Laura's POV
It had only been two days. Two days since the police and Child Protective Services came to our home. Two days since the girls were pulled from us like stitches ripped from a barely healing wound. Two days since the walls of our house started echoing with silence.
And still, Elias insisted we go to church.
"Appearances matter," he said that morning, tightening his tie in front of the hallway mirror like he was preparing for battle, not worship. "We need to show face."
It didn't matter that I'd spent most of Saturday locked in the bathroom sobbing, or that the phone hadn't stopped ringing with lawyers turning us down. It didn't matter that my heart felt like it had been carved out with a dull spoon. In Elias's mind, today wasn't about grief. It was about control. About making sure no one saw us as weak.
The heavy oak doors of Millbrook Baptist Church felt heavier than I remembered as Elias pushed them open. I smoothed the wrinkles in my skirt with clammy hands, a skirt I hadn't worn in months. Stepping inside didn't feel like a return to faith. It felt like walking onto a stage where everyone already knew the script, except us.
The low hum of Sunday chatter evaporated like a switch had been flipped. Every head turned, every pair of eyes settled on us. Not with compassion. Not with curiosity. But with thinly veiled judgment, quickly smothered in dropped gazes and awkward coughs. Conversations fizzled out as we passed, leaving behind a trail of dead silence and quickened steps.
We found our usual pew, third from the front on the left.
Mrs. Gable, who normally sat there, gathered her hymnal and purse with haste and moved two rows back, her husband mumbling something neither of us caught as they scurried away. My throat tightened. Had they always looked at us like this? Or was this new? This heavy, suffocating rejection?
When it came time for the Lord's Prayer, the woman seated to my right kept her hands folded tightly in her lap. Where there should have been an outstretched hand of fellowship, there was only stiff avoidance. I looked down at my own hands, wondering when they had started trembling.
And then Pastor Miller approached the pulpit. His warm, steady sermons had once been the heartbeat of our Sundays. But this time, I saw it. The flicker of unease when his eyes passed over us.
"Today's message is from Ephesians 6:1-4," he began, his voice calm but firm.
'Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor your father and mother—which is the first commandment with a promise—so that it may go well with you and that you may enjoy long life on the earth.'
Elias sat straighter beside me, as if those words justified everything. His grip tightened on the pew's edge. But Pastor Miller didn't stop there.
His voice deepened as he read the next verse, 'Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.'
The weight of that final verse pressed down on the entire room like a slow-falling curtain. I felt Elias twitch beside me. His knee bounced, his jaw clenched. He thought Pastor Miller was calling him out. Maybe he was.
For me, the words burrowed deep, a quiet accusation I couldn't outrun. Do not exasperate your children. It echoed through my chest like a hollow drum.
When the service ended, no one lingered to speak with us. The warm post-sermon gatherings we once enjoyed had dissolved into thin air. The congregation physically parted around us, like we carried something contagious. All except Connie Peterson, the church gossip, who swept toward us with a sugary smile that didn't reach her eyes.
"Laura, Elias, it's so good to see you ," she cooed, her voice sticky sweet but her curiosity razor-sharp. "We've all been praying for you."
Praying? Or waiting for the next morsel to feed their whispers?
"It's been difficult," I managed, my voice strained, my lips twitching in a smile that didn't quite form.
"Oh, I can imagine," she drawled, stepping closer. "Such a shock for everyone. Audrey was always such a quiet girl. And Mia, so sweet. Do you… have any news?"
Elias's hand clamped around my shoulder, pulling me closer in a stiff, rehearsed display of unity. "It's a legal matter now."
Connie's expression fell, her disappointment barely disguised. She patted my arm with a shallow sympathy, murmured something about trusting God's plan, and drifted away, undoubtedly to share her findings with her next eager listener.
The walk home felt endless. We passed the park. Empty. Silent.
On the next block, the Smith family's front yard came into view. Mrs. Smith was tugging her two boys toward their porch, the youngest dragging his feet, whining.
"Benjamin Thomas Smith! Move, or I'll send you to… to the Joneses!" she barked.
Instant silence. The boy's face paled, and he bolted inside.
My breath hitched. We were a threat now. A warning. A punchline.
"Do as you're told, or you'll end up with the Joneses."
The shame burned deeper than I'd expected. I hadn't thought about this part. About what would happen if Audrey snapped. I hadn't thought we'd become the story whispered around town.
I missed her. My baby girl. I missed her laugh, her soft footsteps in the hallway, the way she used to quietly chew her lip when she was thinking. I missed her in ways that hollowed me out.
Elias walked in silence, his pace brisk, his jaw rigid. But I knew him. I knew that silence was a roiling, simmering fury. I could already hear the accusations building behind his clenched teeth.
It came out later, when we were home. The house had never felt so cavernous.
"This is your fault," he hissed. "You didn't control her. You let her manipulate us. You didn't smile enough at church. You made us look like we had something to hide!"
His words spiraled. His rage mounted. And when the dam finally burst, he hit me. A sharp slap across the cheek snapped my head to the side. Not hard enough to bruise, but hard enough to sting. Hard enough to break me just a little more.
"You make me do this!" he shouted, storming out of the room.
I cried until dawn. I cried for the life we'd lost. For the man I'd married. For the girl I hadn't protected.
But I still clung to one desperate thread. Maybe I could fix it. Maybe Audrey would come back. Maybe I could make her see we'd changed.
I started piecing together what we could offer. "Privileges", her own room back. No more ice baths. Maybe even supervised outings. She can go to New Dawn if she wants to.
When Elias agreed, I felt hope spark in my chest. Surely this would be enough. Surely Audrey would see that we were trying.
When we finally found a lawyer on Monday, a man named Mr. Sterling, we told him our plan. But he shut it down with clinical precision.
