1 Late at night, an email landed in my inbox. The sender address was my own, but the digital timestamp read ten years into the future. I unzipped the attached folder. Inside was a collection of explicit, degrading photos. The face in those photos was mine, but the eyes were hollow, stripped of any life. The body of the email dripped with absolute despair. “Do not touch the sweet almond stew tonight.” “Grace drugged it. She needs to clear Tyler’s debt with the loan sharks, and she is selling you tonight to pay for it.” “By the time you die from internal bleeding in some backroom, they will be happily using the fifty thousand dollars they got for your body to put a down payment on a brand-new house for Tyler.” My fingertips went numb. I stared at the screen, my chest tightening as a cold sweat broke out across my neck. I had spent years working myself to the bone, sending every spare dime home, hoping for just a shred of maternal love. It turned out that in their eyes, I was worse than livestock. A soft knock rattled my bedroom door. Grace stood outside, holding a steaming white porcelain bowl, her face twisted into an unnaturally sweet smile. “Ava, sweetheart, you are working too hard. Have some stew and get some rest.” When I didn’t answer immediately, the knocking grew louder, the wood rattling under her palms. “Ava, open up.” “I spent two hours simmering this sweet almond stew for you. Drink it while it is hot.” Her voice carried a rare tenderness, a gentle maternal warmth she almost never showed me. If this had happened thirty minutes ago, I probably would have wept with gratitude. I shut my laptop, took a deep breath, and opened the door. Grace stood there with a beaming smile, holding the bowl. Steam rose from the liquid, dotted with red dates and sweet cherries. It was a miracle. Usually, these expensive ingredients were locked away in her pantry, reserved strictly for my younger brother, Tyler. “Drink up,” she urged, pushing the bowl closer to my face. “You have lost so much weight from all that overtime. It breaks my heart.” I looked at the sweet liquid, and my stomach churned. “I am not really thirsty, Mom,” I said, taking half a step back. “Just leave it on the desk. I will drink it after I finish this report.” The warmth vanished from her face instantly. Her brows furrowed, and her eyes turned cold. “What?” she snapped. “I made this with my own hands, and you are turning your nose up at it? These almond flakes are the premium kind from the organic market. I wouldn’t even let Tyler touch them. You are drinking this tonight, or you don’t care about your mother at all.” Seeing the frantic desperation in her eyes, I stopped resisting. I took the bowl and forced myself to gulp it down right in front of her. The warm, thick liquid slid down my throat, sickeningly sweet. Grace let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief. The greedy grin returned, wrinkling the corners of her eyes. It was the face of a woman who knew fifty thousand dollars was finally within her grasp. “That is my good girl. Go to bed right after. Don’t ruin your health.” She snatched the empty bowl and locked the door behind her as she left. The moment the latch clicked, I bolted to the bathroom. I turned the faucet on high to drown out the noise, shoved two fingers deep down my throat, and gagged myself. The sweet, heavy broth came rushing back up along with my lunch. Tears and sweat poured down my face. I kept pushing, scratching the back of my throat until nothing was left but bitter, yellow bile. Splashing cold water on my face, I stared at my ghostly reflection in the mirror. What had I been clinging to for the past twenty-four years? Every payday, I kept barely enough for groceries and transferred the rest to her account. I bought them expensive gifts while I survived on stale bread and instant noodles. I thought blood was thicker than water. I thought if I just poured my soul into this family, I could finally warm their frozen hearts. Instead, I was just a walking ATM. A slab of meat to be sold by the pound. Even a pig gets a decent meal before the slaughter. I got a bowl of poison. When I was five, we had a rare treat of homemade chicken pot pies. Grace carefully picked out every single piece of chicken, placing them all into Tyler’s plate. When I looked at the food longingly, she slapped me across the face. “What are you staring at, you greedy brat? This is for your brother’s growth. You only deserve the scraps.” Tyler sat beside her, shielding his plate and sticking his tongue out at me. I kept quiet, thinking I just wasn’t being good enough. To please her, I stood on a wooden stool every weekend, washing the family’s laundry until my hands cracked and bled from the winter cold. My reward was another beating. “You useless child, look how much laundry detergent you wasted! Water doesn’t grow on trees!” When I was fifteen, I scored the highest marks in the entire school district. The acceptance letter from a prestigious regional academy arrived at our doorstep. I thought she would finally be proud. But when I got home, she