Just in case you missed the note above, this is a non-canon chapter!

Four Years Ago

Something strange was going on, Irelyn knew that much. Sure, on the surface, it probably didn't seem that strange for her parents to adopt a new child. After all, she had turned out to be such a disappointment for her father that it was obvious he would want a do-over. And he had even gone and picked out an older girl, rather than a baby. He didn't have to deal with all that early toddler and infant stuff, yet she was still young enough to be molded into what he wanted. Maybe just a little bit older than what would have been ideal in his mind for that, but still. All in all, it seemed perfectly understandable from that point of view. And yet, she still couldn't shake the feeling that there was something very strange and wrong about the whole thing. Something bad.

She had tried to ignore that feeling, doing her best to simply reach out to be a listening ear for anything her new sister wanted to talk about. But Paige didn't seem interested in that. Irelyn wasn't sure if that was just because their father had poisoned her mind against her to make sure she couldn’t ‘corrupt’ her new sister, or if there was some other reason. She didn't want to give up, but she didn't want to push too hard either. Yet there might be another reason that Paige didn't want to open up. There might be more to her past, someone that an older female figure like Irelyn was reminding her of. Part of her knew it wasn't really her business. But if this had something to do with her family, or if there was anything she could do to help, she wanted to try. If it turned out to be something personal she shouldn't know, she would put it down and walk away.

Of course, that required actually having something to put down in the first place. Trying to get more information about Paige had caused her to run into dead end after dead end. She couldn’t find anyone within the girl's supposed adoption file. The names all led nowhere, or they were simply too redacted to identify. Which only increased her curiosity, naturally. So far, six months or so after starting this work, Irelyn had been able to determine that the agency her parents had worked with for the adoption was fake. The doctors and nurses who supposedly delivered the girl didn’t exist. Neither did her birth parents. Worse, she was pretty sure the same single person had written the signatures for both supposed parents. She’d used a handwriting analysis tool back at Conservators headquarters one night when no one else was around, and it agreed.

So what was going on here? Her parents hadn’t kidnapped this poor girl, had they? No, no surely not. They wouldn't need to. But maybe they had wanted to get a new daughter so badly that they had simply side-stepped the actual system and paid to have that whole thing accelerated, legally speaking. Maybe there was something else hinky about Paige’s past. Had she been abducted by others and forced into this? The whole fake paperwork thing was certainly evidence that her standoffishness was not just a normal reaction.

It was obvious that if Irelyn was to get any real information, she was going to have to dig deeper and get more creative. So, she had begun searching for any news or stories about young girls from around the time that Paige had been adopted, going back a few months. She kept the search fairly broad, which meant she ended up with a lot of empty leads. Yet she didn't want to miss anything, so she simply kept at it.

All of which eventually led her here, to the records room in the basement of the local Seraphs headquarters. A friend had said she might want to take a look at one of the files in there, so she had called in a favor to get access. And now here she was, file in hand. A file that simultaneously answered some questions and raised so many more.

Okay, so her instinct about something being off with Paige definitely had legs. The girl, who was listed as a Jane Doe but immediately identifiable as Paige in the picture, had been found in an alley surrounded by dead bodies. That was horrific all on its own. Who killed them and why? Why was this girl there? Where and who were her parents? The list went on and on, with no apparent answers to any of it.

Even more confusingly, she had apparently been pleading with the people who picked her up to find someone named Cassidy. Cassidy would help her. Who was Cassidy? The one who came to mind immediately, naturally, was Cassidy Evans. She was the most famous Cassidy in the city. Well, famous among people who lived in those circles, anyway. But that was ridiculous. It had to be someone else. The only possible connection was that Cassidy's family was rich too, just like the one that had adopted Paige. Well, that and the fact that Irelyn knew her father hated the Evans. He loathed them so much. Would he have been involved in something that took some strange girl out of their lives? Did that even make any sense at all?

No, no they couldn’t know about Paige. They absolutely would have done something about it if they did. It wasn’t like the Banners had been quiet about the adoption. They plastered Paige’s picture all over the place, had made it a whole celebration. If Elena and Sterling Evans had had any connection to this girl, they would have done something about that.