"Offering basic human dignity as a privilege won't help your case. It could hurt you," he said flatly.
Elias bristled, ready to fight back, but I just… folded. I realized then that we still didn't understand. We were still speaking a different language.
But maybe… maybe Mia would want to come back. Maybe we could still save one of them.
Mr. Sterling said the court might ask the girls where they wanted to live. That terrified me.
Elias, impatient, tried calling Mia anyway. Blocked. Completely.
Mr. Sterling warned us not to try again.
"Contacting them could destroy your case. You must follow the legal process."
Elias doesn't get it. He still thinks he's done nothing wrong. And maybe that's why we'll lose.
But I still dream of Audrey coming home. I still dream of getting one more chance.
Lawyer's POV – Mr. Sterling
When the Joneses first walked into my office, I already knew this would be the case. I should have turned them down.
Their names had been plastered all over the news, whispered about in every legal circle, and discussed in every child welfare meeting. Other attorneys had run from this family. They politely declined, citing full caseloads or vague conflicts of interest. I knew why. No one wanted their firm's name tied to this. But I took it. Maybe out of curiosity. Maybe for the money.
Sitting across from Elias and Laura Jones only confirmed what I suspected.
Elias Jones was not interested in being a better father.
He wasn't remorseful. He wasn't introspective. He wanted control back. He wanted his life back, the neat, polished image he had cultivated, not the broken thing it had become. The man didn't understand why people had turned on him. He didn't even think he had done anything wrong.
Laura was more complicated. She wore her guilt like a second skin, but she didn't fight it. She let it settle on her shoulders and weigh her down. She cried when she thought I wasn't looking. She clung to the fantasy that her daughters could come home, that they would somehow choose to come home, if only the right words, the right offers, the right "privileges" were made.
They presented their plan to me eagerly. "We'll give Audrey her room back," Laura said with this desperate flicker of hope in her voice, "and we'll stop the ice baths. She can go to the library. She can… she can even choose to attend New Dawn, the obedience camp, if she wants to."
They genuinely thought this would sway a judge.
I had to sit there, my face blank, my voice professional, as I explained how ridiculous this was.
"You're offering her what she should have always had," I said carefully. "A safe home. Bodily safety. Access to personal space. You can't sell basic rights as privileges. That's not how this works."
Elias's jaw tightened. He didn't like that. He leaned forward in his chair, trying to regain his footing.
"She was always a difficult child," he said stiffly. "She made us discipline her."
"Your daughter's testimony and the evidence gathered indicate otherwise," I reminded him, keeping my tone even. "Audrey's account is extremely detailed, consistent, and corroborated by both physical evidence and Mia's journals. You won't win that argument."
"But Mia wants to come back," Elias said, desperate now. "That matters. She was reluctant to leave. She said she missed us. Surely that counts for something."
"It does," I conceded. "But Mia's involvement in the abuse, particularly as a perpetrator against Audrey, complicates the court's view of your household as a safe environment."
Elias's scowl deepened. He still didn't understand.
"You need to show the court remorse," I said, more firmly. "Real or otherwise. Right now, you both seem more interested in restoring your reputation than repairing the damage you've done. That will not win you this case."
Elias's silence was telling. He didn't believe he had done anything wrong. And the court would see that. Judges know when they're being lied to.
I almost regretted taking the case. Almost.
But I'd seen impossible custody battles before. I'd seen more despicable clients win. With the right approach, with controlled testimony, carefully framed apologies, and just the right amount of performance, this wasn't completely lost.
But it was close.
And I had the distinct impression that Elias Jones wasn't capable of pretending to be sorry.
Elias's POV
I hate lawyers.
They talk like they know everything. Like they've lived my life. Like they understand what it's like to hold a family together with your bare hands while everyone's pulling it apart.
I sat in that sterile office, listening to Mr. Sterling dissect me like I was the problem.
Me. The man who worked. Who provided. Who demanded order because children need order.
And now I'm told I have to look sorry? I have to pretend like I agree with these ridiculous accusations?
My daughters were supposed to obey. That's what children are supposed to do.
Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.
But no one is listening to that part anymore. They're all too busy fawning over the supposed victims.
Audrey. The defiant one. The liar. The girl who plotted against her own family.
She's the one who twisted Mia, made her look like a monster. Audrey's lies tore this house apart, got the neighbors to hate us, and turned us into a joke in our community. The Smiths are threatening to send their kids to us as punishment? Is that supposed to be funny? I've worked too hard to become the town's cautionary tale.
I miss Mia. Sweet Mia. Loyal Mia. She knows we're her family. I know she wants to come back. I could see it in her face when they took her. She didn't want to leave us.
I tried calling her, but they've blocked us. The system's boxed us out. I could almost hear the smug satisfaction in Mr. Sterling's voice when he warned me not to try again.
"It will hurt your case," he said.
It's always about the case. About appearances. I'm tired of appearances. I just want my daughters back.
Laura thinks we can bribe Audrey with her room and some supervised outings. She calls them "privileges," like we're doing her a favor. I thought it was a good strategy. Generous even. We didn't have to offer anything.
But Sterling shut it down. "They're not privileges. They're basic rights."
That's how far gone this whole thing is. The world's gone soft.
I told Laura to stop crying. It's not helping. She's always so emotional, always making this about her feelings. I can play the game. I can wear the mask. I can say what they need to hear. But I will not believe that I was wrong. I disciplined my daughters. I did what any father should do. I upheld order in this house when no one else could.
And now I have to convince a court that I can change? Fine. I'll convince them.
But I will not believe it.
And when I get Mia back, because I will, I'll make sure she never questions this family again.
Never.