Meadows Ridge Middle School:
Cassidy watches from her hidden spot as Donald gets in his car. She couldn’t wait to repay him for what he and his friends did to her in school yesterday. He has been bullying her since she came out last year as being trans. Hell, it was bad enough the state they lived in wouldn’t allow her to continue her treatments. So, she took matters into her own hands and chopped her testicles and penis off right in front of every representative in the chamber.

She had broadcasted what she did from her hidden cell phone so every news agency would get the footage. She wanted everyone who supported the damn bill to see what they were doing to people like her. Sure, she ended up going to the hospital so they could try to save her genitals, but she made sure they couldn’t do it.

She was glad she didn’t have parents and that her foster parents were getting fed up with all the crazy stunts she pulled. She watches as Donald drives off to pick up his stuck-up girlfriend, Bergail. She was the queen bitch of their high school.

She was following behind them at a good distance on her electric bicycle. An evil smile appears as she watches them pick up everyone and pull into the student parking lot. Just as Donald turned his car off, she pressed the remote for the hidden paint bombs and stink bombs she planted in his car to go off.

She was recording everything as the bombs went off. Everyone and everything inside the car gets splattered with puck green latex paint. The stink bomb that goes off was homemade. She did some research online and learned how to make the stuff. She would have done the tar and feather trick, but she couldn’t find enough feathers to do the job. So, she settled for paint and stink bombs instead.

She films the incident as everyone starts laughing at Donald and his friends. She goes and parks her bicycle over at the bike rack. She takes her helmet inside with her, along with her book bag.

She spent six months in the mental hospital after getting out of the hospital. Some of the reps for her state had come by to offer their sympathy to her and to congratulate her for the stunt she pulled. As for the others who were for the bill, they were pissed at her. Not only had it brought local attention to her state and what they were doing to people like her, but it also put her state in the national spotlight as well.

Some of the local, and state senators and representatives who supported the bill now had egg on their faces and would make it hard for them to be reelected. Which she hopes will change people’s minds. She walks into the school building and to her first bell class.

She had to repeat her freshman year because of what she did and for spending six months in a mental hospital for it. The doctors she was assigned to, tried to make it seem like she was out of her mind. But she turned the tables on them. She played mind games with them.

Because she loved magicians so much, she learned how to escape from straitjackets and handcuffs. She even managed to learn how to pick locks as well. She didn’t have anything else better to do while in the hospital and she knew she was under observation.

The bad thing about pulling that stunt was that she had to stay in a girl’s group home now. They tried putting her in a male group home, but she was raped by three guys on the first night. After that incident, she sued the city and state government asses off. Plus she brought lawsuits
against the state delegates and senators as well. Most of the lawsuits were still going through the courts.

The lawyer she had been given by the courts was a moron and shouldn’t even have a law license. Luckily for her, another law firm offered to represent her and do it pro bono. The new lawyer she has has only had her law license for two years. But she was a go-getter and knew the state was at fault for what they did to her, and she wanted the state to pay. Cassidy walks into her first bell class and takes a seat in the back of the class. Her teacher Ms. White, tried to treat her students with respect and such. She wasn’t a stuck-up or religious person.

Cassidy watches as the other students come walking into class talking about what happened out in the student parking lot with Donald’s car and how everyone inside was covered in paint and puke. The stench coming from inside the car was strong enough to qualify it for the junkyard.

Cassidy couldn’t help but snicker after what she heard classmates say. Maybe Donald and his friends will learn their lesson. She doubts it, but if not. She’ll have to up her game some.

After Mrs. White’s class, she had homeroom. A school play was coming up and were looking for people. The football game between them and Eastview High School was coming up. Which, she had no interest in at all.

After homeroom, she goes to her second bell class. It was science and she loved science. She took very detailed notes and always scored high on every test Mr. Oneil gave them. Sometimes he throws in a bonus question to see who has been paying attention in his class. The question was normally something he covered or mentioned in class. One time it had been a demonstration he had done.

