My Town Exiles One Family Every Year To Stay “Perfect.” My Father Just Got A Promotion, And Now We Are Standing At The Border With Nothing. But Someone Is Waiting For Us In The Dark.

The Trial

Six months crawled by in the exile community while the FBI built their case. The prosecutor’s office called me 3 weeks before the hearing date. They needed me to testify about the founding family pattern I’d noticed. My hands shook when I hung up the phone.

Eli found me sitting on the community center steps staring at nothing. He sat down next to me and didn’t say anything for a while. Finally, he told me I could do this, that my testimony mattered. I wanted to believe him, but the thought of seeing those council leaders again made my stomach hurt.

Thea drove with me to the courthouse on the morning of the hearing. Rodrigo came too, sitting in the back seat making stupid jokes to keep me from panicking. My parents followed in their car.

The courthouse was this massive stone building that made me feel small just looking at it. We parked and walked toward the entrance. That’s when I saw them: the five founding family leaders standing with their lawyers on the courthouse steps. They looked older than I remembered but still carried themselves like they owned everything. One of them glanced my way and his eyes went cold.

My hands started shaking so hard I had to shove them in my pockets. Thea grabbed my arm and squeezed. Rodrigo moved closer on my other side. We walked past the founding families without saying anything.

Inside the courthouse, my parents found seats in the gallery. My mother looked terrified. My father’s jaw was clenched tight. Thea squeezed my hand one more time before I had to go wait in the witness room. Rodrigo gave me a fist bump and told me to destroy them.

The prosecutor came to prep me one last time. She was this sharp woman in her 40s who’d been working the case for months. She reminded me to speak clearly, answer only what was asked, and don’t let the defense lawyers rattle me. I nodded but my mouth was too dry to talk.

When they called me to testify, I walked into that courtroom on legs that barely worked. The judge sat behind this huge wooden bench looking down at everything. The jury box was full of people staring at me. The founding family leaders sat at the defense table with three lawyers.

I took the witness stand and they swore me in. My voice cracked when I said I’d tell the truth.

The prosecutor started with easy questions: my name, my age, how long I’d lived in the old town. Then she asked me to describe what I’d noticed about the exile system. I took a breath and started talking. I explained how I’d been 13 when my best friend’s family got exiled, how I watched it happen again at 15 with the Hendersons, how my sister’s boyfriend John got taken away, and how I started keeping track of which families got chosen and why.

The prosecutor asked me what pattern I noticed. I looked right at the founding family leaders and said they never got exiled. Not once in 50 years. Not even when their kids broke rules or their businesses had problems.

The defense lawyers objected, but the judge told me to continue. I explained how the founding families controlled the ballot box and the counting, how they announced results with no way to verify anything, and how three months after my father got promoted over a founding family member’s son, our name got called.

The prosecutor showed me documents: my own notes from years of watching the exile votes, and records Van had compiled showing which families owned businesses and which got exiled. The pattern was right there in black and white. Anyone who competed with founding family power got removed.

The defense lawyer stood up for cross-examination. He was this older guy in an expensive suit who looked at me like I was dirt. He asked if I was bitter about being exiled. I said yes. He asked if I wanted revenge. I said I wanted justice. He tried to make me sound like some angry teenager making up conspiracies, but every time he pushed, I pointed back to the documentation. The numbers didn’t lie. Founding families never got exiled despite obvious violations. Everyone else got removed for tiny mistakes.

The judge kept looking more and more angry as I answered questions. His expression shifted from neutral to disgusted when the defense lawyer suggested I couldn’t possibly understand the complexity of community governance at my age. The judge actually interrupted.

“A teenager who could track systematic corruption for 5 years clearly understood plenty,” the judge said.

The defense lawyer sat down looking frustrated.

The prosecutor asked me one final question: did I believe the exile system was fair and democratic?

“No. It was a rigged selection process disguised as voting, designed to remove anyone who threatened founding family power,” I said.

They dismissed me, and I walked back to my seat. My legs were shaking, but I’d done it. I’d told the truth in front of everyone. Thea grabbed my hand as I sat down. My parents were crying in the gallery.

A Husband’s Grief

The next witness was Wallace. I’d seen him angry before, but this was different. He walked to that stand with this cold determination that made the whole courtroom go quiet. The prosecutor asked him to describe what happened to his family.

Wallace’s voice didn’t shake at all. He explained how they got exiled 8 years ago for his teenage son’s minor shoplifting charge. How his wife had stage three cancer and needed treatment only available at the local hospital. How exile stripped them of insurance and access to care.

The courtroom was completely silent as Wallace described driving three states away with his dying wife, finding a charity ward that would take her, watching her deteriorate without proper treatment, and holding her hand when she died 2 weeks after exile. His voice finally cracked on that last part.

The defense lawyers objected, saying the exile itself was legal and they weren’t responsible for what happened after families left town. Their lawyer actually said that out loud—that they weren’t responsible for a woman dying because exile took away her cancer treatment.

The judge’s face went hard. He told the defense to sit down and let the witness finish.

Wallace looked at each founding family leader one by one.

“Their legal system murdered his wife as surely as if they’d pulled a trigger,” Wallace said.

The defense had no good response to that. They tried to argue the exile was within their authority, that health outcomes weren’t their concern, but you could see the jury’s faces. They weren’t buying it.