Although to be entirely fair, just because they didn't know anything about Paige didn't mean their daughter didn't. They were around the same age, now that Irelyn thought about it. Was that the connection? Did Cassidy Evans know Paige from a school--no, Paige didn’t go to Cassidy’s school before. She didn’t go to any school as far as Irelyn had been able to find. But maybe they met somewhere and hit it off because they were the same age. Wait, no, that didn’t make sense--okay Paige had to have existed before this. She didn’t just pop up out of nowhere. Maybe she was homeschooled, and Cassidy Evans had--God damn it, Irelyn didn’t even know for certain that this was Cassidy Evans. It could be a completely different Cassidy. She was making too many assumptions, going down too many blind trails. The only evidence she had that this was about that particular Cassidy was the similarity in ages. That wasn't enough. There had to be hundreds of Cassidies in the city, many of them around the right age. Hell, the name had probably gained popularity around the time of her birth just because the Evans chose it. Sure, they had done an admirable job keeping their daughter out of the news. Few people outside those familiar rich people circles really knew what Cassidy Evans actually looked like these days. She wasn't constantly being followed around by the paparazzi or anything like that. It was actually pretty incredible how well her parents protected her anonymity. Which… maybe that was why Irelyn kept coming back to this being a possibility. If Paige’s past was shrouded in so many secrets, maybe it was because she did have a connection to Cassidy Evans. No matter how little sense it made. Maybe Paige’s appearance had been changed so much that they didn’t recognize her as someone who had been friends with their daughter?

No. No, that was absurd. They went to the same school now, and had for the entire past year. Surely one of them would have said something. Cassidy would have recognized Paige if she knew her at all.

With that thought in mind, Irelyn plucked her phone from a pocket and called one of her friends in the school system. Well, a friend of Flea, anyway. She asked if there were any records of interactions between her sister and Cassidy Evans. What she got back surprised her. Yes, there were interactions. The two apparently hated each other. They definitely weren’t friends. Not in the least. While Paige seemed to get along with everyone else, she actually picked on Cassidy. From the records Irelyn’s friend was able to pull out, there were multiple disciplinary interactions from Paige causing trouble with the Evans’ daughter.

Did that mean that that girl really was the Cassidy that Paige had been talking about? That made even less sense than before. If she thought this Cassidy could help her, why would she be so awful to the girl? And yet, the fact that she was nice to everyone else and the way she treated Cassidy was so different definitely stood out. Was she awful to Cassidy just because the name reminded her of the person who had been unable to help her before? That didn’t seem right either.

Irelyn was absolutely missing some key piece to all of this. And every time she looked deeper, she just seemed to end up with more questions. Maybe the best thing she could do right now was find out more about those dead men who had been found scattered around the young Paige back in that alley. Finding out how they died, who they had been, where they came from, all that might give her the answers she was looking for. Or at least send her in the right direction. It had to be better than continuing to yank at the Cassidy thread, anyway. That wasn't getting her anything but more questions. If she was going to talk to Paige directly about this, she needed some solid information first. The way the girl acted around Cassidy Evans could be explained in several completely contradictory ways.

Yes, she definitely needed more. And those bodies were probably the best chance she had. Aside, quite possibly, from simply walking up to the Evans and asking what they know about the girl. And Irelyn was pretty sure that wouldn't go well, no matter what they actually knew. They had no reason to trust the daughter of one of their rivals, even if she was disowned. And appearing to them as Flea would probably just make them even more curious. It could go very badly, to say the least.

Finding out who those men were, and how they died was her best move. That could lead her to who had killed them. And that had to be the next step to working out where Paige had come from and why her background was such a secret.

If their father was doing something illegal, Irelyn wanted to know about it. She wanted to make sure her new sister was pulled out of whatever was going on. Even if the girl didn't like her or want anything to do with her, she couldn't just let it continue like that. It was very obvious that Paige had already been through more than enough. Whatever else was going on, someone had to make sure that girl was safe and protected.

Of course, that would require actually getting information about those men. And after another hour of digging through the records here, Irelyn didn't end up any closer to that than she was at identifying where Paige had come from in the first place.

The men didn't exist in the system as far as anyone here at the Seraphs, or the local police, had been able to determine. They had no records, no DNA matches, no fingerprint matches, no one reported them missing, and their pictures didn't come up in any system. As far as any official records were concerned, none of them ever existed at all until they had appeared dead in that alley. In the year since they’d been found, no one ever provided any information about them. They had been cremated after being stored for a few weeks. Which in and of itself was strange. They hadn't been identified, and the mystery around their deaths wasn't solved. So why had the remains been burned so quickly?

