Summary: When police discover the daughters of Renée Swan, a woman kidnapped back in 1992 as a teenager, what will it take to put the Swan family back together again?

AN: Hey guys! Thanks to all of you who have given my story a chance!

I do not own anything - it all belongs to Stephanie Meyer! I'm just having a little fun with her characters...

Please leave a review! It would seriously make my day! :)

This is un-beta'd, so let me know if you see anything I missed...

Found

I sat up with alarm. Something had jarred me out of my sleep. I sat there and listening closely to find the source of whatever woke me from my slumber. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I looked over to my sister. Whatever woke me up had absolutely no effect on Alice. As usual, she was sprawled out across her side of the bed snoring quietly. One leg was haphazardly over the side, while the other was tangled in our thin yellow blanket. An arm was draped over her head, while the other was almost hitting me in the stomach. During the night, her long brown hair had mostly escaped the confines of the braid I had put it in before bed. Her locks were now lying across the pillow and part of her face. Like in her consciousness, Alice was all over the place when she slept.

I looked around our basement home. The solid gray concrete walls seemed cold, impenetrable, and unyielding. The hard beige concrete floor was only covered by a single old, small threadbare rug that had been there for as long as I could remember. In the summer months, when I was tired of what little bed space I had because of my mom and sisters, I would always make my bed on the rug. During the winter months however, we appreciated the warmth of sleeping so close together because the basement was often drafty and cold. Since it was February, I stuck close to Alice to try to conserve body heat under the thin blanket. Without the twins and my mom, the bed seemed pretty empty and cold. Our full-sized mattress was a brownish color and sat on the ground against the wall. The springs were old and a few were poking out down at the bottom of the bed. We had to be careful at night because the springs would sometimes pinch the skin around our feet if we landed on them wrong. Directly across from the foot of our bed was the stairs. Years ago, mom moved the mattress so that when we were lying in bed we could see if anyone was at the landing at the top of the stairs. She said putting it there would help her protect us better because she could see them coming.

I looked up the creaky, wooden stairs, and could not see any light penetrating the crack at the bottom of the door. I don't believe they were back yet, because it was far too quiet. I concluded that the sound I heard must have come from an animal outside in the woods.

I moved Alice's arm from my side and laid back down on the bed hoping to get a few more hours of sleep. I debated whether I should use the bathroom before getting comfortable. Underneath the stairs was our 'bathroom', which consisted of a sheet nailed to the stairwell hiding the medieval looking chamber pot and a small sample-sized bottle of anti-bacterial gel. We used the pot sparingly when they went away, as the smell usually got unbearable towards the end of the week from not being emptied daily. His rules dictated that we weren't allowed into the rest of the house while they were gone. He locked us down in the basement because 'we have not earned his trust'. Anytime they were gone for a while, time always seemed to drag by because we did not have our daily chores to do upstairs. Besides reading and drawing, there was not much else we could do besides sleep. I was thankful that he allowed us to have books and blank sheets of paper, or else we would have gone mad a long time ago.

Sparse drawings and magazine pictures that my sisters and I collected were taped up on the surround walls. Mom always said that it was the equivalent of her putting our artwork on the kitchen fridge. She yearned for the normalcy of being a proud mother who displayed her children's accomplishments. She thought our attempt to make the space more like a home, with our artwork and cut-out pictures, was the closest she would ever get to being a normal mom. Our artwork also made the cold walls look slightly more inviting. Although it did not look as impressive as the upstairs where they lived, I thought the pictures made our home look nice and more like 'us'. Mom claimed that the thing that made our basement seem most like a regular home were the two tall, wooden bookshelves in the corner - also known as our 'library'. The shelves were stacked with our books and magazines that have been collected since Alice was three.

Books were the one privilege we still had. We were once allowed the luxury of a little soft music until they claimed we made too much noise and he smashed the little radio into pieces. Reading, drawing, and writing became our escape. Teaching us how to read was one of the only things she allowed our mother to do. She claimed we were ignorant, and that she didn't want any illiterates living under her roof. Mom didn't care what she thought; Mom looked at that allowance as a small victory. Mom started reading to us when I was about two years old. From then on, Alice and I took to books like fish to water. Mom was proud of how interested we were in learning, as she was such an avid reader herself. Books such as: The Hungry Caterpillar, The Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild Things Are, The Mitten; then later Charlotte's Web, The Giver, and Anne of Green Gables were our favorites. The books were all old and previously used or stolen library books with some wear and tear. Some of the pages were ripped, worn, and dirty, but they truly made our world a better place.

