“She’s delusional,” Lydia sobbed, clutching her belly. “You see what I have to deal with? She has these psychotic breaks. I’ve been trying to handle it in-house to protect her future, but she needs to be in a facility, officers.

She’s a danger to my babies.”

I looked at the notebook again. The edges near the spiral binding were jagged. Pages had been ripped out.

She had removed every page of documented abuse and spent the morning forging my handwriting on what was left, to frame me as a homicidal threat to my own siblings.

She was going to have me locked in a psychiatric ward. And she was going to use my own stolen sanctuary to do it.

Officer Davis unclipped the handcuffs from her belt. The metallic clink was the loudest sound I had ever heard.