I remembered. The note in my wallet. The cream-colored paper with the ink drawing of a rose.
"I'm here," I said.
Sabrina broke the seal.
The sound of old paper tearing was louder than it should have been in that quiet room. Four sisters and one scholarship student from Philadelphia, standing in a secret room their dead father built to protect them from their living mother. If someone had told me this was my life three months ago, when the biggest thing on my mind was whether I could afford the train ticket to school, I would have laughed until I passed out.
Sabrina unfolded the letter and read it silently. Her eyes moved across the page. I watched her face for any sign of what the words contained, but Sabrina was Sabrina, and her walls held even now.
Until they didn't.
