CW: CSA and physical abuse alluded to.

It happened once a month, sometimes less. A girl, bruised and malnourished, would show up on one of our doorsteps. Sometimes they got smart and kept to the woods, avoiding the townspeople all together, but someone always saw them or a camera would capture them. And no matter how much they screamed and begged, they were always taken away, back to the compound, and we acted like we saw nothing.

Mona couldn't take it anymore. The day that little girl showed up, she broke all the rules and let her inside. Denny protested. He tried to throw the girl out, but Mona hit him across the face with a poker from the fireplace and told him to stay away from her.

The girl looked to be about 12, barely dressed. Bruises covered her body. Bruises in the shape of large hands on her arms and thighs. Random cuts across her skin. Cigarette burns on her face. Fresh imprints of leather straps on her limbs. Cleaned up and healthy, she would have looked like Mona's late daughter, Sarah, and I know that's why she did what she did.

"If you don't call them, they'll make our lives hell," Denny hissed as he nursed the gnarly wound on his cheek.

"I'm not doing this anymore," Mona hissed back. "They're children, Denny. Children!"

"They're not our business," he growled.

"They were always our business!"

In a few hours, the girl was fed and clothed. Mona put her old clothes in a plastic bag, careful not to contaminate them. They would be evidence, she thought.

When night fell, we led the girl to Mona's car. Denny glared at me as we walked out the door. He was angry. Disappointed in me. I was always a good girl. Always so eager to follow the rules and be a proper citizen. But I was only a little older than that girl, and seeing her up close broke something in me.

Nobody stopped us.

The black vans didn't follow us.

The police filed a report.

The girl was taken into protective custody.

Reporters flocked to the town. Questions asked, blame placed. The compound was raided and found empty.

That was supposed to be the end of it.

Two years later, Molly Pearson went missing. A year after that, so did Angela Rowe. Then Danielle Smith. Felicia Reddick. Nelly Watts. Even a couple of boys, Nathan Austin and Tommy Boone. The media called it strange how many children started going missing from our town alone, but no one dared to make the connection out loud.

Some of the children came home with a distant look in their eyes. Most remain missing.