She was able to find the first, initial medical examination of the bodies, noting stab wounds and broken bones, things like that. But the autopsies were missing. Anything that went into more detail about examining the bodies just wasn't there. She found the name of the man who had performed the autopsies deep in one of the files. Honestly, Irelyn half-expected it to be a fake name. That was the way things seem to be going today, after all. But no, it ended up being real. Well, the man himself existed and was a coroner, anyway.

Or, he had been a coroner. When Irelyn looked him up, she found that he had retired unexpectedly a month after those autopsies would have to have happened. He was only in his forties, yet he left a job in the medical profession, and as far as she could tell, he hadn't been hired anywhere else. He lived alone at home. She checked his social media and found evidence of a fairly comfortable life. He wasn't independently wealthy, but he clearly didn't have to work anymore. And he definitely wasn't spending all his money on medical school loans.

This guy’s name was Dale Carmen. And Irelyn was pretty sure it was time to pay him a visit. He was the only real name of a living person other than Paige herself that she had been able to find in this entire situation. Maybe he could give her some answers. It was the best lead she had. Maybe the only real lead other than the very flimsy Cassidy thing, which probably wasn't even about the Evans girl anyway. Even if there was that whole thing about how Paige acted around-- no, focus. She had to focus. It was time to track down this doctor and find out what he knew.

But that raised another important question. Should she confront him as herself looking for information about her new sister, or as Flea looking for information about a mystery involving unidentified dead bodies? There were pros and cons to either approach. In the end, she had almost decided that going as Flea was probably the best choice. It was possible that he wouldn't want to answer questions about whoever had bribed him enough to let the man retire, and he was unlikely to listen to some ordinary woman on that subject. Flea could be more convincing, in multiple ways. Especially if she could make him think he could get in trouble.

But no, even as she was talking herself into that, Irelyn realized there was a third choice. She could talk to the man as someone else entirely. He didn’t need to know who she was at all. In fact, it was probably for the best that he never found out.

With that settled, she used her phone to record copies of everything she had found, and put the records back. She made her way out, thanking the woman at the desk. As far as basically anyone here was concerned, Flea was simply following up on a tip some gang member had given her about a murder from a few months earlier.

Maybe she was simply being too paranoid, but some part of Irelyn really didn't want anyone to know she was looking into this so deeply. There was something very fishy going on here, and the more she dug into it, the less she trusted anyone. What the hell kind of cover-up had she stumbled onto just by checking up on her new adopted sister?

Checking the address of that former coroner on her way out of the building, Irelyn stepped into her car and plugged the location into the GPS. He was on the outskirts of town in one of the newer subdivisions. Not the most expensive area, but not cheap either. According to the file, he had moved there just shortly after ‘retiring.’ Convenient, that. And definitely not suspicious for someone to do immediately after leaving their stable job for no apparent reason. Yeah, she was going to have a nice long discussion with this guy. Whatever he'd gotten into, whoever had paid him off, she would find out.

It took about twenty minutes to reach the place in question, and she could immediately tell something else. In addition to being able to retire quite early, the man also had enough money to pay someone to keep his yard pristine. The grass was perfectly manicured, there were beautiful flowers blooming in the front garden, and she could see a man who probably wasn't the one she was looking for, considering the uniform he was wearing, trimming the hedges along one side.

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Seeing all that, Irelyn considered for a moment before pulling up alongside the house. There were a couple different ways she could play this, and another couple that were probably a bad idea with that witness nearby. In the end, she reached under the seat and took a food delivery warming bag out. She didn't actually do that job, of course. But it was a useful way to walk up to her house and talk to someone when she didn't want to appear in costume.

After another moment of debate, Irelyn reached into the glove box of the car and took out the emergency Incogniter. It didn't have a lot of power, but it would do for now, and it meant that if worse came to worst around here, she wouldn't have her appearance ending up on official channels and have to explain herself. A quick click of the device as she snapped it onto her wrist, and she looked like a pale brunette who could probably stand to get some more sunlight.

Stepping out of the car, she absently waved to the man tending to the bushes while heading up to the front door. He barely paid attention after seeing the bag in her hand. The way service people could become almost invisible was quite useful sometimes. Then again, something told her he could have said the same.

