"I don't want to go to school." The four year old whined, his mom chuckled, placing his dinosaur backpack on his shoulders.

"You're not excited for your first day of preschool?" Lana cooed, Ryan ferociously shook his head, Ray laughed at her 'older' brother which made her pigtails hit her face. Lana adjusted her daughter's ponytails before ushering her and her son out of the house.

"You're being a baby Ryan, school isn't bad." Rayland teased her brother, Ryan pouted as he walked along the driveway.

"I'm not a baby." He whined, Lana gave him a look but he didn't the hint that he was acting like a baby.

"It's going to be like Bubble Guppies, right Mommy? Our teacher is gonna be Mr.Grouper!" Rayland enthused, Lana almost let out a laugh from her daughter's interpretation.

"Not really, honey." This time Rayland was the one that pouted with her arms crossed before stepping foot in the car.

"Who's the baby now?" He stuck out his tongue which his sister reciprocated.

"You." She sassed, these are the moments that Lana regretted Rayland inheriting her personality from her. Ryan stuck out his tongue again and spit in Rayland's direction.

"Ew." She shrieked as she hit her brother in the arm.

"Mom, she hit me." He snitched, Rayland gasped and almost immediately yelled, "He spit on me first." She pointed at me.

"Enough. Guys, this is supposed to be a fun day. One day, you're gonna realize that you need each way more than you think you do." She spoke from experience. The twins looked at each other in disbelief, not believing a word that was coming out of her mouth.

"I will never need him." "I will never need her." They said at the same time, not knowing how wrong they'd be in about twenty minutes.

They continued arguing from the backseat about who the biggest baby was.

"Okay, Mommy loves you guys. Have fun!" She yelled from the car window as she dropped her kids off. They waved and simultaneously said 'love you mommy'. She had walked in with them to help them get used to the new environment.

"I don't want Mommy to go." Ryan cried, Rayland looked at him and laughed.

"I told you, you were the bigger baby."

-

"Ryan, I need your help. This boy is taking up two cubbies." She pointed to the child standing to the side. He was indeed taking up two cubbies.

"What do you want me to do?" He shrugged, Rayland hit him hard in the arm to which he let out a small 'ow'.

"Ryan." She stretched out, "I don't have one, where am I gonna put my backpack?" She held up a metallic butterfly backpack. As soon as she first set eyes on the backpack, she fell in love with it. Ever since her mother started calling her mariposa [butterfly] because of her love of butterflies, she knew it was the perfect backpack.

"Sorry sis." He shrugged again and began walking toward his seat until Rayland dragged him back to where he was.

"I thought you didn't need me." He teased with a smile on his face, it was the perfect set up for Rayland to admit she needed her twin.

"I don't," She scoffed, Ryan nodded and tried to walk away but of course, he was interrupted again. "But, I need your help. Not you, just your help." She reasoned, Ryan gave her a look but she stuck to it.

"Fine, I'll do it by myself." She crossed her arms over her chest and stomped over to the boy. Ryan watched the whole interaction from the sidelines.

Rayland stood about an inch behind the boy at the cubbies, waiting for him to turn around. Once he wouldn't turn around and Ray started getting impatient, she started coughing into her fist, hoping to get a reaction out of him.

Still nothing.

She tapped his shoulder and he immediately jerked his head.

"What do you want?" The tone of voice startled her as she quickly backed up another inch.

"I don't have a cubby." She said with her head down, hoping he would get the hint to move his stuff. Instead, he shrugged and turned back to whatever he was doing. She decided to ask nicely, but he ignored her.

Ray huffed and crossed her arms, meaning she meant business.

"Listen mister, I need the cubby that your stupid stuff is in." She demanded, he rolled his eyes and took the dinosaur lunch box out of the cubby. She was about to thank him before he wiped a piece of dust off of it and placed it back in the cubby.

"Sorry. Finders, keepers." He turned back around.

"You're mean." Once Ryan saw the tears forming in his sister's eyes, he decided it was time to intervene.

"My sister needs that- wait, is that a t-rex backpack?" He got sidetracked, the boy looked taken aback by the question but nodded regardless.

"Cool! My mommy couldn't find a t-rex one so we had to get a stupid velo- veloci- whatever it's called." He complained, Rayland looked at her brother like he was crazy but he was too distracted by the look on the boy's face.

"A velociraptor?" His words were a little incoherent but understandable enough. "No fair, that's my favorite dinosaur. What's your name?" The boy also complained.

"My name is Ryan and this is my sister Rayland." The boy nodded. "What's yours?"

"Blake."

