It was one in the afternoon when Grady and Edaline got the call. My mom had been over with the triplets again, my dad was at work, and I was at school with everyone else. We were in the last week of school, and I was in my English final exam when I got pulled out.

It had been two months since Sophie had gone missing. Two months since all of our lives started on a long downwards slope. So, as we were driving to the hospital, as everything was getting explained to me, I tried not to have any hope. It was better that way, low expectations lead to no disappointment.

And besides, there are plenty of short blonde girls in the world. We had Sophie's body. There was no way the girl in the hospital was actually her. My cousin was dead, and that girl was just a fake.

Nothing could bring Sophie back, she was gone for good and it was time that we all accepted that.

The faker was apparently too injured for us to see her, to identify her, as they had to operate on her immediately and make sure she was stable. I didn't even need to identify her to know it wasn't my cousin. My cousin was dead, why couldn't they realize that?

A few minutes later, Elwin came out to the waiting room to meet with us.

"So, I know you all have some questions-" Grady didn't let him finish.

"My daughter is dead and we buried her body, so yeah, of course we have questions. If that really is my daughter in that room, then who was the girl we buried?" Elwin sighed deeply before answering.

"We ran a DNA test on the girl we have right now, just to make sure it really was her before we told you. And after the DNA confirmed it, we sent people out to go look at the body, and it was somehow fake. It had Sophie's hair and blood and skin, but it didn't have any internal organs. It was just a hollow body. We don't even know how it got through at the morgue, but an investigation is being run right now to figure everything out."

It didn't make any sense to me. It lined up with the cameras and the texts, but what about the fake body? There's no way that it worked, that whoever planted it actually got away with it. And that still raises the question of who took her, and why they took her, and why they went to such great lengths to make us all think she was dead.

She's not dead.

"So we gave up on her?" I asked from my seat beside Edaline. "She was alive all this time, getting hurt and thinking we were going to help her, to save her, but we just let her rot there."

"No, you didn't know any better." Elwin tried to justify it to me. "None of us did, it's not your fault."

I laughed. "I'm not saying it's my fault. I'm saying it's everyone else's fault. All of you told us the body was real, you told us she was dead. That she killed herself. But I knew it! I knew she wouldn't fucking kill herself, but everyone just went with the easy option! They just let my cousin be thought of as suicidal, when she wasn't! She wasn't and I knew, and she wasn't even dead at all and you just let us all believe that! You let us go through all that grief, feel that pain and loss, for two months! We should've been out there looking for her, while who knows what was happening to her! We could've had her back, she could've been safe, if everyone would have just done their jobs right and see that the body was fake! If they would've listened to me when I said she wouldn't have just killed herself, she would've asked us for help first. She would've-"

"Dex." My mom put her hand on my arm. "Sit down. It's not Elwin's fault either." I then realized that I had stood up in my anger, and I hesitantly sat back down.

For the next ten minutes, I just watched the lights flicker. Elwin had gone to handle an emergency, so we were just sitting there.

"Dex!" I heard a shout, turning to see Keefe running towards us, the rest of our friends close behind. When they finally reached us, a few were panting.

"Is it really her?" Keefe asked, with so much hope and fear in his eyes. All I could do was shrug.

"We don't know yet, they haven't let us see her." I responded. My mom glared at the tone I used. She turned to my friends, putting a motherly smile on her face.

"Why don't you all sit down? It's still going to be a while before we can see her, because they're trying to stabilize her and make sure she's well enough for visitors."

Keefe, Biana, and Tam sat near me, the rest sitting across from us. Bex ran over to Biana immediately and squeezed next to her in the chair. I didn't pay attention to anything that my sister said to her, just noticing how Biana started to play with her hair, braiding it flawlessly.

"This is torture." Keefe said to me. I couldn't agree more.

"I don't know why they're making us wait so long to just identify her." I responded. "I mean, I had thought it wasn't her, but Elwin said something about a fake body and DNA tests and I don't know. I just want to be able to see her."

"It's gotta be soon, right?" He asked. "It can't take that long to get her good enough for us to see her."

"I don't know, Elwin didn't really say." Probably because I just started yelling at him, but I didn't care. My emotions were justified, I had every right to be angry.

Keefe opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a piercing scream that echoed through the hallway. A scream from a very familiar voice.

I was filled with dread as I took off down the hallway it came from, hearing more footsteps behind me but I didn't bother to see who it was. Another scream rang out and I quickened my pace. I found the room the sound came from, the door wide open for more doctors to come in, and I ran inside.

