Chapter 18: The Hypocrite

“I didn’t realize it was going to be this big. When you said cabin, I thought ... well, a cabin.”

I had just parked, the house now into view—large enough that I always forgot how it might look to someone seeing it for the first time.

“It’s what my family calls it,” I said. I glanced at her. “Ready?”

She nodded and I helped her out of the SUV.

My parents were already on the steps.

They stopped when they saw us.

No one moved for a moment.

I wasn’t exactly surprised. I’d tried to prepare them for this—explained it more than once. But there’s only so much explanation can do. Some things don’t really land until they’re standing in front of you.

Isla shifted slightly beside me. I felt it more than I saw it.

My mom’s gaze moved between us, slow and careful, like she was trying to reconcile two versions of a story that refused to match. My father stayed quiet beside her, watching in the same way.

I already knew what they were trying to do. I just didn’t know how long it would take.

Eventually, they came closer.

My mom spoke first, her voice measured. “I know you explained it over the phone, but I guess I didn’t fully understand. She has to wear all of that?”

“Hi, Mom,” I said, stepping in to kiss her cheek, then turning to shake my father’s hand as if that alone could reset the moment.

“This is Isla.”

Isla gave a small, practiced smile. Polite. Careful. “Hi, Mrs. Westfield. Mr. Westfield. It’s nice to meet you both.”

Her eyes moved between them. “I’m afraid they’re necessary.”

The calm in her voice was real—but I could hear what sat underneath it. Not shame exactly. Something tighter. The awareness of being looked at before being seen.

Still, she held her ground better than I expected.

The silence that followed wasn’t quite as heavy as I’d braced for on the drive here. Still awkward—just not unbearable.

Dad broke it. “Let me help you with those,” he said, already taking one of the bags.

We started toward the house.

The sound of our steps carried too cleanly over the driveway, like it didn’t quite belong to the moment.

At first, we all moved together. Then, without meaning to, my parents drifted ahead—simply falling into their natural pace.

I stayed beside Isla.

Close enough that I didn’t have to check if she was okay.

When my mom glanced back and noticed the space between us, she slowed at once.

“Sorry,” Isla said as she glanced toward my mom. “I can’t move fast.”

“You don’t have to apologize,” my dad said immediately.

Isla gave a faint smile and took another careful step. “One of the frustrating things about this ... I can’t really walk normally. I have to hobble.”

There was a quiet self-consciousness in her voice—familiar, worn in, like something she’d had to explain far too many times. Like she’d learned how to say it without letting it sound like an apology, even when it still did.

She tried to pick up the pace anyway.

It lasted only a few steps before she slowed again, settling back into something steadier. More sustainable.

My father stopped without a word and waited for us to catch up.

“We’re in no hurry,” he said. “We can wait.”

“Thanks,” Isla replied, offering him a small smile as she continued forward at her own pace.

At the steps, I moved beside her and gently took her arm. We went up slowly, one careful step at a time. The stairs were steeper than they looked, and with her movement restricted the way it was, I let her set the rhythm—steadying her just enough so she could focus on each shift of weight before committing to it.

It wasn’t dramatic. It wasn’t graceful.

But it worked.

And somehow, that made it feel more real than anything else.

Inside, Dad took the bags.

“I’ll put these in your room,” he said.

Wow,” Isla said softly.

She had stopped just past the entryway, taking everything in. The high ceilings opened above her, all exposed beams and warm wood. A massive stone fireplace anchored the great room, rising up through both floors like it had always been there.

“You have a beautiful home,” she said, glancing toward my mom.

“It’s an old family place,” my mom replied. “We’re lucky to have it.”

Isla nodded and moved further inside.

Each step came carefully, measured in a way that made even simple movement feel deliberate.

My mom’s gaze stayed on her the whole time. Not judging—not exactly—but watching in a way that didn’t let anything slip past unnoticed.

She had already seen enough to understand the outline of it: the way Isla’s stride shortened, the subtle drag of movement that made even crossing a room look like calculation. But now, inside, there was more to take in.