After her third and fourth classes, she heads to lunch. She normally doesn’t eat lunch at school because of how lousy it is. If they had a home exec class, she would go there and have lunch. Instead, she heads outside and sits under an old chestnut tree at her favorite spot. She pulls out a package of crackers and eats them.

She tries to stay away from the group home as much as possible. The staff who looked after the older girls didn’t care if they showed up or not. The staff knew they would be leaving by the time they turned twenty-one years old. As for the younger girls, the staff there care about them.

Which was good from some of the stories she heard about what the younger girls have been through.

After she finishes her crackers, she gets up and heads back inside the school. There was a certain teacher she wanted to set up for. The teacher likes to address her as Mr., instead of Ms. So, today he was going to get one of her famous glitter bombs.

She makes it to the classroom without being spotted and picks the lock. She walks into the room and sets the glitter bomb to explode and cover him in glitter. Once she was done, she went to the girl's bathroom and freshened up.

Most of the girls in her school don’t know she used to be a guy. Since she didn’t bother to take a shower at school, she didn’t have to worry about them seeing what repair was done to her groin area. The doctors tried to repair the damage she did to herself, but all they could do was give her an opening where she would have to sit down to pee.

Her groin area didn’t look like a girl’s and would never pass as anything else. She would have to win the lottery and have reconstructed surgery done to make her groin area look like a girl’s. She was suing the state for that as well. All her lawsuits were taking their sweet time to go through the courts. She figures by the time she finishes high school; they might have one of them finished.

When she returned to class, Mr. Watson started his lecture. She waits for the right moment to set the bomb off. Just as it goes off, the emergency alarm in the school goes off. All the students knew what the alarm meant.

She watches as one of the students goes over and locks the door to their classroom. All of them take cover on the floor. As she was sitting on the floor near one of the girls in her class, she saw she was crying.

“It’s going to be all right.” Cassidy reaches over to her and holds her hand.

Everyone screams as an explosion goes off in the hallway. The glass in their door explodes inward, covering students with broken glass. The next thing they see are three grenades being thrown into the room.

“Awe Shit!” Cassidy moves as quickly as she can over to them and tosses them back towards the door.

The last one goes off halfway, killing four nearby students and injuring several more, including her. The two she threw back out in the hallway exploded, blowing the door off its hinges and sending it toward Mr. Watson. The last thing Cassidy hears is the sound of screams from her fellow students.

Howsers Medical:
Cassidy wakes up weeks later in a hospital room. Through blurry eyes, she tries to look around to see where the hell she is. It takes her eyes a while to focus, but they finally do. The room was dark, and several machines were connected to her. She had a tube going down her throat.
She shivers as she exposes her arm from under the covers.

The last thing she remembered was the grenade exploding and being hit by the force of it. She remembers hearing screams and nothing afterward. She reaches for the remote hanging near her bed and presses its buttons.

Nurse Station:
Nurse White and Nurse Moore were monitoring the station when the buzzer for room three went off. Nurse White turns it off and looks at the younger nurse working with her “I got it.”

“Okay.” Nurse Moore hasn’t been a nurse very long and got assigned to the night shift.

She watches as Nurse White walks toward room three where one of the victims from the high school is. The poor thing had been hit by shrapnel from a grenade exploding in front of her.

Nurse White walks into the room and turns the lights on slowly. She spots the young man who had got caught by the exploding grenade, panicking. She goes over to try and calm the youngster down.

“Easy, you safe here.”

Cassidy looks at the older woman as she tries to get her to calm down. She wanted the tube going down her throat removed. She starts tugging on it.

Nurse White stops Cassidy from pulling on the tube. “Let me do it before you hurt yourself.”

Nurse White slowly removes the tube from Cassidy‘s mouth. She works slowly and finally removes the tube.

“How do you feel?”

“Thirsty.” Cassidy’s throat felt dry.

A smirk appears on Nurse White’s face. “I can help you with that.” She grabs the pitcher sitting nearby carries it over to the sink and fills it with water.

Afterward, she carries it back to Cassidy and fills a cup for her. She handed the cup to Cassidy. “Drink it slowly.”