Walking up to the door, she rang the doorbell and checked on the gardener out of the corner of her eye. Great, he was wearing headphones and she could hear the very faint hint of music coming out of it, a testament to how loud it must be for him. That was even more lucky. Maybe she could deal with this situation without drawing any extra attention after all. After everything she'd run into so far, and questions that had popped up, it would be nice for one thing to be simple.

It took Dale Carmen about thirty seconds to answer the door. Just like the pictures she had seen on his social media, there didn't appear to be anything special about the man. He was about forty-one, with a very slight paunch to his gut, dark blond hair that was very thinning on the top and long in the back, and a fairly average face. He wore a football jersey and sweatpants, blinking at her in confusion before seeing the bag. His head shook. “Sorry, you've got the wrong address. I didn't order anything.”

Offering the man a quick, humorless smile, Irelyn calmly replied, “That's okay, there's no food in the bag anyway. What there is is this.” Holding it up so he could see, she unzipped the thing and put her hand in on the pistol that was lying there. She let him see the gun pointed that way, shielded from the gardener's view by the bag.

Obviously, the former coroner jerked in surprise, his hand moving to close the door. But she slid her foot in first, keeping her voice calm. “You're fine, it's all going to be fine. I need some answers from you, and then I'll be gone. Now invite me in so we can talk. Unless you'd prefer I take my chances doing it the hard way.”

It was just slightly possible that she had absorbed a fair bit of how criminals acted after spending the entirety of her teenage and young adult years dealing with them. Enough that she could fake it like this. And hopefully, if this guy did end up telling his story to anyone, no one would connect these blatant threats to her.

She could see the man calculating his chances quickly before he relented and made a sweeping gesture with his arm, raising his voice just a bit in case the gardener could hear anything past his music. “Would you mind coming in, I need some help setting up the table.” Yes, it was a ridiculous and stupid excuse, but she was pretty sure the other man couldn't hear, and wouldn't care if he did. All she wanted was to make sure he didn't see her forcing this guy to let her in.

And just like that, she stepped through the door and closed it behind her. Then she pulled the gun from the bag. She didn't point it at him, but the implication was clear. She kept her voice calm and even. “Okay, Dale Carmen, I need you to keep it together. Like I said, you'll be fine. I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to rob you. I'm here for information. Let's go sit in your kitchen, shall we? Play along and I’ll be on my way in just a few minutes.”

Obviously, the man couldn't really object to that. He let her into the kitchen and they sat at the table. She made him put his hands flat on it, just in case. Then she relaxed as much as possible and regarded him. “I don't think you're the type of person who needs to think very hard about what sort of answers I could possibly be here for, so are you going to make me drag this out?”

Dale gulped audibly before shaking his head. “You want to know about those things that were found in the alley with that girl.”

His choice of words made Irelyn frown. “Those things? Is that what you call dead people?”

The man barked a short, almost hysterical laugh. “They weren't people. Don't you know that much already?” Seeing the look on her face, he sobered immediately. “Sorry, sorry. I just thought you were further along than that. Yeah, I was the coroner who got the fantastic job of performing the autopsies on those things. And I'm telling you, they weren't people. Not real people, not living people. I mean, the bodies were sort of living, but--” Stopping short, he held up both hands and started over. “They were biological robots, flesh and blood with a machine inside controlling them. Definitely some sort of Touched-Tech. It was kind of like the old Terminator thing, except instead of a full metal skeleton inside, they just had a little metal orb about the size of a baseball. That little thing sent all these tendrils out through the body to control it. Believe me, it was pretty damn freaky.”

The man leaned back in his seat, the expression on his face making it clear that he was reliving what it had been like to open those bodies up and see that. Finally, he gave a heavy sigh. “I started to write all that up in my report and tried to contact my supervisor. But before I could, these other men came in. At least, I assumed they were men. For all I know, they were more of those orb people. They had guns too, and they told me that this whole thing could go one of two ways. Either they could kill me and fix a new report, or I could write the report they told me to, schedule those bodies to be cremated, and they'd give me enough money upfront to buy a nice house, then enough of a monthly stipend to live comfortably forever, as long as I didn't go to the authorities.”

Irelyn dropped her gaze to the table, considering all that for a moment. It was all she could do not to curse out loud. What the hell was all this now? She had just been checking up on her new adopted sister to find out why she was so standoffish and if there was anything she could do to help, and now there was a whole thing about artificial bodies with robot balls inside? This was bigger than she had thought. For a moment, she considered taking it to someone else, to the rest of her team. Silversmith could probably help get a lot more information. But something made her decide to hold off on that. She couldn't even really explain what. It was just instinct. Somehow, she knew that going to anyone else was a bad idea. At least until she knew more. Because from the sound of things, this definitely wasn't something simple. If whoever was behind this was able to make those artificial robot bodies so realistic that it took an autopsy to identify them, who else could possibly have been replaced?