The way her wrists stayed held together in front of her, never separating, never swinging freely like they should. How every adjustment came from her upper body instead—small turns of shoulder and head, working around limits instead of through them.

Isla didn’t acknowledge any of it.

She just moved.

Turning first at the neck, then following through as far as she could manage. Each shift came with a brief pause, as if her body needed to negotiate with itself before continuing.

Even so, there was a strange steadiness to her. Not ease—never ease—but control. But the truth was that she had long since learned how to make restricted movement look like its own kind of normal.

When she finally faced us again, her expression stayed neutral. Not guarded exactly, but measured—aware of the space she was in, and of how much of herself it was safe to show there.

And for a moment, the room felt still, as if it was waiting to see what would come next.

That changed when Isla saw the koi pond in the atrium through the windows.

“Is that...?”

I nodded.

A small smile broke through.

“Can I?”

I nodded again.

She moved toward the door at her careful pace, each step still measured, still constrained, but a little quicker now—like something had finally pulled her attention forward more than the limits holding her back.

She reached the handle, fumbled it for a moment, then managed it and stepped outside, closing the door behind her.

We just watched her go.

“She’s pretty.”

I turned. It was Shawna.

“Hey, sis.”

“Hey,” she shot back.

Her attention stayed on Isla. “Very pretty. And all chained up.” A pause. Then, glancing toward Mom, “That’s convenient.”

“Mom says she has to wear those,” she added, like she already knew how the sentence ended.

I just nodded.

“Some court-ordered thing?” Shawna went on.

I watched her out of the corner of my eye as she stepped closer, still looking at Isla. “So, it’s a twenty-four-hour thing?”

I didn’t answer.

“Does that mean she has to sleep like that?”

Still nothing.

“Is that how you fuck her?”

I let my shoulders drop as I turned toward Shawna.

“Shawna,” Dad said, arriving mid-sentence.

“What?” she said without missing a beat. “We’re all adults.”

She didn’t lower her voice. Didn’t seem to care who heard.

Her hand lifted, gesturing loosely toward the atrium. Isla was still there, moving slowly along the glass, focused on the koi pond outside.

“I’m just asking,” Shawna said, “if I should expect to get up in the middle of the night and find her wandering around like that.”

“That’s none of our business,” Dad said, sharper now.

“Okay,” she replied, a shrug in her tone more than her shoulders. “Just trying to figure out if I should help her or something.”

“She doesn’t need help,” I said.

That got a small reaction out of her—not quite a laugh. More like she was chewing on the idea, amused in a way she didn’t bother hiding.

“I pretty much saw the same thing you did a few minutes ago,” she replied. “She struggled to get the atrium door open.”

Her gaze flicked back toward the window, where Isla was still visible beyond the glass. “And she doesn’t exactly move around fast.”

Shawna pulled out her phone and raised it without much ceremony, zooming in on Isla.

“Shawna—what are you doing? Come on. No pictures.”

“Relax,” she said, already tapping the screen.

A moment later she paused, eyebrows lifting slightly.

“Wow,” she said, almost impressed. “Google says those are some serious shit.”

“Shawna! Language,” Mom cut in sharply.

Mom never tolerated profanity. Not then, not now. If anything, Shawna had probably helped fund half her college tuition through the swear jar growing up.

“High-risk...” she began.

She paused—just long enough to let the words settle in the room—then glanced up at our parents. Not for reassurance. For confirmation. Like she was building something she intended them to understand fully.

“High-risk restraint system used under secure transport protocol parameters.”

Her voice changed as she read it aloud. Slower now. Measured. Each phrase sharpened, as if she were presenting evidence rather than reciting procedure.

“Wrist restraints with rigid housing and an interconnected waist chain ... designed to eliminate independent upper-body movement.”

She let that sit there. No rush to soften it. No attempt to explain it away.

“Ankle restraints with short-link connection ... engineered to severely limit stride length and prevent rapid movement or directional change.”

Another pause. The kind that made the silence feel intentional.

“Designed for critical restriction of movement,” she continued, quieter now, but firm in a way that didn’t invite argument. “Reducing locomotion to controlled step function only.”

