We Switched Places With My Bruised Twin Sister And Made Her Husband’s Life A Living Hell

Rules of the House

In the kitchen, I saw the pot with the salty fish stew that Mrs. B had vomited up in the afternoon. An idea came to mind, a dark but very satisfying idea.

Lisa had told me that Mrs. B was the ringleader, the brains; Darius was just the muscle. To stop a dog from biting, you have to break its teeth.

But for a dog to stop being loyal to its master, you have to make it fear and despise its master. I looked around the house.

In a dirty corner that Lisa called the laundry area, I found a plastic basin full of sour-smelling dirty laundry. Lisa hadn’t washed their clothes since yesterday.

On top of everything were Mrs. B’s old panties. A smile spread across my face.

I turned the stove back on, put water in a large pot with a stick, grabbed the panties and put them in the pot. I set them to boil, bubbling fiercely.

A horrible smell began to rise, worse than the sewer. Meanwhile, Darius had crawled out of the bathroom.

He dragged himself to the door of Mrs. B’s room. He cried. “Mom! Mom, help me! That… that one is crazy, Mom!”

The door remained closed. Inside, Mrs. B was trembling. She cried. “Go away! Go away! Don’t come near me! If you’re crazy, die alone!”

Darius froze. His mother, the mother who had always protected him, the mother who had encouraged him to hit his wife, was now abandoning him.

He turned to me. He saw me stirring a special broth.

He didn’t understand what I was doing. I ladled a bowl of broth from the pot—a thick yellowish broth.

I placed the bowl in front of Darius. I said. “Drink.”

He looked at it blankly. He asked. “What… what is this?”

I said. “A medicine. A medicine to cure abusive husbands. A medicine to cure ungrateful sons. A medicine to cure the illness of hitting your wife because your mother tells you to. Drink, honey.”

He looked at the bowl and sniffed it. His face went white as paper.

He understood. He cried. “No! No! You’re a demon!”

He crawled backward. I laughed. “A demon? Compared to dunking a woman’s head in water, slapping a three-year-old child, and forcing someone to eat garbage, this is very humane.”

I grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. I snarled. “I told you this house has to have rules. First rule: you reap what you sow. Your mother sowed the seed, so you, her son, have to eat the fruit. Drink!”

I forced his mouth open and poured the awful broth down his throat. He squirmed and tried to vomit, but I held him firmly.

He had to swallow sip by sip. The door to Mrs. B’s room flew open.

She stood there. She saw her panties in the pot; she saw her son drinking the water they had been boiled in.

Her eyes rolled back. She cried. “My God! My God! You… you—”

Darius vomited violently this time, up to the bile. Mrs. B looked at her son, then at me.

There was no more malice in her, only terror. She stumbled and fainted.

I said. “Perfect. One down.”

I looked at Darius, who was convulsing. I said. *”See? Your mother fainted. Now get lost in your room. If I hear a single moan from you tonight, I’ll make you drink the water from that whole basin of dirty laundry.”

Darius, with his last strength born of terror, crawled to his bedroom. The house was finally silent.

The Arrival of the Police

The next morning, the house was silent as a tomb. I got up early and bathed Sky.

I took delicious food from Mrs. B’s fridge and prepared a hearty breakfast for the two of us: sautéed beef, fried eggs. Sky ate eagerly.

The light was starting to return to her eyes. From the two bedrooms, no sound came out.

Mrs. B, Trina, and Darius—the three demons of yesterday—like three dead rats didn’t even dare to peek out. I didn’t care.

I fed Sky and put on cartoons for her. Around 9:00 in the morning, there was a loud and decisive knock at the door.

I asked. “Who is it?”

A voice answered. “Police. Open the door.”

I smiled so fast I opened the door. Two police officers, one older and one younger, stood in front of me.

They wore serious expressions. The young officer looked at me.

I still had Lisa’s old bruises. He asked. “Are you Darius Rakes’s wife, Lisa?”

I said. “Yes, I am.”

He said. “We received a complaint from Darius. He accuses you of brutally assaulting him.”

Just then, Darius crawled out of the room. He looked pathetic: his face swollen, one cheek bruised, and his wrist bandaged.

He walked with a limp, feigning great pain. Seeing the police, he shouted as if he had seen a savior.

He shouted. “Here, officers, look! She hit me!”

He pointed to his face. He said. “She… she—”

And he hesitated, unable to recount the humiliating scene of the night before. He yelled. “She’s crazy! She’s the sister of that crazy woman who was in the psychiatric hospital! The madness rubbed off on her! Arrest her! Lock her up!”

Mrs. B and Trina also poked their heads out stealthily to support the story. They said. “It’s true, officer. She hit her husband, her mother-in-law, and her sister-in-law.”

Trina pointed to her still swollen cheek. The older officer frowned.

He looked alternately at the bulky Darius and at me, small and thin but strong-looking. He asked in a serious voice. “Mrs. Rakes? Is what these people are saying true? Did you assault them?”

I didn’t deny it. I said in a quiet, contrite voice. “Yes, officer, I assaulted them.”

The eyes of Darius and the two women shone. They cried. “See? She confessed! Arrest her!”

But I continued. I said. “I did it in self-defense. My husband, my mother-in-law, and my sister-in-law hit me.”

Darius shouted. “Lie! When did I ever hit you?”

I looked at the older officer. I said. “Officer, he said my husband is accusing me of assault. May I ask what an assault is?”

The young officer snapped. He said. “She left her husband’s face looking like that and says it’s not assault?”

I nodded. I asked. “Yes. Then, if a husband hits his wife until she is covered in bruises, chokes her in water, and swells her face, can that also be called assault?”