was merrily counting a thick stack of hundred-dollar bills. It was a dowry from creepy old Harlan, a bitter neighbor with a permanent limp. Grace didn’t even look at my acceptance letter. She flicked her lighter, threatening to burn it. “School is useless for girls. Harlan offered ten thousand dollars and two breeding pigs. You are marrying him next month to pay for Tyler’s wedding fund.” That night, I climbed over the fence barefoot. I walked ten miles in the pitch black, my feet bleeding, until I reached my teacher’s house and begged her to help me secure a scholarship. During college, I worked three jobs, waitressing, delivering flyers, and washing dishes. I paid my own tuition, but Grace still demanded five hundred dollars every month. I tolerated it all, foolishly hoping that one day, she would hand me a plate at the dinner table and say she was proud of me. Last month, Tyler got his leg broken by loan sharks over gambling debts. Grace ran to my apartment, screaming and rolling on the floor, holding a bottle of bleach to her mouth. “If you don’t save your brother, I will drink this right here! I raised you, and you won’t even help your own family? You are trying to kill your mother!” Under the judgmental stares of my neighbors, I handed over my entire savings of thirty thousand dollars. I thought that would finally pay my debt of birth. I was wrong. That money only whetted their appetite. I wiped my face dry, pulled a dusty duffel bag from under my bed, and packed a few clothes. My ID and bank cards went into my backpack. I muted my phone and lowered its screen brightness to the absolute minimum. The apartment was deathly silent, except for the ticking clock. Suddenly, the front door lock creaked. The heavy door groaned on its ungreased hinges. Then came a flurry of hurried footsteps, accompanied by the sharp, rhythmic click of wooden crutches. Tyler, with his broken leg, was already out of bed to act as a pimp for his own sister. “Mom, is it done?” Tyler whispered, his voice trembling with excitement. “She drank it all. A whole packet of the powder. She should be completely out by now,” Grace replied, her voice eager. “Gavin, right this way. Watch your step,” Tyler said, his voice dripping with sycophancy. A gravelly, rough voice cut through the quiet house. “Is she really in there? Don’t screw with me. If she is ugly, I will break your other leg.” “I wouldn’t dare, Gavin!” Tyler stuttered. “The drug you gave me is incredibly potent. She is completely helpless. Just write off the fifty grand I owe you, and she is yours. She is beautiful, a virgin. Once you are done, you can put her in your club to work off the rest.” Grace chimed in, “She is strong, used to hard labor. She can handle it. We will keep watch outside. If she wakes up and struggles, just hit her. I can get you some duct tape to seal her mouth.” I pressed my ear against the bedroom door, my stomach twisting in raw disgust. These were my blood relatives. They had branded a price tag of fifty thousand dollars on my body and my future. “Just don’t kill her,” Grace added quietly. “Don’t worry, ma’am. We are here for profit, not a corpse,” Gavin laughed. The footsteps approached my door. I moved quickly to the window. We lived on the third floor of an old brick building. Outside the window was a rusted iron fire escape. The emergency latch on the metal grate was unlocked. I pushed the heavy metal open, feeling the cold night air rush against my face. I stepped onto the shaky air conditioning unit outside, my shoes slipping slightly on the dust. Behind me, the bedroom doorknob rattled violently. “Why is it locked?” Gavin grunted. “She must have locked it out of habit. Let me kick it open,” Tyler offered. The wooden door began to splinter. I squeezed into the narrow gap between the AC unit and the wall, gripping the cold brickwork. If I fell, I would die or be paralyzed. If I survived the fall, Grace would just sell my broken body to the highest bidder anyway. The door gave way with a loud crash. “Where the hell is she?!” Gavin roared. Flashlights cut through the darkness of my room. “She was supposed to be asleep! The bowl is in the kitchen!” Grace panicked. They tore the room apart, throwing open the closet and flipping the mattress. “My fifty grand! If she is gone, Gavin will ruin me!” Tyler screamed, his crutches thudding angrily. “We should have tied her up!” “That ungrateful bitch! I should have drowned her at birth!” Grace shrieked. “We fed her and clothed her, and she won’t even help her brother? It is her duty to sell herself for this family!” Footsteps approached the window. Tyler ripped the curtain aside. He leaned out, shining his bright flashlight down into the dark courtyard. The beam swept over the brickwork, brushing past the rusted metal grate. I curled into a tight ball, holding my breath, my bloody fingernails digging into the rough concrete wall. The pain kept me focused. The light hovered barely a foot above my head. I could hear Tyler’s ragged, angry breathing just inches away.
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