A Spine-Tingling Story - TDG Fanfic

My Sibling's Keeper

While the two boys had been conversing in the room upstairs, Rosemary  had been sitting down in the lounge with the others, trying to find out  more about the whole situation. While a part of her knew that she  probably shouldn't be asking about all this without Ryan's knowledge or  consent, a larger part of her held a degree of morbid curiosity towards  her brother's friend's dark past.

By the end of the story,  however, she couldn't find any entertainment value. This wasn't some  true crime story that kept people interested in it through the amount of  mystery and speculation around it. This was simply a very real  occurrence that was incredibly tragic and emotionally draining to both  hear about and go through. For a long moment, she simply sat there,  staring owlishly through her glasses.

Finally, she swallowed and  spoke. "People really never suspected anything this whole time? No one  tried to defend this kid? He was five, for crying out loud. Even if he  somehow had done it, he couldn't have known what he was doing."

"It  was mum's word against his," Chloe admitted, looking down. "Who were  they more likely to believe? Besides, she said she didn't really mean to  lie, she just panicked."

Rosemary frowned. Something wasn't quite  adding up here. She knew that even good people made mistakes - of all  people, a hot-headed thirteen-year-old like her could testify to that -  but to blame a little child for something as nefarious as that, least of  all your own child, took something else. "You really don't think she  could hold a grudge against him for anything else? I mean, that's pretty  low. If it really was a mistake, you'd think she'd try and take it back  for the sake of, you know, not messing your own kid up for life."

"I'm  not justifying it," Chloe said. "I'm just explaining it. She said  afterwards that she did it for me so she could stay with me and I  wouldn't be taken away from her."

"Well, would you want to stay with her, knowing the truth?" Rosemary asked, pointedly.

"It's not like I had much say at the time," Chloe defended.

"But you did just now," Rosemary pointed out. "You knew the whole story, and you were still considering going with her?"

"You don't know!" Chloe retorted. "You have no idea what it was like. She really was sorry, she spent years trying to make it up to me and be a proper mum. I can't just throw all that away."

"Just like she threw Ryan away?" Rosemary said back, letting some anger boil to the surface. "He did nothing  wrong and yet he's been paying for what she did for years. Did she  never consider what could happen to him, being dumped somewhere where  he'd be treated like some child criminal?"

"It's better than both  of us being taken!" Chloe let out, getting tired of the girl's attitude,  before realising what she just said and clapping a hand over her mouth.

Rosemary's  eyes widened while the rest of the house was stunned speechless for the  second time that day. "Did ... did you actually just say that?!"  Rosemary let out after a long moment. "It's better for your brother to  be screwed up for life than for the both of you to be taken to a decent  place where you could actually be taken care of?"

"It's ... not as  simple as that," Tyler chimed in, though rather timidly. "Not all care  homes are that great. The one I was in before this one was literally  like a prison. It wasn't even meant to be a secure home or anything. The  only reason I got out was that it burned down."

"That's only a  matter of chance," Rosemary said. "Instead, Ryan was all but guaranteed  to be taken somewhere like a prison, for no good reason other than his  mum said so, while you were all but doted on, Chloe, treated like a  fragile little princess."