Cassidy accepts the cup and slowly drinks the water. As soon as it hit her throat, it started to feel better. She ends up drinking a second cup of water, but this time she nurses it.

“What happened?” Cassidy knew where she was from, the uniform the nurse was wearing.

“Some terrorists attacked your school. You are one of the lucky ones. They killed at least thirty students in your school and injured over a hundred more.” Nurse White couldn’t believe a group of foreigners had managed to attack their local high school and hold off the sheriff's department.

Her husband had informed her that the terrorists were well-armed and knew what they were doing.

This was revenge against the United States for backing the rebels in their country. Several citizens were killed because the United States gave the rebels weapons capable of large-scale destruction. Several of them lost their family, and innocent kids had been killed by those weapons.

“Why our town? There’s no military here.” Cassidy was confused because her town was an old mining town that for the past twenty years, had been rebuilding itself.

The town itself had started as a company town, and when the mining company shut the mines down because of how unsafe they had become. The town started to die, and residents moved on. It took investments from several private individuals to help rebuild the town.

The town was located in a nice mountain area where those who were into nature could go hiking and bird watching. During the winter months, the mountains were covered in snow and made for the best skiing and snowboarding around. Some of the restaurants in their town were featured on the Food Network and in several magazines. The old opera house and theater were rebuilt using outside investments, and they had become popular with bands coming through the area.

Nurse White knew why they chose their town, but her husband told her not to say anything. It needed to remain secret. He wasn’t supposed to know, but he knew some guards who worked there.

“I don’t know, either.” As Nurse White checks over Cassidy’s vitals.

Cassidy lets Nurse White check her over and afterward lays back down. She informs Nurse White that she is feeling hungry.

“I’ll have some food brought up to you.” Nurse White walks out of Cassidy’s hospital room and back to the nursing station and requests some food for Cassidy.

Cassidy looked around the hospital room she was in and noticed there weren’t any get-well cards or flowers. No one cared about her and gave a damn if she lived or die. Tears form and start sliding down her cheek.

That’s how her life has been from the beginning with her. She was found as a newborn baby in a dirty greasy box with her umbilical cord still attached to the placenta and her own body. Whoever gave birth to her had wrapped her and the box she was in, in a plastic trash bag at White’s Gas Station at the edge of town. They left her in the dumpster to die and be picked up with the trash. She was lucky one of the attendants had found her and reported her.

After staying in the hospital recovering from being found, no one wanted to adopt her, and she was sent to the local group home. As she grew older, no one wanted to adopt her.

Most of the people caring for her didn’t know why no one would adopt her. She was bright and learned things very quickly. The only three odd things about her were her strange red-stained birthmark on the base of her neck, her feeling like a girl trapped in a boy’s body, and her white streak hair. It went down the middle of her head and around the outside of her head, making her look like a skunk.

The rest of her hair was raven black with purple highlights, except for the ring and stripe of white hair on top of her head. She got teased all the time because of how her hair looked, and she shaved her head bald a few times. Now, she accepts it, and if someone teases her about it. She gives them the middle finger and gets even with them.

Cassidy spends the next few days being checked over. She is informed about the scars she will have because of the grenade fragments that had to be dug out of her body. She wonders why they didn’t just do some cosmetic work for her.

On her fourth day since she woke up from the coma she had been in, nurse White comes into her room and looks at her. Nurse White had informed her that she would be discharged from the hospital today.

“Cassidy, your new parents are here to pick you up. Would you like to meet them now or in the reception area?” Nurse White has gotten to know Cassidy in the past two weeks she has been here.

Cassidy looks at Nurse White with a confused look on her face. She had no idea that she was going to another family. She thought she was going back to the group home.

“Are you sure they are here for me and not someone else? No one had ever taken an interest in me.”

“Oh, I’m sure they are here for you. They showed up with your social worker, Mrs. Perkins.” Nurse White knew how Cassidy felt because she had found Cassidy crying. After all, no one had shown up to check on her except her social worker.

“Sure, why not? If I cause a scene, it will be in private.” Cassidy sits down on the hospital bed.

“Okay.” A smirk appears on Nurse White’s face. She had a feeling she was going to like her new parents.

