions in which these small children are expected to grow up.”
My mouth was hanging open. Jess, on the other hand, had a broad smile that reached from cheek to cheek.
I spun back to Emerald who had pulled her face back from Sugar’s shoulder and was smiling through the tears. “Someone took notice,” she said quietly, the joy on her face so much brighter than I’d ever seen before.
I nodded, feeling tears brim in my own eyes. “Those kids are going to have a chance, and we will do whatever we have to do to fight for every single one of them to not return to that hell hole, fucking ever!” I told her excitedly, grabbing her hands in mine and squeezing them tightly.
Emerald was still learning, she was always discovering new things and figuring out who she really was now that part of her identity had suddenly been lost, but she was still the little sister that I knew, and she was blossoming every single day.
The road ahead wasn’t going to be easy. I meant it when I said that we would do whatever we had to do to fight and make sure that no more children had to go through what we went through. People would try to build the Colony back up, they will fight back, but if I had to go and stand in court and attest to how I was treated as a child, so be it.
I wasn’t going to hide anymore.
They couldn’t hurt me.
My father was dead.
Abel was gone.
They would find another leader, and he could do his worst, but damn it, I knew the true meaning of family and my family would win.
Every. Single. Time.