Life With the Butlers

Chapter 23 | We Really Could Be Twins

Chapter 23

We Really Could Be Twins

Olivia

       I woke up sore to the smell of lemons. I knew instantly that it was the cleaner. Lindsey had always been one to get up early and clean, so it was weird she was cleaning now. I walked over the hardwood, the morning cold tingling my feet, and into the bathroom.

       My left cheek was severely swollen. The color was too awful to describe. I put on as much cover up as I could, but it hurt too much to touch. I ended up with my skin having an underlying purple hue.

       “You’re up,” Lindsey said happily as I entered her kitchen. “How did you sleep?”

       “Not well,” I told her honestly. “Nightmares.”

       “Well how about you go sit down, do some reading?” she suggested.

       I looked over to see the other two already reading. I nodded and went to get up. It was slow going but I managed.

       “Hello Emily,” Kelli said when I sat down beside her.

       I flinched but smiled. “Hi Kelli.”

       “Would you like some food?” she asked. “I’ll make you something yummy.”        

       “Actually Emily makes all the food,” Hayley said.

       “What, I thought we split the meals?” Kelli had only been here for a month when I was taken in by the Marshals. She wouldn’t have known the old routine.

       “Dad likes my cooking best,” I explained. “So I cook for him.”

       “But I like cooking for him,” she argued.

       I shared an uneasy look with Hayley.

       “You should never like anything he does to us,” Hayley told us. “It’s wrong.”

       “But he loves me, that’s why he does what he does.” Kelli looked at us like we were in the wrong.

       I motioned for Hayley to come back into the kitchen with me. Lindsey looked at us curiously.

       “What’s up with you?” she asked.

       “What’s up with Kelli is the better question.” I crossed my arms. “She’s in love with him.”

       “She always has been,” Hayley sighed. “I think she was abused before He took her, and this is a step up.”

       “Poor kid,” I said, watching her through the doorway. “There must be some way we can help her. She can’t live her entire life stuck in a basement with a pedophile.”

       “What’s a pedophile?” Lindsey stared at me with incomprehension.

       “It’s when an older person does inappropriate things to kids.” It was sickening to learn this. I could remember actually puking when Jason explained all this to me. “He’s also raping us.”

       “What’s that?” Hayley asked, cocking her head to the side.

       I sighed. “It’s forcing sex on an individual. He’s a sex offender, the worst kind, and she be rotting in prison.”

       “Prison,” Lindsey repeated. “That has to do with the law right?”

       I nodded.