As we got older she used books and magazines to manipulate us into doing whatever she wanted. A magazine or book a week was rewarded to us if she was satisfied with our work. She was hard to please, but always kept her , she would also take our books away quicker than lightning if we made any sort of mistake. Alice recently became hooked on teen magazines such as Seventeen and People. Although the issues we got were usually almost a year old, Alice claimed it helped her feel more connected to the world by knowing what other kids our age liked. I preferred the old newspapers we were given because I liked to know what was going on in the world outside our little cabin in the woods - even if the news was weeks old. I also treasure the fiction novels we were given because they allowed me to dream of a normal life outside our basement.

Magazine, newspaper, or book, we soaked up knowledge like a sponge and learning came easy to us. By the time the twins came along, Alice and I were able to read our story books to them. They were just as bright as we were, picking up skills at an alarming rate. Mom was always so proud that we were all reading before our 4th birthdays. I'm incredibly grateful we inherited our mother's gift for learning. He tries to claim our 'smarts' came from him, but we all knew the truth. Before mom was kidnapped, she had already skipped a grade and was taking college classes at the University close by. Supposedly our grandfather wanted her to skip high school all together, but our grandmother wouldn't allow her to miss 'invaluable socializing skills and experience'. Mom missed out on high school anyway.

Deciding that I would most likely not fall back asleep, I looked to the only view of the outside we had from the basement. The bit of light coming in from the two small window wells by the ceiling suggested it was not really time to get up yet. I turned over on my right side to face the clock that read a hardly visible 5:50 am. Even though the alarm never made a sound, the little, black windup clock usually kept time pretty well. My body knew that it was not time to get up, and yet I still felt as if I had been suddenly shaken awake.

BANG…BANG… BANG

"Whos-it-what?" Alice mumbled as she sat up abruptly. The banging coming from upstairs seemed to shake the entire cabin. We could feel the vibrations from the wall by our heads. I looked to my sister and tried to read the expression on her surprised face. Even though she was normally the better actress out of the two of us, I could always read her expressions and know what she was really thinking. Right now, she was as confused as I was.

"What do you think that was?" I whispered. We learned from getting the music taken away how easily sound must traveled from the basement to the upper level, therefore whispering was a must.

"I don't know. She's not supposed to be back until tomorrow. We still have water and granola bars left," she whispered as she scrambled out of bed to recount out our rations.

"Well then, what do you think-"

BANG…BANG…CRASH

From where we were sitting it sounded as if the door had been smashed to bits. To us that seemed impossible because there were at least 5 deadbolts attached to the front door. We scrambled to change out of our dirty nightgowns to our day clothes as quickly as we could. We hurriedly pulled our socks and holey shoes on, bypassing trying to tie together the broken laces. I knew he had a warped sense of humor and found punishing us amusing. So if this was his idea of a test, I did not want to fail.

Alice ran up the stairs, grabbing my arm as I tripped on a step, and ran to the basement entryway. The door was locked from the outside, and we were expected to be waiting in that spot until he deemed us worthy to be let out. Mom always said this made her feel like some unruly dog that had to be caged each night.

We could clearly hear movement outside our door, and yet we could not hear his usual heavy stomping or the turning on of the television. Those were two things that Alice and I have come to associate with him. I started to feel nervous. There was a soft murmur and then beeping before we heard male voices talking back and forth.

"Hey Boss, look what I found here."

"That's good Joe, bag it."

I looked to Alice in fright. We didn't hear any hints of his gruff voice or her squeaky, high-pitched voice. It clearly wasn't any voices that we recognized! These guys were not here with them. It actually sounded as if they were stealing from them! If anything went missing, I knew the blame would fall to us, even if we were locked in the basement the whole time. I looked to Alice and saw that we were on the same wavelength about being at fault for the break-in. I was unsure about what to do, but I could see the resolution in Alice's eyes- she was determined to actually do something. For the first time since the twins were taken, Alice cautiously went up to try to open the door. The creaking of the old, wooden floor board had her pausing in place. She stood by the door listening carefully. The voices did not seem to pause in their talking. I highly doubted they realized we were here. I knew the basement door was hard to find unless you were looking for it because it was hidden in the pantry of the kitchen. From the volume of their voices, it didn't sound like they had made it to the kitchen yet. With the option of facing his punishment and the unknown intruders, Alice and I would choose the unknown intruders every time.

