The Lost Sister

“I know what I saw.” 

He jots down notes in his notebook. I don’t need to see his notes to know that he’s calling me ill. Everyone thinks that I’m just making it up. But they weren’t there. They didn’t see the blood on my hands. They didn’t see the trail of footprints. And they didn’t hear the bloodretching scream.

“Tina, your sister is dead. We’ve looked everywhere.”

I pull a picture out of my sleeveless jacket . I show him the picture of my little sister. “Look again.”

He sighs and pushes the picture back to me. “Let’s talk about something else.” Don’t say it. “Let’s talk about how you're our main suspect.”

Yeah, my next choice could’ve been thought through better. I was left in the interrogation room alone as he walked out to go wipe the stinging hot coffee off of him. I drum on the table as I look around the dark room. 

This is ridiculous. I could be looking for Evelyn right now. 

If I was in a room with windows then I could easily get out. My dad taught me how to escape through everything. He was an escapologist after all. I would always love going to his performances as a little girl. It’s a shame that he doesn’t do any of that anymore.

He quit the day Evelyn disappeared. My mom also stopped working but she stopped working because she got fired. After Evelyn disappeared, my little brother—Evelyn’s twin—ran away and we haven’t seen him for weeks. My mom went into a state of depression and she could barely move. Her manager fired her because she was unable to do anything. 

I kind of lost it on her manager. I mean what would you do if you just lost your daughter and your son—not to mention that the only lead on your daughter is death, and then still had to go to work, acting like everything was normal?

I can’t tell you what I did but I can say that it was worse than some hot coffee. 

A few minutes later, the guy comes back into the room with a new shirt. Honestly, if I interrogated so-called criminals as a job I would bring extra clothes too.

“So, we ran another test and I can for sure tell you that she is dead.” 

Before he can sit down, I immediately begin to talk. “Loo—”

He hands me the files. “We searched the whole woods, Tina. We found her body.”

I shake my head. “You found her hand.”

He opens up the file and shows me a picture of the body of a little girl. “We found more than just her hand.”

I shake my head, looking up at him. “That’s not my little sister.”

He turns the page. “The fingerprint match says otherwise.”

I stare at the match. 

This doesn’t make any sense. I saw her footprints.

His next words ring in my head.

“What needs to be discussed is why the blood was on your hands before anyone even knew that she was missing.”

It takes me a second to look up at him, but when I do my eyes are stinging. “I don’t know what data you got but that is not Evelyn Harst. That is not my little sister.”

He didn’t believe me.

I’m sitting on the floor of a gloomy cell. They threw me in here even though I pleaded innocent. They threw me in here even though the body they found isn’t my sister. I will say I am acting like a prisoner, though. All I can think about is how to escape my cell, and quickly. I need to go back to the woods so that I can find out where her footprints end. 

As I stared at the metal bars of the cell I remembered something that my father once taught me. ‘A hairpin can be used for more than just hair.’ I pull out a hairpin from my hair and then I check the area for any guards. Once I see that it is clear, I then pry open my hairpin. I insert it into the keyhole and twist it. I get the cell unlocked after a few seconds of messing with it. Now, it’s just a matter of getting out of the prison. I tiptoe across the halls, sneaking past several delinquents. Thankfully, everyone here is a teenager and we all couldn’t care less if someone sneaks out. 

As I walk I look around the ceiling to look out for any cameras. I notice one up on the ceiling and quickly run over to the other side of the wall. I scale the wall to get past the first one. I can’t smash any of them because I’ll make the guards suspicious if I do. 

I have an eidetic memory and so I’m able to find the way out pretty fast. However, what I forgot to take into account is the fact that Juvie is just like a regular prison. There’s a whole big gate around the place. 

I know that I can’t climb it because the bars would be too slippery, not to mention the electric fence in front of them. I can’t jump over it because it’s too tall. I stand there, thinking and then that’s when I notice two familiar figures approaching the gate. The guards let them in and I soon start to see that they are my grandparents. They probably came to bail me out. It’s a real shame that I just upped the price for them. 

I wait in my cell, with handcuffs on this time, as my grandparents talk to the officers. My grandparents are wealthy and I’m also my grandmother’s favorite and so I have no doubt that they won’t bail me out. 

Not to mention the fact that her and my dad are the only ones who believe me about Evelyn.

My mom wants to believe me, she’s just lost all her hope. I look up as the guards begin to open my cell. 

“Alright, Tina. You’re free to go.”

They remove my handcuffs and then I’m free. I leave with my grandparents.

This isn’t the end of the story though.

I will find Evelyn. And then I’ll even find Ethan.