Nurse White enters the hallway and looks at Mr. and Mrs. Patkar. “She’s willing to meet you. She was surprised someone took an interest in her.”

“From everything we read about her, I think she fits perfectly in our family.” Sandy had her friend do a complete background on Cassidy Gates. Everything she needed to know about the girl had been given to her.

Her husband Alexander had been impressed by some of her antics and wondered why Cassidy hadn’t been adopted by a couple yet. Sure, the girl tends to get into trouble, but she stood up for what she believed in, and her grades were remarkable. He noticed that she had been given several IQ tests, and she had scored 130 on them consistently.

“I agree with my wife. I feel she will fit right in with our family.” Alex wonders if Cassidy will be willing to follow in his footsteps or his wife’s when she finds out what they used to do for a living.

“Alright, if you’ll follow me.” Nurse White escorts Mr. and Mrs. Patkar into Cassidy’s hospital room, with Cassidy’s social worker, Mrs. Perkins,
following everyone into the room.

Cassidy was feeling nervous as she watched the door to her hospital room. She hopes she’ll finally get a family willing to accept her for her this time. When the door starts to open, she takes a deep breath. She watches as Nurse White walks in first.

Following behind Nurse White was a woman with shoulder-length curly auburn color hair. She wore a form-fitting cream-colored dress that exposed her arms and showed off her curvy figure. She wore three-inch matching heels, a sapphire necklace, and matching earrings.

Behind her was a gentleman dressed in a tailored dark blue suit. His suit jacket was held closed by two buttons. He wore a cream-colored shirt that matched the woman's dress. His tie had white and blue stripes on it. His shoes were polished to a bright gloss. There was a muscular build to him, and he stood several inches taller than the woman.

Then, she noticed Mrs. Perkins following behind them. She and Mrs. Perkins got along like oil and vinegar. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Mrs. Perkins. It was more that Mrs. Perkins had a problem accepting a boy of her intelligence who wanted to be a girl instead of a boy. Mrs. Perkins tried enrolling her into activities that meant more for boys than girls.

Alex and Sandy look at the young girl sitting before them on the bed. They had only seen pictures of her, but they knew her history. Now that Sandy was looking at the girl instead of pictures. She could see that Cassidy could use some minor plastic surgery to soften certain areas of her face.

As for the rest of Cassidy, Sandy could see that the poor girl was anxious about meeting them. She read that Cassidy had been passed up for adoption several times. And the foster families she had been placed with were fed up with her antics and stunts she pulled. She saw the recording on the web where she cut off her genitalia in front of the members of the state reps and broadcasted it on the web. She knew the Republicans that had sponsored that bill caught a huge backlash from that stunt. She also knew Cassidy made it so they couldn’t reattach her penis or testicles either.

Alex looks at the young lady and smiles. After everything he read about Cassidy, he had to give her credit for the things she did to get her point across. He read the security report where she escaped the mental hospital she had been placed in for cutting off her testicles and penis. She did it right before the state reps to protest the passed new bill.

She even threw her ruined male bits at one of the senators who coauthored the bill. That was before she passed out from seeing her blood. The doctors weren’t able to reattach parts because of the way she cut them and smashed them.

“Cassidy, I would like to introduce your new foster parents. This is Sandy Patkar and her husband, Alexander Patkar. You’ll be going to live with them instead of going back to the group home.”

Cassidy looks at Mrs. Perkins and asks, “Do they know everything about me? Like the law suites and what I have done?”

“We’re aware of everything about you, Cassidy. Mrs. Patkar has shown us your file and your history. Including that stunt you pulled at the state capital.” A sly smile appears on Sandy’s face.

“That took guts, Cassidy.” Alex looks directly into Cassidy’s eyes and notices how unusual they are.

He nudges his wife and nods towards Cassidy’s eyes. Sandy notices that Cassidy has cat-shaped pupils. She knew only 1 in 10,000 babies have some deformity to their eyes.

“Cassidy, are your eyes light-sensitive?” Sandy knew a few people with the same iris shape.

