At 2:03 a.m., someone began hammering on my front door so violently I thought the frame might crack. I was already half awake from the rain rattling against my bedroom window, and for a brief, disoriented second I wondered if a branch had broken loose in the storm. Then I heard my name.crsaid

“Emily! Emily, please!”

It was my sister.

I ran barefoot down the hallway, tore the lock open, and found Sarah slumped against the porch railing as if she’d been left there. Her blond hair was soaked dark with rain, one side of her lip was split, and her right arm was wrapped tightly across her ribs. When she looked up at me, her expression was wild, hunted—nothing like I had ever seen before.

“Help me,” she whispered, and then she collapsed into my arms.

Sarah was twenty-nine—stubborn, sharp, and usually the strongest presence in any room. Feeling her go limp against me sent a chill through my body. I pulled her inside, kicking the door shut behind us, and lowered her onto the living room rug. She cried out the instant her side touched the floor.

“I think—” She sucked in a breath, wincing. “I think my rib is broken.”

My phone buzzed in my robe pocket. I almost ignored it, but when I pulled it out and saw Mom’s name on the screen, something tightened in my stomach.

The message read: Don’t help that cripple. She’s a traitor.

I stared at the words until they blurred.

Cripple.

Traitor.

About her own daughter.

I looked down at Sarah, shivering on my floor, struggling to breathe through the pain. “What happened?” I asked.

She grabbed my wrist with surprising force. “Don’t answer Mom. Don’t tell her I’m here.”

That frightened me more than the blood on her mouth.

I helped Sarah onto the couch and wrapped her in two blankets. Every movement made her flinch. I brought ice, water, and my old first-aid kit, though it felt useless against the way her body curled inward like it had learned pain too well. She kept glancing toward the window, jumping at every set of headlights that passed.