She slowly tried to turn the knob and discovered it was not locked. Alice looked back and me with surprise and disbelief. She turned back to the door and tried to push the door gently, as to not alert the intruders of our entry, and came to an abrupt halt. Alice tried pushing again, before again coming to a stop. She then shoved her whole body weight into the door pushing for all she was worth. The lock on the doorknob was not actually locked, but there was what looked like a padlock with a lock keeping us inside. I came up next to her to help her push. With our combined weight the hinge surprising gave a little. It looked like the lock's hinge was old with use and the screws weren't as tight as they used to be. We may get lucky enough to get out of the basement and try to stop the intruders from taking anything. I hoped that maybe if we explain to them how much trouble we would be in, they would reconsider taking anything. I didn't really know what our plan would be once we got out, but I knew we had to face them. Our lives depended on it. The voices of the unknown men seemed to actually grow in number. There seemed to be a lot of talking and commotion going on in the living room, so no one seemed to hear or notice me and Alice shoving ourselves against the door.

Realizing that pushing wasn't going to work, I stood back for a moment to try to figure out an easier way to break the hinge. Immediately after I stepped back Alice fell to the ground, sprawled out on the floor at the feet of a man in the doorway. My eyes were suddenly blinded by a bright light. When the man had opened the door, he happened to shine the flashlight in my eyes.

"Freeze! Police! Hands where I can see 'em! Who..how- My God, you look like just a kid." He said with astonishment still shining the flashlight in my eyes. He looked down at Alice before reached down and lifting her to stand next to me.

"Hey Boss, it looks like drugs weren't the only thing Hunter had here illegally!" someone shouted from behind the flashlight with a chuckle.

"What the-," 'Boss' said coming to stand in front of the flashlight man. Boss lifted the man's arm holding the flashlight so light was shined at the ceiling as he came to stand in front of us.

"What in the world are you young girls doing here?" Boss demanded while looking back and forth between the two of us.

I looked at Alice with alarm. I suddenly realized the folly of our earlier plans. Rule number one was to not ever try to leave the basement without being let out. We already broke that rule, and now we were working on breaking another one- don't speak unless given permission. If he found out, we were as good as sold, or worse. I looked at the men in front of me. They looked to be wearing uniforms, and had badges on their chest pocket. I was guessing they were police officers from the detailed descriptions mom gave us when we were little. We weren't supposed to talk at all without permission, but if these were real cops, like I suspected, then maybe we could finally find our mother and her family. I nodded to Alice to talk, either way I knew if he walked in now we would be in trouble.

"W-w-we live here, sir." Alice stuttered. She was normally the strong, calm one in front of authority figures. However, this conversation held more weight than any conversation we've ever had before. This meeting had the potential to get us out of the basement and away from him for good.

"Live here? How in the world do you live here?" He asked with disdain. He shined his own flashlight to the concrete floor below. I wasn't sure if the disgust shown on his face was from the smell wafting from the basement below or of our living space being in the basement. Mom always described her room at her home before being kidnapped, and our basement home differed greatly from what she said a normal bedroom would be like.

"Where are your parents? Neither of you look to be older than 16. What's your name girl?" He asked Alice, still shining his flashlight around the basement.

Alice again looked to me to make sure I was still on board for her talking and cooperating with these strangers. "My name is Alice, sir. Mary Alice. I believe I just turned 17 years old, and I've lived here my whole life. We have never left the cabin."

The cabin seemed silent after her statement. Now that the flashlight was no longer pointed in my face, I could faintly see the faces of the officers surrounding the entryway. The look of disbelief seemed to cover each of their faces. I could hear whispers of 'Never left?', 'surely she doesn't mean she actually lives here', and 'this must be some kind of joke'.

"Lower your weapons!" Boss shouted with authority as he continued to stare at us. It wasn't until that moment that I notice at least five guns pointed at Alice and I. The situation and cold of the basement caused me to involuntary tremble. I wanted to continue my façade of being strong, especially in front of these armed men, but I could not get a handle on my shaking body and sweaty palms.

"You two live here? Where are your parents?" Boss asked much more gently.