The older officer paused. He was beginning to understand the situation. He asked. “You mean…?”

I said. “I mean this.”

I walked into the room and took out a stack of papers. It was what Lisa had gathered in her desperation.

She had brought it to the hospital yesterday and I had kept it. I put it on the table.

I said. “This is my medical report from three months ago. Broken ribs; the doctor concluded it was from a strong impact.”

I took out a photo. I said. “This is my face from two months ago. Broken nose. My husband said I fell on my own.”

I took out a pile of injury reports. I said. “These are bruises on my arms, on my back, belt marks, scratches. There’s a whole lot, officers. I’ve been living here for seven years. Seven years of receiving beatings. Who do I complain to? If I tell the neighbors, they say it’s a couple’s fight, and if I go to the police station, the officers tell me to work it out between ourselves.”

I looked Darius directly in the eyes. He was trembling.

I rolled up my sleeve and showed Lisa’s old bruises. I said. *”Look. This injury is from the day before yesterday. My husband hit my daughter in the face, and when I tried to stop him, he dragged me into the bathroom and choked me in water. My mother-in-law and my sister-in-law helped him hold me down.”

The two officers were stunned. They looked at me, then at those three demons.

I said, my voice trembled with indignation. “I put up with it for seven years. I was playing Lisa’s role. Yesterday, my husband came home drunk, kicked the door, threw things, and tried to hit me and my daughter. I couldn’t take it anymore and, without realizing it, I reacted.”

I looked at Darius. I said. “I have hit my husband once, but he has hit me thousands of times. I ask you, officers…”

I turned to the two police. I asked. “If a husband can hit his wife and not be arrested, isn’t it also a domestic matter for a wife to hit her husband?”

The older officer sighed. He had dealt with too many cases like this.

He turned to Darius; his voice became sharp. He said. “Darius, look at you, how big you are. And your wife is so small. You leave her face like this, and now that she’s hit you back, you call us to arrest her?”

Darius was speechless. He stammered. “But… but she—”

The older officer slammed the table. He said. “But nothing! With this stack of reports, if I open a case, you’re the one who’s going to be arrested. Domestic violence, felony assault. Do you want to go to jail?”

Darius’s face turned ashen. The officer pointed at the three. He said. “I’m warning this family. Live like decent people. Don’t make us come back here. Next time, there won’t just be a warning.”

He turned to me and said in a softer voice. He said. “Mrs. Rakes, if that man hits you again, come directly to the precinct with these reports. We’ll take care of it. Understood?”

I bowed my head and sobbed. I said. “Thank you, officer.”

The Plot to Return the Demon

The two police officers left. Darius, Mrs. B, and Trina stood there stunned.

They looked at me. Now there was a mixture of fear and hatred in their eyes.

They realized the law was not on their side. And I knew they wouldn’t stop; they would use other methods.

Darius had lost humiliatingly. Throughout that day, the house returned to silence, but it was not the silence of a tomb, but the calm that precedes the storm.

I heard the whispers, the murmurings, and the quiet curses coming from Mrs. B’s room. The three of them were plotting.

I could smell their conspiracy in the air. I knew without needing to hear it what they were planning.

They couldn’t defeat me by force. They couldn’t use the police.

So, what method would they use? Of course, they would use my crazy label.

I overheard Mrs. B’s voice. She said. “That one is crazy. It’s not Lisa; it’s Nia, the crazy one from the hospital. She escaped. She’s impersonating her sister.”

Darius nodded. He said. “It’s true. Lisa… Lisa is weak as a snail. How could she have that strength? How could she do something like that? It has to be her crazy sister.”

Trina trembled. She cried. “My God! No wonder she was so evil! She did that to my brother!”

Mrs. B snapped. She said. “Shut up! Don’t mention that again! If the neighbors find out, it’ll cover us in shame!”

Darius asked. “And now what do we do, Mom?”

He continued. “We can’t live with a crazy woman. She could kill us all.”

Mrs. B was silent for a moment. I heard her footsteps as she paced back and forth.

Then she lowered her voice. She said. “What’s crazy must return to its place. The plan began to form in that old wicked head. We can’t catch her ourselves, but the psychiatric hospital can.”

She said. *”But we can’t just call an ambulance to take her away. She’s strong as a bull and she’ll fight back. And what if she tells them everything? We have to weaken her.”

Trina’s voice sounded sharp. She said. “Weaken her… something like sleeping pills, like in the soap operas. In the soup!”

Mrs. B clapped her hands. She said. “Exactly! We give her a large dose of sleeping pills so she sleeps like a log, and then we tie her up tightly. Afterward, we call Crestwood State Hospital and report that patient Nia has escaped, she’s at our house, and we’ve restrained her. They’ll come get her right away.”

Darius worried. He asked. “But what if she doesn’t drink it? She hasn’t eaten with us since yesterday. She won’t eat.”

Mrs. B smiled maliciously. She said. “But her daughter will. Tonight we’ll pretend to make peace. I… I will apologize to her. I’ll prepare a delicious dinner. I’ll tell her that Mommy was wrong, that we’re a family again.”

Trina said. “She’s smart; she won’t believe it.”

Mrs. B said. *”Even if she doesn’t believe it, she’ll have to pretend she does. And we’ll put the drug in a separate soup, a chicken soup. We’ll tell her we prepared it for our granddaughter Sky to make her strong. Do you think she won’t give it to her daughter? If she doesn’t eat it, she’ll have to eat it herself. She won’t be able to refuse her mother-in-law’s kindness.”

My heart stopped for an instant. Damn animals, daring to use Sky.