There she was, curled in a ball on her side, screaming and clutching her hair, but it was her. I could tell. She was so much thinner, and her face was hidden from my view, but it was my cousin.

She's actually alive.

"You can't be in here!" A doctor exclaimed, trying to kick me out. I hardly even gave them any attention, I was far too focused on my cousin. I shrugged the doctor off and walked over to the bed, closer to my thrashing cousin.

I heard the door click shut as everyone who followed me was left outside, but I couldn't hear anything they were yelling through the door over Sophie's shouts.

"Make it stop." She whimpered, moving her hands to her ears. "Please, stop."

"What's going on?" I asked the doctor who was still trying to get me to leave. He just sighed.

"We don't know yet, but you can't be in here. Leave before I call security." I threw a glare in his direction.

"Please, let me try to help her." I pleaded. "She's my cousin." Not waiting for a response, I just walked over to the side of her bed and kneeled down to be eye level with her.

Her eyes flickered open, tears of pain filling them. She cried out again, something about noise, and people were talking too loud. Everyone in the room went quiet, yet she still whimpered, gripping at her ears harder.

"Stop, please! Dex, make it stop!" She shrieked. My heart panged for her and I reached my hands out, covering her ears and hands. Her whimpers quieted but the machines she was hooked up to beeped wildly.

"Make it stop." She whispered, moving her arms so she could grab my hands and press them tighter to her ears, to the point where it felt like he was trying to crush her head.

"Turn off the machines." I whispered, not wanting to hurt Sophie further with my voice. I could hear the doctors arguing about whether or not they should, but I just focused on my cousin.

She was alive, but there was something so, so wrong. I still didn't know what had happened to her, but her eyes were filled with darkness, her cheeks were sunken in, and there were faint white lines on her wrist, forming some sort of symbol. But she was alive.

"Make them stop talking." She whispered only loud enough for me to hear. But, no one was talking and the machines got turned off.

I crawled up next to her, pulling her against me so one ear was against my chest while I covered the other with both my hands. It lessened her crying a bit, but she was still hearing whatever she was talking about.

But I was holding my cousin again. She was actually real, actually next to me, and I was holding her again. Alive, safe.

I looked around the room, locking eyes with Elwin. He looked scared, unsure, but tried to hide it when he saw me looking.

They didn't know what was happening to Sophie. Nobody knew what was going on, or how to help. How to make her better.

What if I got my cousin back, just for her to be hurt and like that forever? I would still take care of her, still help her, but was it too much to ask for her to be okay? She was missing for two months, we thought she was dead, why can't she just be healthy and unharmed?

I watched Elwin walk over to us slowly, carefully, hooking up the IV with something else. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion and he mouthed the word "sedative." I nodded, not liking the idea of my cousin being drugged, but I knew it was necessary to calm her down so they could actually help her.

He sterilized the IV needle and got ready to put it in my cousin's arm, so I held her face closer to me, trying to keep her from seeing what was about to happen. She'd always been terrified of needles and I knew she would react strongly and worsen her condition if she saw the IV about to be reinserted to the spot where she must've ripped it out earlier.

She was too distracted and in pain to notice the prep, but she whimpered when the needle was put in. The drowsiness hit her immediately and she started thrashing as I tried to hold her still.

"No!" She shouted. "Please, no! Not again, not again, not again..." Her voice trailed off as the sedative took effect. Wherever she was for the past two months, there was drugging involved. I clutched her tighter to me, worried about what happened to her.

Whatever it was, I had a feeling she was never going to be the same again.

I was kicked out not long after Sophie had been sedated, but I didn't fight it that time. It was her, it was really, truly her. I could hardly believe it, and I knew everyone saw it on my face as soon as I walked out.

She's actually alive.

"It's her." Keefe breathed. Relief seemed to instantly wash over him, just as it had for me. Edaline cried out and covered her mouth, collapsing into Grady's arms. His eyes watered up.

I knew what they were feeling, they thought they had been so unlucky to lose both their children. I had lost both my cousins, two of my sisters. But Sophie was back. She was back with us, and she was going to stay with us.

I wouldn't let anything happen to her, and looking around at my friends and family, I knew they wouldn't either.

Nothing was ever going to hurt her ever again.

the reunion is here!!!!!! kind of... i hope you guys enjoyed! this chapter took a while to write because of school and activities, i've been really busy. and if things keep going at this pace, i might have to slow down my updating schedule until things are less busy, but for now i thing i have it under control. or i at least hope soooo. bye!

Avery, out ->

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