Social Services

 

 

Sisters  Jessica is the more volatile of the two. She’s always felt the need to protect her younger more docile sister, Amanda. At the age of ten she witnessed the murder of her parents by what she called ‘demons and monsters’.

 

Truth it was Jessica found holding the bloody blade and there were always rumors she was a ‘difficult’ child. No forced entry. No outside intruders. She probably would have been convicted if not for Amanda’s testimony that Jessica was sleeping at the time the screams awoke them. Everyone always believed Amanda, even as a child. There was always a wise quality about her that her sister lacked.

 

It wasn’t until Jessica was thirteen that her therapy worked and she was able to finally admit that those demons were really just men. Amanda and Jessica spent time bouncing from foster care to foster care families. Rarely together because most wanted nothing to do with Jessica. But Jessica also has a history of burning bridges with foster families.

 

Petty crime, and carjacking kept Jessica under the watchful eye of the law while Amanda appeared well adjusted. A good student, Amanda’s been warned to stay away from her sister and the two were split.  It caused Jessica to downward spiral and she was found repeatedly with a cache of weapons and often spoke about her ‘mission’ to protect Amanda.

 

Amanda needed her sister just as badly and was constantly running away to find Jessica and was arrested on petty theft charges along the way. She was even accused of running money scams at school. She was put into therapy and considered ‘high risk’.

 

At seventeen, the two inseparable sisters found each other again. An aunt, long cut off from the family, arrived and offered to take the two girls in. Everything checked out, but something about it never felt right to me and to the others at social services. Jessica was trouble and left unchecked we knew she’d pull Jessica down with her.

 

They’re family so there was nothing we could do to separate them.

 

They’re Blood.