I began to worry my lip. His tone was bordering on condescending, which is the one tone that sets Alice off. We may have learned to never yell back, but Alice's way of rebelling was to give the person 'the evil eye' and not answer or talk at all. I knew Alice's guard was up and she wouldn't tell them anything without being specifically questioned about it. Getting answers out of her now would be like pulling teeth.

"We don't know where our parents are," Alice stated quietly. I was silently impressed with how tough my sister was. We were about the same size, yet she stood slightly in front of me looking strong in front of a group of men who towered over us. She was inspiring. I wanted to be strong too.

"Are you looking for James and Victoria?" I asked, with a bit of a flinch. As soon as the words left my mouth, I immediately realized my error. Not only did I speak out of turn, but I also asked a question. Alice looked back at me with surprise. This was not my typical behavior; I was usually much more cautious. We knew to never ask questions and we never called them by their first names - ever- because we weren't allowed to. In private, Master James and Mistress Victoria were known as him and her.

I immediately felt bad for speaking as I could see and feel Alice tensing up. She was readying herself for the blow. As my older sister, Alice felt it was her duty to protect me, because I was the only sister she had left. With James or Victoria we knew a slap to the face would be the standard result of talking out of turn. However, the reaction and punishment from these foreign men was currently unknown. Alice slowly turned back to Boss and awaited the punishment that was supposed to be mine. He looked at us with curiosity instead of the expected anger and answered my question.

"Yes, we are looking for one James Hunter Jr. We have been trying to track him down for weeks now. Ms. Victoria Volturri and Mr. Fredric Laurent, however, we have in custody." Boss answered without hesitation.

Alice gasped and looked at me with shock. Adults usually never told us anything if we asked a question. We were usually either punished or in a best case scenario - ignored. But these men not only gave us news, they gave us good news to boot. Victoria was in jail and they were looking to put James there? Is it possible that we could finally leave this cabin? Alice started to furrow her brow which meant that she was thinking deeply about all the repercussions of what a confession about our situation would do to us. What if James came back before we left and got out of whatever crime he was accused of? What if we got out of here and James found us? What would happen if our mother came back and we weren't here? What would they do to us if they couldn't find our mother? Would they be able to contact our grandparents, Charlie and Sue Swan? Would our grandparents even want to meet us? While I watched each question cross Alice's face, I tried to tell her that we had to try. Mom always told us no matter the consequences, with or without her, if we had the chance to escape the cabin we had to try as hard as we could. There was no guarantee that we would ever be presented with another opportunity to get away from James again.

While Alice and I were having our nonverbal conversation, the officers had started a separate discussion among themselves. It wasn't until we were each handed a blanket and water bottle that we realized we had been in our own little bubble for about 5 minutes. The blankets were thick, gray, and soft. I had never felt something so soft and warm before. I snuggled into the blanket covering my shoulders. It was much thicker and warmer than the frayed yellow blanket we slept with each night.

After handing us the blankets, Boss ushered us into the living room and gently pushed us to sit on the couch. The brown leather couch squeaked as we sat down and tried to situate ourselves. I smiled a little to myself. This was our first time sitting on a couch. I wasn't expecting to feel how comfortable, smooth, and soft the leather was.

Looking up around the room, I noticed the officers rushing about quietly in a seemingly structured fashion. The officers reminded me of serious worker ants as they rushed around the house working together, and putting certain items into clear plastic bags. Once it seemed as if they had found a rhythm, Boss came to sit on the coffee table in front of us with a notebook and pen. A woman in police gear stood behind his chair alert and silent.

"Well girls, let's get to it. I'm Chief of Police around these parts, Chief Forge. I'm the boss around here and will be running this whole little investigation. Alright?" He paused and waited for us to nod. "So you are Mary Alice, and you are…" Boss looked at me to finish his statement.

"I'm Bella. I mean-I mean Isabella. Mom named me Isabella, but I liked to be called Bella." I said with a tremble. Even under the warmth of the blanket, I was still afraid and slightly shaking. I was still wary of what would happen or if he could really help us. James always said that the police wouldn't believe a snot-nosed, lying, troubled teenager. He told us it would be hard to get the authorities to believe our story over his. James called himself a 'master manipulator'.

