THE MORNING I WAS ABDUCTED at 16, I woke up to strangers' boots pounding outside my lilac bedroom. My mother kept everything pristine in our Northern California home-no one wore shoes inside. So I knew something was off.
My door burst open. A man and woman appeared-their figures so tall and wide they filled my door frame.
"Come with us," they demanded. "No," I spoke, then froze. The man inched toward me.
"I wasn't asking." He seized my arm. Immediately, his grip started tightening like a blood pressure machine, but he wasn't measuring my lifehe was taking it.
"Help," I wailed.
They tackled me. I tried to break free. They won. Two months into eleventh grade, I was barely a quarter of their size.
Face-down against my floral carpet, they handcuffed me. They carried me downstairs where my mom stood by the front door.
"Only your parents can stop this," the woman revealed.
"Sorry," my mother mouthed, but it carried no sound. My mom stood still.
My captors didn't stop moving. They shoved me into the back of a cold, black car and drove away from my Silicon Valley neighborhood and my childhood. It was November 23, 2014. I've been tormented by nightmares ever since. All I knew then was what my captors told me: my parents hired my kidnappers.
I struggled with depression in high school and my family trusted my principal for a recommendation for a wilderness therapy program.
This story is from the November 15, 2024 edition of Newsweek US.
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This story is from the November 15, 2024 edition of Newsweek US.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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