Found In A Family

4: Internal Battle

Jen's POV

It's been a week since the whole Taylor thing. Austin and Claire flew home to Nashville with Taylor. We decided it'd be best if she wasn't close to LA especially with Riley around. I alerted my lawyer telling that I wanted a restraining order against Riley and he said he'd get it started. Also, I was finally given the clearance for the files about Danielle Simone. I found a lot of stuff that matches Emily. Especially pictures. Pictures of her starting at three months old. I bet she didn't know that she wasn't dropped off in foster care until three months. A number of homes she was in matches, what she told me. A good one until age ten than not so good ones after. Then there's a list of reasons why she was removed from each home. One was that she was too smart, what the heck is that gonna affect?

"Emily!" I shouted from the basement where I was currently sorting through the box of files.

"What?" she yells back.

"Can you come downstairs?" I ask.

"Yeah, hold on a minute," she says followed by a few thumps. Moments later she comes downstairs with Faith and joins me in the family room.

"Hey, so I found you foster files," I gesture to the papers spread out on the floor.

"Anything interesting?" she asks.

"Yeah, you weren't put into care until three months. Also, you went to jail twice?" I ask.

"Yeah, apparently it's a felony to break down a door and the second was sneaking into a legal office," she confirms.

"Why were you breaking down a door?" I ask.

"That's something I don't really want to talk about," she says shortly.

"Emily you need to tell me everything. I deserve to know what happened, no more lies and no more secrets," I say firmly.

"Well, I and a few kids were locked in this attic type thing. Well more like a closet. There was three of us, I was eleven, there was a boy who was thirteen and a younger boy who was about five. We had been in the room for three days. There was no light, no food, no water, just an empty closet," she says shaking, "The oldest, Eli started pounding on the door. He was hitting it so hard I thought it'd break. But it didn't. So I started kicking it and punching it, eventually, we were all pounding on it until it broke. I grabbed Bryan the little boy and high-tailed my butt out of the house. The foster dad caught us and charged me and Eli with Destruction of Property. We had to spend two months in juvenile detention. It was very unpleasant."

"Oh my God that's so sh-stupid. Stupid. Why the he-heck would they do that to any child?" I say reacting to her story.

"Jen, it's fine there is nothing you or I can do. It's in the past," Emily says taking my wrists.

"No, that's not justice!" I answer through gritted teeth.

"Jen, you are scaring Faith and it's the past there's no changing it, " Emily says pulling me into a hug. Only then do I notice that she's still shaking.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I say taking a few deep breaths.

"It's okay. I'm alive and fine," she says.

"Okay, Alright. I guess so," I agree.

"Emily I wanna to know why you didn't press charges or anything towards those who hurt you?" I say after a few moments.

"I'd be put on a higher high-risk list, no one wants a broken child that's why usually after the age of seven kids start understanding and don't ever get adopted. They're in and out of the system. I knew no one wanted an eleven, twelve or thirteen years old, but I didn't need to give them another reason," she looks down.