“Yes, ma’am. Bright light blinds me.

Cassidy was surprised that someone noticed her eyes. Most people didn’t bother.

“Why didn’t you say something, Cassidy?” Mrs. Perkins looked at Cassidy when she said that.

“Because no one ever bothered to ask me before.” Cassidy looks directly at her social worker.

“I’m sorry about that.” As Mrs. Perkins makes a note in Cassidy’s file.

“If you're ready to go, Cassidy. We want to take you home and show you your new bedroom.” Sandy and Alex have been working on the room since they decided to adopt Cassidy.

They tried to learn what she liked and what she was into. They were surprised to learn she was into stage magicians like David Copperfield, Chris Angel, Penn & Teller, and others. They even found that Cassidy had a few books on the subject at the girl's home.

“I’m ready.” Cassidy looks towards Nurse White ‘thanks for everything you did, nurse White.” She hugs her.

Nurse White returns the hug. She was going to miss talking with Cassidy.

“You stay out of trouble and try to enjoy your new life.” As Nurse White, let’s go of Cassidy.

“I promise.” Cassidy wipes the tears away.

Once Cassidy was signed out and escorted out to the Patkar SUV, she turned to look back at the hospital spot Nurse White watching her from the fourth-floor window. She waves to Nurse White just before she gets into the SUV.

“You can always come back and visit her whenever you want to, Cassidy.” Sandy saw how much Cassidy respected Nurse White.

“Thank you.” Cassidy turns and faces the front as they leave the hospital.

When they arrived at the house Patkar owned, Cassidy recognized it as the old Thomas house. It had been owned by the foreman of the mining company that used to own Meadows Ridge Mining Town. Everyone in town had said it was haunted and that the town council was talking about tearing it down and putting something else in its place.

“That’s the old Thomas place. How did you get permission to rebuild it?” Cassidy looks towards Sandy and Alex.

“We know people.” A smirk appears on Sandy’s face.

Cassidy watches as Alex turns into a brand-new concrete driveway. She noticed the driveway was big enough for two SUVs of the same size to sit beside each other. She noticed a two-car garage had been added to the rebuilt house.

Cassidy gets out when Sandy does and walks behind her with Alex. She watches as Sandy inputs a code into the lock on the door. She has seen those locks down at the Taylor Do It Center in town.

“Welcome home, Cassidy.” Sandy stepped aside so Cassidy could see a banner that had been put up in her honor.

Tears start leaking from her eyes as she walks further into the house. The place had a brand new feel to it. Everything had just been purchased and put in the house everywhere she looked. Sure, there were a few antique furniture and items, but the rest of the house felt brand new.
Cassidy looks at Sandy and Alex. “How long have you guys lived here?”

“Mmm?? I think about a month, maybe.” Sandy looks towards her husband to make sure.

“That sounds about right. About a month at least.”

“Where did you guys live before this?” Cassidy was curious about the couple she was going to be living with.

“Alexandra, Va. We’re both retired from government service.” Alex figures Cassidy might want to learn a little about them, considering they knew much about her.

“What did you do?” Cassidy looked at both of them for answers.

“Let’s get you settled in first, and then we’ll answer whatever questions you have for us.” Sandy knew they would have to explain a few things to Cassidy.

Somewhere in The Middle East Years Later:
“Oh, come on! Can’t you guys take a joke?” Cassidy was running away from four Iranian agents sent to kill her.

“I don’t think they appreciated the present you left for them, Cass.” Robert was running beside his partner.

“But it was meant as a peace offer.” An evil smile appears on Cassidy’s face.

“You and your practical jokes. When are you going to grow up?” Robert knew how Cassidy loved to use her stage magician skills to irritate their enemies.

“They need to develop a sense of humor.”

Just as Cassidy turned the corner of where they were running to rendezvous with their pickup, she ran right into two more agents sent to kill her and her partner.

“Sorry, boys, but I don’t have time to play today.” Cassidy strikes them three times at different pressure points and watches as they fall.

Robert almost trips on the first guy on the ground. A smug look appears on his face as he spots another Iranian agent get Cassidy’s special touch. He asked her once where she learned that special technique and all he got from her was from her mother’s former teacher.