Boss sat there writing notes into his notepad very studiously. The woman continued to stand there like a statue. She was so still that it became hard to look at her. Boss however was full of movement and making small 'hmm' sounds as he continued to write. He would look up at us every so often before continuing on with his written observations.

"Right. And you two are both 17 years old?"

"Bella is 15. Her birthday is in September." Alice answered, as we both watched as Boss wrote down all of our information.

"Okay. So Bella is 15, and you are 17. So, I'm guessing you two had gotten in a bit a trouble to have ended up with Hunter. Did you two run away from home? Who are your parents and what's a good number that I can reach them at?" Boss asked without looking up from his notebook.

Alice opened and closed her mouth about three times before looking at me. I could see a bit of anger simmering in her eyes at the accusation that it was our fault for being here. She was in a dangerous mood. A mood in which she was more daring and liked to test the limits. She tended to become shorter with me when we were stuck in the basement for a week, and Boss seemed to unknowingly step into her crossfire. I started to shake more at the thought that these men and women could really hurt us if Alice got really upset and said something they didn't like.

"Well, James is our father and the one who kidnapped our mother." Alice said quickly, without tact. She looked a little defiant, but I could feel her slightly shaking the couch we sat on. I could see in her face that she was starting to shut down. She was already giving up. She didn't think Boss was going to believe our story. She didn't believe we would get help from these people. She already assumed we would be put in foster homes, like the one James said he grew up in. Or they could put us in an orphanage separated. Or worse if they did not buy our story they could send us to the crazy ward in the hospital - the one that Victoria said Alice belonged in because of her 'feelings' and tendency to be right about certain future events. Her 'sight' was usually random and wasn't always reliable, but Alice depended on it to keep us safe. The unknown was Alice's greatest fear and it was now staring her directly in the face.

Boss looked up from his notebook and looked from me to Alice and then back again. He was trying to figure out what was going on and why Alice's tone was suddenly so cold. The look on his face initially indicated that he believed Alice was joking. I could also tell that the slight tremble in her voice and serious expression on her face were starting to perplex this veteran Chief of Police. Even though her delivery was tactless, she seemed earnest.

"Our mother? Well, we haven't seen our mother in months. James lets Doc take her all the time, but this time he hasn't brought her back." Alice continued. When I looked into her eyes I see that she was closer to completely losing it and had already built up a brick wall of her emotions. By bluntly stating the facts of our situation, Boss was having a hard time believing her. Her matter-of-fact attitude made it seem like she was being sarcastic, lying, or making up a story off the top of her head. I knew the only way to save us was to use our mother. She always said that if we ever met outside people- people not associated with James- all we had to do was tell them her name and help would be guaranteed. She said that the name 'Swan' carried a lot of weight and acknowledgement in the outside world. We had been waiting for this very situation our entire lives. We had to use her name, our name, it was the only way to save ourselves.

I took a deep breath.

"Our mother is Renée Marie Swan. The Renée Swan, daughter of Charles Swan III and Mary Suzanne Swan of CS Inc. She was kidnapped from Forks, Washington on December 26, 1992 by James Hunter Jr. for money and revenge or maybe just because he's a bad man- I'm not really sure. We've lived here in this cabin everyday of our lives because we have never been let free. He won't let us go." I said as quickly as I could. I was shaking and I looked down to my hands to see them engulfed in Alice's. We were practically holding each other waiting for the reaction that would decide the rest of our lives.

The woman behind Boss gasped. The notebook and pen Boss was holding dropped to the floor. The room suddenly became silent and the officers' work came to a halt. Boss' hands were shaking almost as much as mine were, as he slowly lifted his head. I knew as he looked at me that he would only see the truth of my statement in my eyes. I could see his mind slowly trying to process and comprehend what I was saying. He looked back and forth between Alice and I with suspicion, but I knew if he looked closely he would see the similarities between us and our mother when she was younger. He examined everything from our face, to our posture, to our clothes. I watched as his head started to tilt and his brown eyes start to fill with tears. His expression began to change as he started to regard me and my sister as the daughters of the 14-year-old kidnapped girl, Renée Swan. The Renée Swan - missing daughter of one of the wealthiest couples on the West Coast. He now understood that we weren't disobedient, troubled run-aways. We never asked to be here- we were kept here. We were victims. Mom was a victim.

Boss cleared his throat and struggled to get his composure. "My God, it has been 20 years. Can the Swan girl really be alive?"

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Until next time - AJ