First Part: In case you didn't see it, I found a copy of my Dad’s memoirs, which detailed how he’d kept my brother locked in the shed and cruelly tortured him since my childhood. My Mum came home whilst I was in the house.

“Sarah?” shouted my Mum. I could hear that she was standing in the hallway. She must have been stood stock still as I couldn’t hear any other movement. “Your father has a book in his bedside, the nurse told me you’d come home to collect some things. You haven’t read it have you?”.

I paused, wondering about the oddness of this situation. The first thing that scared me was how my Mum had jumped to that assumption straight away. It was almost like she knew. Impossible, I told myself. The second thing that scared me was how there was no fear, no anxiety in her voice. She wasn’t concerned about me finding out, she just wanted to know whether I knew or not. Why? ‘So she can do to you what she did to Michael’ said a voice in the back of my head. I shook with fear, still in my parent’s bedroom. I was still making my mind up as to what to do, when a shout from downstairs interrupted my thoughts.

“SARAH?!” shouted Mum. Mind made up, I sneaked across the room into my parent’s en-suite as quietly as I could, and pressed the flush button on the toilet. I walked purposefully across the room, trying to be heard, and quickly placed the book back in the drawer and closed it. I heard footsteps on the stairs and pulled out the drawer under the bed, which is where I’d previously seen my Dad putting his underwear. I made a show of taking some out as my Mum marched into the room, purposefully and angrily.

“Oh hi Mum” I said, trying to be as nonchalant as possible. She eyed me suspiciously. We’d never had the best relationship in the world and I didn't usually greet her so cheerfully. I cursed myself internally as I pressed on: “Were you shouting me? I was on the loo”.

“Yes, I was. I wanted to see if you’d been snooping in things you shouldn’t have been” she said tersely, looking past me to the bedside drawer where I’d found the book. I adopted my best innocent expression as I looked at her.

“No Mum, i’ve just been packing some things for Daddy” I said, indicating the duffel bag on the floor behind me. She winced. I knew it made her uncomfortable when I called him Daddy, and I'd done it deliberately. It was taking every shred of effort to hold myself together, to stay strong and put up a front, but I knew I had to. I didn’t know what Mum and Dad were capable of and didn’t particularly want to find out. The book indicated they’d horribly tortured Michael and I knew that if they were willing to do that, to brave the investigation of a disappearance, then there wasn’t much they weren’t willing to do. I looked at Mum again, and said:

“Shall I make us some coffee?”. She looked around the room, as if searching for anything else that might be out of place, and then looked back at me. Her expression softened slightly and she said:

“That’d be great, thanks”. I made my way downstairs, leaving her in the bedroom.

I clicked the kettle on and went through the motions of starting to make a coffee, when an idea struck me. I pulled out my phone and started texting my best friend. Tori. Tori was reliable, loyal and could be relied upon to help without question. I trusted her with my life, and with what I'd found out about my parents, it seemed that might become a literal phrase rather than a figurative one.

‘Tors, I need yr help ASAP. Emergency!!’. Tori came back straight away, as I knew she would as soon as she saw the word ‘emergency’.

‘What dya need babe?’

‘I need you to call my parents house and ask for Lucy Bauer. Say Andrew’s started talking, asking for her. Say you’re a nurse from the royal hospital stroke ward. Sending you the contact now’. Tori had never met my parents. We were friends through work, and up until this moment I'd tried to keep my family life reasonably private.

‘Babe wtf’ came the text back.

‘PLEASE. Can’t tell you how important this is’. I looked at Tori’s speech bubble write, and then stop. Start writing again, and then stop. Ten seconds later, the house phone began to ring. It rang three times before I heard my Mum’s voice from upstairs. I could hear the dull murmur of a conversation, then I heard brisk footsteps coming down the stairs. My Mum walked purposefully into the kitchen.

“Sarah I need to go to the hospital, your father’s started talking” she said, pulling her car keys out of her coat pocket.

“Oh my god, that’s amazing!” I gushed, hoping my acting was good enough to be believable.

“Yep, well, just stay here for now, and I’ll call when I know more” said Mum as she bustled out. I listened very carefully for the sound of the car starting and pulling out of the long driveway, and then sprang into action. Firing off a quick ‘you’re the best x’ to Tori, I unlocked the patio doors and ran outside to the shed. There was a big padlock on it, but I knew how to deal with that. I took out one of my hairpins and inserted it into the lock. This was a trick an ex boyfriend had taught me (my taste in men isn’t great, as you can tell from my misjudgement of my father), but it was having a hugely practical use here. The padlock clicked and fell open. I hurriedly pulled open the shed.

The smell hit me first. Faeces, urine, sweat and bile. I closed my mouth to avoid getting the taste in the back of my throat. I then saw what was chained to the back of the shed. A skeletal, ravaged, husk of a human being lay shivering on the floor. Michael was still alive, barely. Sinewy arms and brittle looking legs, he was completely hairless, and completely bereft. His ruined eyeball, which had been written about in Dad’s book, had clearly become infected at some point and was a large open, weeping sore. His nose holes were crusted with mucus and filth, and his exposed teeth were cracked, yellow and inconsistent, black gaps denoting where some had disappeared over the years. He looked at me, his one remaining eye widening as I approached.

“Ssssarah?” he hissed out, his removed lips making coherent speech impossible. I burst into tears.

“Mikey, what have they done to you?!” I wailed, as I fumbled trying to pull at his chains. I realised there’d be a key somewhere, and I needed to find it. I could start by getting the book, finding the key, and then getting Mikey and myself out of here and straight to the nearest police station. I whispered to my brother, who had tears leaking out of his eye, that I was going to be right back, and burst back into the house, taking the stairs two at a time up to my parent’s bedroom. It was then I stopped dead still, in shock, as terror gripped me firmly by the scruff of the neck. I saw what I’d failed to see the first time I came into the bedroom. A little security camera, set up in the corner of the room, pointing directly at the bed. I pulled open the bedside drawer and found that the book had gone. My phone began to ring. I pulled it out. It was Mum. I answered.

“Smile for the camera Sarah” she said poisonously.

“You won’t get away with this you evil bitch” I spat back, all pretences dropped and my fight instinct kicking in.

“I already have you dumb little cunt” she laughed, her emotionless chuckle sending shivers up my spine. “I’ll be back home very soon, and as I'm sure you won’t leave without dear Michael, good luck trying to free him before I get back”.

“I’ll call the police”

“I’ll have killed you both before they get anywhere near. You think me and your father weren’t prepared for this? The only reason you didn’t end up like Michael was because of him. You should be thankful to him”

“Fuck you”

“Come and say that to my face then, princess”. The line cut off. I heard a sharp screech as a car pulled up outside. I looked through the window as Mum stepped out. Holding a knife.