Robert knew Cassidy’s mother had been a CIA agent before her identity leaked. Her father had worked for the Secret Service as a special agent in Washington, D.C. He heard about Cassidy through the CIA grapevine when she went through the farm for training. She was setting new records and making her instructors look like fools.

She used her fame as a stage magician to cover her CIA activities. Now, the Iranians knew she was a CIA agent or working for them.

“Watch out, Robert!”

Robert moved just in time as a bullet hit right where he had been going. He turns with his gun and fires back, hitting the guy right in his chest. He fires a second time, killing the agent behind the one he just shot.

After running and dodging some more agents, they meet up with their contact and hall tail it to the train station and hop onto their train. Cassidy looked out the window of the private car she was in. She was happy to be leaving Iran. She opened the water bottle from their special supplies waiting for them on the train.

“God, I am glad we are leaving this country for a while.” As Cassidy takes a large gulp from her bottle.

“So am I.” Robert takes a large gulp from his bottle.

“So, where are you going on your mandatory vacation?” Robert was thinking about heading to his ranch for a while.

“Home. My little sister is in a production as the lead, and my mother and father are hoping I can make it.” Cassidy couldn’t believe her parents had adopted another child after she left for the CIA.

“How about your stage career?” Robert knew Cassidy performed all over the world.

“I have a gig in my hometown and New York afterward.”

“You know many higher-ups don’t like you performing.” Robert heard through the grapevine that a few of their superiors were worried about
Cassidy’s popularity ruining her CIA career.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass. My popularity makes it easier for us to go places without being so covert about it.” Cassidy knew her fame had come in handy in countries that suspected the CIA's involvement.

She also knew her people were watched, and her equipment was searched. Not that the enemy agents would find anything. She had so many hidden and secret compartments in her equipment that it would take them twenty years or more to locate and decipher them.

The train finally arrived where it was going. Afterward, Cassidy and Robert board a private plane registered to her company name and fly back to the States. While up in the air, Cassidy and Robert work on the report they must submit when they land. They also included additional information they felt their superiors should be aware of.

Meadows Ridge, Days Later::
Cassidy covers up a yawn as she pulls into town. The place hasn’t changed much since she left to join the CIA or start her stage magician career. After she had been adopted by her parents and learned what they did, she decided to follow in their footsteps. However, she still loved illusions and such and started street performing. She managed to do pretty well and learned that she had a talent for it. She started studying how to hypnotize people. During her learning, she discovered it was easy to hypnotize the weak-minded but harder to hypnotize the strong-willed people. However, over time, she learned she could hypnotize a large group of people with her eyes and voice.

Before she started on people, she tried to hypnotize animals first. Her few times she got bit several times, but after a while, she managed to hypnotize her test subjects. She still teased about her hair, but she always got even with them.

Cassidy covers up another yawn as she pulls into her parents’ driveway. The place hasn’t changed much, except for the above-ground pool and swing set they bought for her sister. She gets out of her car, walks up to the front door, and knocks on it.

Sandy was relaxing and watching her favorite movie when she heard someone knocking at the front door. She switched to the hidden security camera and saw Cassidy at the door. She smiles and turns the screen back to her movie. She walks over to the door and opens it.

“Sweetie, it's so good to see you.” As Sandy hugs her daughter.

“It’s so good to see you as well, mom.” Cassidy returns her mother’s hug. She missed her mother.

The two of them walked into the house after hugging each other. Sandy closes the front door behind them.

“Where is dad at, mom?” Cassidy thought her father would be home.

“He’s down at the police station helping on a case. You know how smart your father is and how good he is at figuring things out.” Sandy escorts her daughter over to the sofa.

“Would you like anything to drink, sweetie?” Sandy knew how long the ride from the airport was.

“I’m fine, mom. I’m just tired from all the flying I’ve been doing since.. What day is it?” Cassidy lost track of the time change since leaving Iran.

“Friday, dear.”

“God, I went back in time.” Cassidy shakes her head.