Her eyes lifted again, holding the room a second longer this time.

“Consistent with high-security transport protocols,” she finished. “Prioritizing containment, compliance, and prevention of any attempt to endanger others or escape control.”

She lowered the phone slowly.

“Wow,” she said, looking at me now. “Your pretty girlfriend has been a naughty girl to have to wear restraints like that.”

I shook my head slowly, keeping my mouth shut. I knew better than to engage her. It would only give her more to run with.

“Enough Shawna,” Dad said.

“I’m just trying to understand. That’s all,” she replied, already looking back down at her phone, zooming in again like she was studying something for detail.

“So that padlock behind her back keeps it all together?”

“Yes,” I said, reluctantly. I didn’t want to feed it.

She hummed softly, still reading.

“She really can’t get out of that?”

I sighed. “Not without help.”

“So, we don’t have to worry about her accidentally getting her hands free? In the middle of the night or something ... and murdering us?”

“Shawna,” Dad warned this time.

She didn’t look up. Just kept her eyes on the screen.

“I’m kidding,” she said lightly. “I’m just kidding.”

Then, with a faint half-smile still aimed at her phone, “But seriously. She can’t get out of those?”

“No,” I told her again. “Padlock has to come off first, and she can’t reach it with her hands like that.”

“Okay,” Shawna said, giving a small shrug while also sounding surprised. “Good to know she’s really stuck like that. At least her hands are.”

Her gaze dipped to her phone for a moment, thumb idly hovering as if she might scroll away entirely, before she looked back toward the atrium window instead.

“Even though she’d probably be able to get those ankle restraints off if she had the keys.”

“She knows not to remove them,” I said.

“Right,” Shawna replied, nodding slowly—too deliberately. “Of course. She’s a good little prisoner.”

A faint, almost amused edge crept into her voice as she let the words linger.

“And good little prisoners,” she added sarcastically, “don’t remove their restraints just because they’re told not to.”

“Shawna, please,” Dad said, his voice edged with exhaustion—the kind that came from trying not to escalate something already teetering on the brink.

“Holy shit,” she said, staring back at the screen. “Those things are, like, from the seventies or something.”

She held up her phone, showing me.

“They don’t even allow those on prisoners anymore.”

“Shawna!” Mom snapped.

“You can’t even cut those fucking things off,” Shawna continued. “They’re practically cut-proof.”

She fully turned to me.

“Shawna!” Mom snapped again. “Young lady, I swear to God, adult or not, I will—”

“Did you know that?” Shawna cut in, talking right over her.

I was half a second away from snapping back, already turning toward her when I stopped myself.

Instead, I lifted a hand and waved toward Isla, who had noticed Shawna and was already heading back inside. She’d probably heard us—or at least Mom.

Isla paused at the door, struggling briefly with the handle before I stepped in and opened it for her—quietly, quickly—before Shawna could turn it into another comment.

“Hi,” Isla said, lifting her hands as far as the cuffs would allow in a small, careful greeting.

“Hi,” Shawna replied, stepping forward and lightly shaking her hand as if nothing about the situation was unusual.

“Isla,” she added, as though confirming it.

“Yeah, kind of figured,” Shawna said back. Polite on the surface—but there was a faint edge underneath it, like she was always half a step away from making something sharp out of anything.

“Your boyfriend’s sister—Shawna.”

“Nice to meet you,” Isla said.

“Same,” Shawna replied, easy enough, but her attention lingered just a fraction too long, like she was still deciding what she thought of her.

“Well,” Mom said after a moment, her tone softening, “why don’t we all sit? I’ve made us something to snack on. We can get to know each other better.”

“Sounds lovely,” Isla replied.

We drifted toward the living area. I guided Isla down onto the cushions, steadying her as she lowered herself and settled. She adjusted her position with careful precision, straightening her legs before crossing them slowly and easing them into place.

“Clever,” Shawna said, watching her.

“Yeah,” Isla said lightly. “You kind of have to relearn basic things with these on.”

Shawna gave a small nod, almost approving. “I bet.”

I glanced at her then—just a look. A warning without words.