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Nora sighed. “I knew you’d react poorly. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you anything.”
“Do you really expect people tonotreact poorly when you show them naked photos of your own daughter?” I asked, eyes wide as saucers. “Especially when she’s that young. How old is she there, anyway? Thirteen? Fourteen?”
“You don’t understand. Let me explain,” Nora said, lifting a palm.
“I don’t think you need to anymore,” I said, tongue practically dripping with acid. “I get it now. You were making her sleep with men for money, weren’t you?”
Nora had the audacity to look shocked and offended. “Of course not! You’ve completely misinterpreted everything.”
“Explain it to me, then,” I said in a low voice.
“As I was saying before, there are certain families in this town that follow certain practices. It’s a way for them to maintain their wealth no matter what happens in the world,” Nora began. “You’re aware of the PTO, aren’t you?”
I narrowed my eyes. “You mean the school organization?”
“Yes. The PTO is entirely made up of people from the founding families. There’s around twenty-five families altogether,” she replied. “Obviously, it isn’t just parents in the PTO. There’s teachers and administrative staff as well.”
“Like me,” Mr. Blythe said, lifting a hand. “Most of the other teachers at CPA are part of the scheme as well. Principal Hanover too. We all stay close.”
“Yes, we do.” Nora nodded and smiled. “I was actually a teacher at CPA once upon a time, back when I was still Nora Bouchard. I taught math.”
My head was spinning with confusion. “Youwere a teacher?”
“Yes. The school is a wonderful place to work at for those of us in the founding families. It helps us stay close to each other and keep an eye on all the kids, so a lot of us had a teaching stint there in our younger years,” she said. She waved a hand. “Anyway, there’s around two hundred of us in the PTO at any given time.”
My heart was beating faster now. “What do you all do together?” I asked. “What’s the grand old tradition?”
“I’m getting to that.” Nora cocked her head. “You’re aware that Cerina was adopted, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “But what does that have to do with any of this?”
“Everything,” she replied. “See, we all have our own children. But most of us adopt one or two as well. We raise them alongside our own and give them wonderful lives. Lives they never would’ve had if they ended up in the foster system.”
“But there’s a cost,” Mr. Blythe interjected. His eyes had turned flinty.
Nora nodded again. “You might not realize this because you’re so young and idealistic, but the world is filled with sick people, Kinsey. People who will pay premium prices for a certain style of photos and videos featuring young men and women.”
My stomach lurched as goosebumps broke out across my arms and legs. I rubbed at them with my fingertips, trying to stave off the shivers. “You people force your adopted children to do porn?”
She waved a dismissive hand. “That’s such a nasty word,” she said, as if she had any right to act prim and proper. “But yes, when they turn twelve or thirteen, they go to work for us. Once a month at the PTO afterparties, they get some photos taken. Or a video gets made. It could be just them, or they could be posing with one of the others.”
“Oh my god.” Bile rose up my throat again, and I ran to the musty old toilet in the corner, clutching my stomach. I’d never felt so sick and horrified in my life. Not even when I found Cerina’s bloodied corpse lying in front of me in the gazebo.
“They never have to do anythingreal,” Nora continued. “We aren’t prostituting them, so they never get touched by anyone. It’s just lewd photos and short video clips that we can sell to the hungry buyers. It’s a way for them to earn back everything they’ve been given by us.”
I stared up at her in dismay, stomach still roiling. “They’re yourchildren,” I said. “They shouldn’t have to earnanythingyou give them!”
“I’m talking about the adopted children, Kinsey. Not our real children.”
“But theyareyour real children,” I said, slowly rising to my feet on trembling legs. “Just because they’re adopted doesn’t mean they aren’t as important and deserving of love as your biological kids.”
She sighed. “As I said before, you’re too young and idealistic to understand the nuances of the situation.”
“No.” I swallowed the bile in my mouth and gritted my teeth. “I’m just a normal person with normal morals. Not a sick, disgusting freak like you.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “You really don’t understand.”
“Oh, I think I understand perfectly. You’re sick deviants who enslave adopted children,” I said, nostrils flaring with disgust. “When did you force Cerina to start working for you?”
