I’ve Spent 16 Years Locked Away Because My Parents Said The Air Would Kill Us. I Just Found Out It Was All A Lie To Hide The Fact That We Were Stolen. How Do I Save My Siblings Before They Catch Me?

He writes everything down in a notebook, his pen moving quickly across the pages. When he’s done with the initial questions, I ask him what happens next.

Detective Mammud explains, “They’re getting a search warrant for our house and the shed and that they’ll be collecting all the evidence I told him about.”

He says, “We did the right thing by speaking up and that we’re very brave.”

His words make me feel less guilty about destroying the only family I’ve known, even though part of me still feels like a traitor. I give Detective Mammud exact details about where the filing cabinet is and which drawer had the birth certificates.

He asks if there’s anything else in the house that might be important. I tell him about the old laptop I hid in the neighbor’s recycling bin, and he makes a note to retrieve it.

Dexter comes back into the room with papers in his hand and a small smile on his face. He tells us that all our test results came back normal, that we have perfectly healthy immune systems with no signs of any disorder.

He says, “Our blood work shows we’re well nourished and our physical development is appropriate for our ages there’s nothing wrong with us medically no reason we ever needed to be isolated.”

Hearing it confirmed by a real doctor makes something break loose in my chest and I start crying even though I’m trying not to. My siblings are crying too and Dexter hands us tissues and says it’s okay to feel relieved.

That evening Maggie comes back and says she needs to talk to us about where we’re staying tonight. She takes us to a conference room down the hall with a big window and we sit in chairs that spin.

Through the window we can see our house in the distance and there are police cars parked all around it with their lights still flashing. Officers in uniforms are going in and out of the front door and the shed carrying boxes and bags.

Someone is taking photographs of everything, the bright flash visible even from here. We watch as they bring out the filing cabinet on a dolly and then more boxes stacked on top of each other.

An officer carries out our fake medical equipment that was just for show and another one brings out bags of documents. Watching strangers take apart the place where we lived our whole lives feels wrong even though I know it needs to happen.

The house looks smaller from here, less scary—just a regular building that held too many lies. A technician in a white coat comes into the conference room with a case of supplies.

She explains, “She needs to collect DNA samples from each of us using cotton swabs on the inside of our cheeks.”

She says, “The samples will be compared to evidence from the missing children case and also run through databases to find potential biological relatives.”

The swabbing only takes a few seconds per person and doesn’t hurt at all. But knowing what it means makes my hands shake.

We might finally learn who we really are and where we came from, what our real names are, who our actual parents were. The technician labels each tube carefully with our current names and case numbers, then packs everything back into her case.

She tells us, “The results could take a few days or a few weeks depending on what they find.”

After she leaves, Maggie sits down with us and explains what happens next. She says, “We’re being placed in emergency protective custody while the investigation continues which means we can’t go back to our house or have contact with our parents.”

She promises that we’ll stay together as siblings and that she’ll be our primary case worker, checking on us regularly. My younger brother starts crying again and asks where we’re going to sleep tonight.

Maggie says, “She’s found a foster home that has room for all four of us a woman who’s experienced with emergency placements.”

She assures us that Mrs. Smithon is kind and that her house is safe and comfortable. The idea of sleeping somewhere completely new tonight in a stranger’s house makes everything feel too real and too fast.

We gather the few things the hospital gave us—mostly the clothes we were wearing and the blankets from the ambulance—and follow Maggie out to her car. The drive across town takes about 20 minutes and I watch the neighborhoods change through the window.

We pull up to a small house with a neat lawn and flowers in the front garden. A woman comes out onto the porch.

Mrs. Smithon is older with gray hair and a soft face. She waves at us as we get out of the car.

She welcomes us inside and shows us the bedrooms where we’ll be staying: two rooms with two beds each. The house smells like cooking and laundry detergent—normal house smells that are different from our house.

Everything feels wrong and unfamiliar even though it’s objectively nicer than what we’re used to. Mrs. Smithon makes us hot chocolate and sets out cookies on the kitchen table, trying to make us comfortable.

We sit in her living room on a couch that’s softer than ours was, and we huddle together because we don’t know what else to do. My younger brother won’t let go of my sister’s hand and my other sibling sits pressed against my side.

We’re free now, we’re safe, we’re out of that house. But it doesn’t feel like victory.

It feels like we’re floating in space with nothing to hold on to, everything we knew torn away even if it was all built on lies. Mrs. Smithon sits in a chair across from us and talks quietly about house rules and routines, but I can barely hear her over the rushing sound in my ears.

Mrs. Smithon eventually stops talking and shows us to our bedrooms—two rooms with two beds each, like she said before. My sister and younger brother take one room and my other sibling stays with me in the second one.

We don’t unpack the few things we have because we don’t really have anything to unpack. Dinner is quiet and awful even though the food is good.

Mrs. Smithon made spaghetti and garlic bread and salad, and everything looks normal, but none of us can eat much. My younger brother pushes his food around his plate and won’t look at anyone.

My sister keeps crying silently with tears just running down her face while she stares at the table. My other sibling manages a few bites but then gives up and asks to be excused.

I force myself to eat because I know we need to keep our strength up, but everything tastes like nothing. After dinner Mrs. Smithon suggests we might want to rest and we all go to our rooms without argument.

My other sibling and I lie in our separate beds in the dark and neither of us can sleep. Around midnight my sibling whispers across the room, “Do you think mom and dad are scared right now in jail?”

I don’t know how to answer that, so I just say, “I don’t know.”

My sibling is quiet for a while and then says, “They feel guilty for not fighting harder to stay with them even though they know intellectually that what happened to us was wrong.”

I understand that feeling completely because part of me still wants to defend them too, even after everything. In the other room I can hear my younger brother crying and my sister trying to comfort him.

The next morning Mrs. Smithon makes pancakes and we sit around her kitchen table trying to act normal. Through the window I see a white van pull up outside with a satellite dish on top and my stomach drops.

Another van parks behind it and then a third one. Mrs. Smithon notices me staring and goes to look, and her face gets tight.

She calls Maggie right away and within 20 minutes Maggie arrives looking stressed and tired. She explains, “Somehow the media found out where we’re staying and they’ve connected our case to the old missing children investigation from 12 years ago.”

She says, “It’s becoming a really big story and that she’s arranging for privacy protections and possibly moving us to a different location.”

The idea of moving again when we just got here makes my younger brother start crying again. Maggie makes some calls and gets the police to come move the news vans back from the house, but we can still see them parked down the street.