"Dude, wake up." I was shaken up, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and glanced around the room. Rayland was still lying lifeless on the bed, Micheal and Liam looked concerned, Jaylen was distracting himself in a coloring book, Jayden and Jaxon were sleeping, and Hayden was still crying.

I can't believe that was ten years ago, the day I met my bestfriend. After that day, Ryan and I started hanging out because of our love of dinosaurs and she was just his annoying little sister that followed us around everywhere. She eventually became my annoying little sister.

With my Mom's death and my brothers' isolation, Rayland was the only family I had left. She made a promise. A promise that naive, little nine year old me believed. A promise that she broke.

"Promise me you won't ever leave." I begged, she looked uncertain at my request.

"Blake, you know I can't...'' She shook her head but I cut her off. I wanted- no, needed her to promise me this. I can't take another heartbreak.

"Promise me." She nervously gulped and turned away but eventually looked me in the eyes and nodded.

"I...promise."

The next day, she was gone.

"Blake." I saw a hand waving in front of my face and I immediately smacked it out of the way. The hand belonged to Jaylen and he pulled the hand close to him and muttered an 'ow'.

"Sorry, I- nevermind. What do you want?" Micheal sighed and gave everyone in the room a look. He still hadn't said anything so I motioned him to talk.

"How do you know Rayland?" He ripped off the band-aid. I froze and my blood ran cold. How did they know? The confused look on my face made him continue. "You guys used to be friends, this is the only explanation that made sense."

He was right but I didn't want them to know. They were waiting for a response but a loud yet familiar voice sounded from the hallway.

"Where the hell is my daughter?" My heart churned. Daughter, since when? One part of me was upset that he called her his daughter because it wasn't. The other part of me was excited, I always used to want her as my actual sister, even if I wasn't the best at showing it.

We could hear the commotion going on from outside and we were waiting for Dad to storm in. He did the same thing when Mom was sick.

As predicted, the door was rushed open seconds later. Our frantic looking Dad surveyed the room before going around the room and giving us all a hug.

"I was worried sick about you guys, I got home and you were just- just gone. I thought something bad had happened." He said in one breath, I felt guilty that I didn't let him know we weren't home, more guilty we were going to be in a hospital room because his 'daughter' got shot by a revenge-ridden lunatic.

"But I guess I was right." He said as he looked at the fragile body sitting on the bed. "What the hell happened?" He asked and I decided I would be the one to come out and tell him.

"She was shot." Jaylen beat me to it, everybody deadpanned him as he smiled sheepishly. Dad's eyes widened and he immediately pulled out his phone, I assumed to call his wife. He started dialing the number and as soon as he hit the call button, it went straight to voicemail. He called a few more times but it ended in the same result.

"Oh my- okay, um... " He struggled to find the right words. He took a seat next to Micheal and put his head in his hands. We all looked sympathetically at him and we all in a way... blamed ourselves for what happened. What if we stepped in, we could've stopped it, prevented it?

I always ask myself, 'what if?', as if there is a way I could go back in time and change what's already been done. The more I reminisce on the decisions that could've been made, the more I blame myself for things that weren't myfault.

What if we stepped in and somebody else got hurt?

That wouldn't have made our situation any better, maybe even worse. I can't dwell on my past mistakes but my future solutions.

Yet I do anyway.

"It's been six years, give it a rest already." She complained. She was done being controlled by him, he had tortured her family long enough and it was time for it to come to an end.

"You really think you have any authority to tell me what to do?" He laughed in her face after taking a long swig of beer. "You listen to me and me only, sweetheart." He came closer and whispered in her ear, she cringed at the close proximity.

"Not for long." She muttered quiet enough so he couldn't hear. She backed away from him, he laughed and took another sip of the drink.

"Go get me another one." He demanded after he hurled the bottle at her head. Luckily she was able to move before it made contact and hit the wall behind her. "Turn off this annoying ass tv while you are at it."

She begrudgingly entered the rotting kitchen, mold covered the once white walls. She opened the fridge and pulled out the brown narcotic that ruined her family. There was a commotion coming from the other room which she assumed was one of his usual outbursts. After a few moments, she brought the drink to the living room but was shocked by her discovery.

Darren was struggling in handcuffs as the officers dragged him out of the house. One of the officers noticed her walking in and pointed a gun at her. She immediately drops the beer bottle.

"Linda Brown?" She slowly nodded. "You are under arrest for child neglect, drug possession, drug trafficking, and harboring a fugitive." No No No No No. This can't be happening.

Darren smirked and yelled, "If I'm going down, you're going down with me."

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1966 Words

Any thoughts?

I'm sorry for the late update, I've been behind in my writing.

I've received multiple questions about why Linda hates Rayland and after that ending, why do you think she does?

Also, who's your favorite character so far?