It was too dangerous to make assumptions right now. There were too many ways this could go horribly wrong if she trusted the wrong person. No, she was going to have to look deeper into this by herself. Or maybe, with her new sister. Paige had to know more about it. She had been found in the alley with those bodies. She-- wait. Wait a minute…

The potential realization slammed into the woman like a truck. What if Paige herself was another of these artificial beings? Their father would absolutely be willing to buy one of those, no question about it. He had been so upset about Irelyn not allowing herself to be completely controlled by him that it was absolutely believable that he would go for a designer version next time.

But what did that mean about Paige herself? Was she an actual person? And why had she been found with those bodies? And who was this Cassidy she said could help her? Was it really Cassidy Evans? Actually, some part of that made even more sense. If it was Cassidy Evans, that would mean that Paige was asking for help from the daughter of someone their father saw as a rival. Was there anything useful in that assumption?

Irelyn wasn't sure. There just wasn't enough to guess yet. And she had a feeling that trying to guess would end up confusing things even more. No, she just had to get more information. And at this point, she was pretty sure the best way to do that would be to talk to Paige herself.

She took another few minutes getting everything she could out of Dale, though it wasn't much more than he had already said. He received an electronic deposit from a numbered account once a month with about five thousand dollars in it. Enough to live decently considering he didn't have any house payments or rent to make. The house was paid off in full. And, of course, she was quite certain that if she did go to the bank, it would lead to a bunch of dead ends. No, her best chance of getting actual information about what was going on was from Paige.

Some part of her briefly wondered if the girl could be trusted. After all, if she really was one of these artificial people, could she simply be controlled by whoever had made her? But no, she’d been found with those bodies, and then… damn it, she just didn’t know enough! Yes, there was definitely something going on with Paige, that much was certain. Had she been trying to fight back? Had she been trying to escape and get somewhere safe, such as with the family of their father’s rival? That could maybe work out.

Yeah, there were a lot of holes in that idea too. But what it came down to was that she needed to talk to Paige. And she needed it to do it in a way that she could get all the information she needed without risking anything bad happening. Her instincts told her that Paige wasn't a threat to her. But she still needed to be careful until she knew what was going on.

Flatly informing the man that if he reported her being there, or said anything about having told someone the truth, the people who were paying him would probably just kill him, Irelyn rose from the table and took his number. She told him that if she or anyone called and said they should ‘see that great western from that time at camp’ and gave a time and location, he should go there because it would mean she needed to talk to him again. And, just in case he got any second thoughts, she reminded him of the danger he was in. These people, whoever they were, probably wouldn’t hesitate to simply end the potential threat he presented if they thought there was any chance of him talking. Which did raise the question of why they hadn't already killed him, but maybe they thought having a coroner, former or not, in their back pocket could be useful.

Now… now it was time to actually talk to Paige. She’d done all the background research she reasonably could. Whether her new adopted sister was fully biological, or one of these creations, Irelyn was going to give her a chance to explain her side of everything. Somehow, she just didn’t believe that Paige was some completely unthinking automaton. Maybe that was a stupid assumption, one she would pay for. But when it came right down to it, Irelyn would rather assume the best and be wrong, than assume the worst and be wrong. The damage she could do to Paige if she set out believing the girl was some sort of unthinking machine could be catastrophic. She would never get another chance to make that first impression. So, whoever and whatever Paige really was, Irelyn was going to start from the supposition that she could make her own choices.

She’d already lost her best friend because she didn’t listen to Haley, didn’t pay enough attention to who she was and what was going on with her. Irelyn wasn’t going to make that mistake again. She would be careful here, just in case. But she wasn’t going to make snap judgments.

To that end, the woman spent the next week preparing for the conversation that needed to happen. She rehearsed what she could say, tried to think of various ways that could go wrong, and waited for an opening that wouldn’t raise their father’s suspicion. Some sort of opportunity had to present itself at some point.

Finally, it did. The junior high Paige (and Cassidy for that matter) attended was let out early for some sort of heating system failure. It was cold and rainy outside, and the driver Paige normally relied on to get home was busy chauffeuring their father around.