A smile appears on Sandy’s face at her daughter’s joke. She knew what it was like to travel from overseas and back to the States.

“I shouldn’t ask you, but how did your assignment go?” Sandy didn’t want her daughter to follow in her footsteps, but when Cassidy decided to follow her. She got in touch with one of her former instructors. She didn’t know if she was still alive, but it was worth a try.

“It was fine initially, but things went sideways afterward.” Cassidy was still trying to figure out how it went sideways. She and Robert were careful in everything they did.

“Sometimes it happens, sweetie. It just means you won’t be able to go back to Iran.” Sandy knew things didn’t always work out.

“I know. I do feel sorry for several of their agents. I had to kill two of them with the special technique Cheshire taught me. And Robert had to kill two of them with his gun.”

“He was using his throwaway, right?” Sandy knew they should always use their non-issue guns.

Cassidy looks at her mother like they would make such a rookie mistake. “Of course, mom. We’re not rookies anymore.”

“Sweetie, even experienced agents make rookie mistakes. I made a few.”

“I know. I heard about them from some instructors who remembered you.” Cassidy couldn’t believe that a few of her instructors used mistakes her mother made as an example of what not to do.

“Let me guess, one of them was Scott Zakarian?”

“Yeah, it was. I think he had a grudge against you. I know he has one against me now. I beat his unbeatable scenario.” Cassidy had fun beating Mr. Zakarian's unbeatable scenario.

“Like mother, like daughter.” Sandy was proud of her daughter.

“Tell me how Casey has been since last time, Mom.” Cassidy knew Casey came from a dysfunctional home.

Casey herself had been a drug baby. Her mother had kept using drugs when she was developing in her mother’s womb. When she was born, she was irritable, had trouble sleeping, slow weight gain, diarrhea, blotchy skin, and seizures. The seizures worried her mom and dad the most. The poor thing was going cold turkey from the drugs her birth mother took.

No sooner did Casey’s birth mother leave the hospital that they found her dead from a drug overdose, according to her father, who happened to stumble onto her body while helping a friend of the family. They found the needle in her arm and several packets of drugs on her body.

The police found the dealer nearby selling to another addict. They threw his ass in jail for possession of an illegal substance, selling an illegal substance, murder, and several other charges. The judge gave him so long in jail that he wouldn’t get out any time soon. He wanted to do a deal, but the judge and attorney general said no. She knew her mother or father could find out who the supplier was and how the drugs were coming in if they were asked.

“She has gotten better. I never knew when a child was born from a drug addict. They would have so many problems as they grew.”

“I’m just sorry Casey has to experience such things, Mom. She should have a normal childhood without any problems.”

“You mean like you should have, sweetie?” Sandy knew Cassidy was jealous of everything she would never experience or didn’t experience growing up.

“You know me too well, mom.” Cassidy leans against her mother. She was lucky the day Sandy and Alexander Patkar adopted her.

They heard the school bus stop outside the house a few hours later. Sandy and Cassidy go outside to greet Casey. Cassidy watches as Casey starts running towards her.

Casey spots her big sister standing by her mother and runs towards her. She was so happy her sister was home.

“You came.” As she launches herself at her sister.

“Of course I came, munchkin.” Cassidy catches her little sister and hugs her.

Casey hugs her sister tightly. She was so happy she was home. She leans back to look at her sister and frowns. “You covered up your hair.”

“Had to, munchkin. I was working and couldn’t let the bad guys see me.” Cassidy knew her little sister liked her skunk pattern hair.

“But it's not you.” Casey looked into her sister’s eyes and noticed they were also different.

“I know, but sometimes I must do things to catch the bad guys.”

“Is that why your eyes are different as well?” Casey misses seeing her sister's cat pupil eyes.

“Part of my job. However, since I am home, I’ll take my contacts out so you can see my cat's eyes.” Cassidy rubs her nose against her sister’s.

Casey giggles when her sister does that. She leans her head against her sister’s shoulder and holds on as they walk towards the house.

Sandy looks at her girls and smiles. Both of them have had rough lives but have found one another. She follows behind her girls.