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.

Normalizing the Abnormal

Rodrigo must have noticed I was struggling because he invited me to hang out with the other exile teenagers one Saturday afternoon. About 15 kids showed up at the community center, ranging from 13 to 19 years old. They were all surprisingly normal. They joked around and complained about homework and talked about crushes and argued about music and movies.

Being around them helped me understand that exile didn’t have to define everything about who we became. We could still be regular people despite what was done to us. One kid named John made everyone laugh telling stories about his terrible cooking attempts. A girl named Sarah talked about her college applications. Another guy complained about his annoying little brother. They’d all been through the trauma of exile, but they weren’t letting it destroy them.

Documenting the Crime

After a few weeks, Wallace Holt approached me at the community center and asked if I wanted to help with documentation work for the FBI case. He explained they were recording every exiled family’s story as evidence. I felt terrified thinking about reliving everything, but Rodrigo volunteered to sit with me during the interview.

We went to a small office where Van Tanner had computers and recording equipment set up. Van was quiet and efficient, asking me questions while typing notes. I spent 3 hours telling him everything.

I described the night my best friend’s family got exiled when I was 13 and how I hid below the window instead of waving goodbye. I talked about watching the Hendersons beg before their exile and hearing about Mrs. Henderson’s death two weeks later. I explained my sister’s breakdown after John got exiled and how she stopped eating and talking. I described noticing the founding family pattern and realizing the votes were rigged. Then I talked about our own exile and the terror of losing everything.

Recording it all made it real in a new way. Saying the words out loud to someone who was writing them down as evidence made me understand the scale of what happened to us. Van thanked me when we finished and said my testimony was valuable. Rodrigo walked back to the mobile home with me and didn’t make me talk about it.