Switched by Amanda Hocking Page A

pretend to be innocent. “Maybe that’s exactly what you did to Michael!” Her hands were clenched so tightly that her nails were digging into her, creating little half-moon cuts on her palms.
    “I was just a baby,” I insisted without any real conviction. “I couldn’t have… Even if I did, there had to be more people involved. It doesn’t explain anything! Why would anybody take him or hurt him and put me in his place?”
    “You were always evil,” she ignored my question. “I knew it from the moment I held you in my arms.” She had calmed herself a bit and leaned back in her chair. “It was in your eyes. They weren’t human. They weren’t kind or good.”
    “Then why didn’t you just kill me then?” I asked, growing irritated.
    “You were a baby!” Her hands shook, and her lips had started to quiver. She was losing the confidence she had come in with. “Well, I thought you were. You know I couldn’t be sure.” She pressed her lips together tightly, trying to hold back tears.
    “What made you so sure?” I asked. “What made you decide that day? On my sixth birthday. Why that day? What happened?”
    “You weren’t mine. I knew you weren’t.” She brushed at her eyes to keep the tears from spilling over. “I had known forever. But I just kept thinking about what the day should’ve been like. With my husband, and my son. Michael should’ve been six that day, not you. You were a horrible, horrible child, and you were alive. And he was dead. I just… it didn’t seem right anymore.”  She took a deep breath and shook her head. “It still isn’t right.”
    “I was six years old.” My voice had started quavering, and I was surprised that this had gotten to me so hard. I had never thought this had bothered me. I had never felt anything about her or what happened.
    “ Six-years-old . Do you understand that? I was a little kid, and you were supposed to be my mother!” Whether she really was or not was irrelevant. I was a child, and she was in charge of raising me. “I had never done anything to anyone! I still haven’t! I never even met Michael!”
    “You are lying !” my mother hissed. “You were always a liar! You’re a monster! And I know you’re doing things to Matthew! Just leave him alone! He’s a good boy!” She reached across the table and grabbed my wrist painfully, and the orderly came up behind her. “Take what you want! Take anything! Just leave Matthew alone!”
    “Kimberly, come on.” The orderly put his strong hand on her arm, and she tried to pull away from him. “Kimberly!”
    “Leave him alone!” she shouted again, and the orderly started pulling her up. She fought against him, screaming at me. “Do you hear me, Wendy? I will get out of here someday! And if you’ve hurt that boy, I will finish the job I started!”
    “That’s enough!” The orderly bellowed, dragging her out of the room.
    “You’re not human, Wendy! And I know it!” That was the last thing she yelled before he carried her out of my sight.
    I sat in the room long after she’d gone, trying to catch my breath and get myself under control. Matt couldn’t see me like that. I really, really thought I was going to throw up, but I managed to keep it down.
    Everything was true. I was a changeling. I wasn’t human. She wasn’t my mother. She was just Kim, a woman who had lost her grasp on reality when she realized I wasn’t her child. I had been switched out for her son, Michael, and I had no idea what had happened to him.
    Maybe he was dead. Maybe I really had killed him, or someone else had. Maybe someone like Finn.
    She was convinced that I was a monster, and I had nothing to argue that with. In my life, I had caused nothing but pain. I had ruined Matt’s life, and I was still.
    Not only did he constantly have to uproot himself for me and spend every minute worrying about me, but I was manipulating and controlling him, and I couldn’t say for sure how long that had been going on. I