Dear Diary,

I have not written in several days. Taking care of Maria and Lacey takes up most of my time. I do the best I can but I can't protect them from most of the things we are exposed to here. I wish I could take all the beatings and pain away from them. I wish these people would just take their frusterations out on me and leave my sisters alone. They don't deserve this. I don't either but I would rather endure it than to have to comfort Maria and Lacey after they have. They are too little to understand why people can hate so strongly, especially children. I don't either. We have never done anything to either of them. We did not ask to come here. As strange as it might sound, I don't blame Mama for everything that is happening to us. She thought she was doing right, giving us a good, happy home. She was also fooled by Deb. We all were. I thought she was someone I could trust. If we ever get out of here, I am never going to trust a stranger again. All people ever seem to do is betray us. I hope someone will find us. I know Deb will not be coming back to check on us as she promised. All she did was lie to us, from the very beginning. I'm afraid we will never be found. No one that cares about us knows where we are. I think Deb did that on purpose too, so the people who really loved us would not be able to find us and take us home to Mama. Sometimes I wonder if we ended up here because we were bad. I know we tried really hard to be good from Louisa but maybe it was not enough. Maybe if Maria had not lashed out at Keisha they would still be with her and I would still be with Mama, or maybe we would be together as a family. I guess there is no point in thinking about that now. We are never going to be free from this prison. All of us are going to die here. I just wish I knew if it was because of something we did wrong.

I need to go. Someone is coming.

Susie Jackson