Obviously, the girl would simply have called for a rideshare. But Irelyn was quicker. She sent Paige a message, letting her know she was right across the street dealing with some old paperwork at one of the school administration buildings and that she would give her a lift home since she needed to take those files to their mother anyway to get her to sign them.

Soon, she was watching and trying to seem as normal as possible as Paige stepped down into the car. Once the girl was buckled in, Irelyn surreptitiously hit the button that would silently hard-lock every door so she couldn’t jump out. The windows were reinforced, there were no weapons within reach, and if the person in the passenger seat made any sudden motions that were interpreted as violent, they would get strapped down much more securely than the seatbelt. On top of that, the moment she pressed another button on the steering wheel, the car would be shielded from any cell phone or wi-fi signals, and would block every other method of eavesdropping on them that the Conservator-employed Tech-Touched had been able to plan for.

Again, Irelyn believed Paige was her own person who was capable of making her own decisions. And that she would make the right one here if given a chance. But she also wasn’t an idiot. Just in case something went wrong, especially if it was something outside of Paige’s control, Irelyn would be ready.

Now, she smiled that way as the thirteen-year-old girl buckled herself in. The rain was pouring down around them, but the front of the school was covered so Paige remained dry. “Hey, was it cold in there?”

“Not really,” came the simple and clearly not-engaged response. Paige didn’t elaborate on that, didn’t even look at her. She just turned to gaze out the window as though waiting to go home. Without further prompting or outside influence, she probably wouldn’t say another word.

Well, here went nothing. Irelyn pulled out of the parking lot and headed for the street. She had rehearsed how to start this conversation over and over again, and never did settle on the perfect phrasing or timing. She was just going to have to jump right into it. So, once they were in traffic, she simply announced, “I spoke to Dale Carmen.” Her finger had already hit the button to block off all signals and eavesdropping methods.

The words struck home immediately. She could tell, by the way Paige finally stopped looking out the window and snapped her gaze over to her. Still, she tried for a flat, “Who?” But her voice cracked just a little. Immediately afterward, her head twisted a little, as though she had just noticed something missing.

“It’s okay,” Irelyn informed her as calmly as possible. “It’s going to be alright. Let me tell you what I know. Someone out there is building artificial biological bodies and putting some sort of artificial intelligence in them, little computer orbs that control the bodies. You were found with some of those bodies after they were… destroyed. Our father paid to hush up your involvement with that and to get the artificial bodies incinerated to destroy the evidence. I’m pretty sure he also paid to adopt you and keep your past a secret, which I don’t think he did out of the kindness of his heart. I think you were the payment to him from whoever is really responsible for creating those beings. I think our father decided the best way to make sure he didn’t have another daughter become a disappointment was to buy one he could control.”

Getting all that out, Irelyn pulled off the street and into a parking lot, shifting a bit to look that way. Paige, in turn, was staring at her with wide eyes, seemingly frozen in place. Seeing how frightened the girl was, Irelyn kept her voice soft. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t sure how to bring this up without… without being direct. Maybe I’m wrong about some of this, but I think I’ve got the right idea. And I think that… I think that you’re caught up in the middle of this. I think our dad is a--” She stopped herself then. Going off about just what she thought of the man at this point wouldn’t help anything.

Instead, Irelyn turned the car off and turned in her seat to fully face the girl. “Paige, listen to me. I believe you are a person. Wherever you come from, however you came to be, I believe you deserve the right to make your own choices and to be whoever you want to be. I don’t know who created you, what his goals are, or what kind of person he is. But I know what kind of person my father is, and I want you to have better than that. I want you to have every chance you need. I’m not here to capture you, or to expose you, or to hurt you. I’m here because I think you’re in trouble. I’m here because no matter where you came from, no matter what reasoning our father had, you’re my sister. If you’ll let me, I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure no one controls you again.”

Holding up her hand between them, palm out, she added in an even softer voice. “It’s up to you, Paige. Will you let me help you?”

There was a long moment of silence, before the other girl slowly put her own hand up and pressed it against Irelyn’s. Their fingers interlaced like that, gripping one another. When Paige finally spoke, her voice was barely audible. “Please, please. I don’t know what to do.”

“I’ll tell you what we do,” Irelyn informed her while squeezing the girl’s hand. “We go get some ice cream.

“And then we’re going to talk about everything.”