Category: English

My mother, Carol, always prided herself on being the picture of impartiality. Whatever my older sister, Tiffany, had, I was required to have, too—no more, no less. It was her personal mantra, a suffocating, twisted form of equity. I wasn’t planning on going home for the holidays this year; I was in the middle of closing a multi-million-dollar deal. But then the text came. “Jenna, I bought you a ticket for tonight. Remember to be on time.” “You know how hard it is to get seats for Christmas. I was up for days trying to snag this one for you!” I was about to text back a polite refusal, but she preempted me, sending the ticket information: an interstate bus ticket, 19 hours and 53 minutes, non-stop. The accompanying voice memo dripped with martyrdom: “Your sister has a ticket. If you didn’t, I’d look like a mother who plays favorites! If you don’t come home, you’re ungrateful!” I had no choice but to agree. The very next second, my sister, Tiffany, posted in the family group chat. “OMG, look how much Mom adores me! She booked me a first-class flight a whole month ago!” If this was what Carol Perkins called “fairness,” I really didn’t want it anymore. … The words “a whole month ago” burned a bitter acid behind my eyes. I must have been frozen in that position for too long, because my colleague, Mark, leaned over, his expression a mixture of pity and disbelief. “Jenna, a bus ticket? Nineteen hours? That’s brutal. And I thought your mom was chartering a car for you?” I tasted ash. “A chartered car?” I hoped. Mark’s mother was a neighborhood friend of mine, so he was a reliable source of uncomfortable information. “Yeah, my mom was telling me all about it. Carol was worried you were overworked and was going to hire an executive car service to drive you cross-state. She went on and on about how much she cared. She really dotes on you!” The blood ran cold in my veins. I immediately checked the family chat again. Tiffany’s message about the first-class flight had been swiftly deleted. The screen was now filled with Mom’s generic, shareable posts—the kind that looked like a bad life-coach’s feed: “The most important thing about ‘filial piety’ isn’t obedience, it’s making peace!” “Only a perfectly balanced scale makes for a harmonious family!” My aunts and uncles chimed in, seeking advice: “Carol, you’re a saint. Two daughters, no favoritism!” “It must be why both your girls are so successful!” My throat tightened. Shaking, I typed a message: “Mom, I heard you were going to charter a car to pick me up?” The group chat instantly went silent. Before Carol could reply, Tiffany launched her attack: “Jenna Perkins, how can you be so entitled? You’ve been working for years! Mom was nice enough to even book you a ticket at all!” “A chartered car? Seriously? Who do you think you are?” My question was instantly deflected. The group erupted with praise for Tiffany’s “maturity,” throwing thinly veiled insults my way. “Well, I’d say a little favoritism is natural. You can’t expect five fingers to be the same length.” “Tiff is so thoughtful. If she were my daughter, I’d favor her too.” “Honestly, Tiffany has been the one suffering all these years.” My fists were clenched so tight my nails dug crescents into my palms. I was shaking, unable to defend myself. Should I post the picture of my standing-room-only bus ticket? But Tiffany had already painted me as the spoiled one demanding luxury. And her flight message? Only I had seen it before she deleted it. Just then, my mother’s chat box popped up. A $50 Venmo transfer appeared with the caption: “Did my little girl get her feelings hurt? Here’s a little something, sweetie. Don’t worry about your sister.” “I did want to charter a car, but it was too last-minute. You know how busy I am.” I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. The unaccepted $50 mocked my fleeting, self-pitying moment of hope. I finally found the courage to send the question I needed answered: “Why did you book a first-class flight for Tiffany?” It was a long time before Carol replied: “Don’t be ridiculous, Jenna. I would never be so unfair. You two are treated exactly the same.” “A bus ticket, a plane ticket… tickets are hard to get at Christmas. You need to be understanding.” I slumped in my office chair, defeated. Her texts continued: “Oh, and your sister gets carsick easily on buses. Remember to pick her up some motion sickness meds. And she loves those expensive cherries; they help her nausea.” “Since I sent you the $50, that makes it fair.” Mark’s phone nudged my elbow. He pointed to a new text from his mother: “My mom just sent me this. Carol couldn’t figure out the app, so she had my little brother help her book it.” I read every word. The messages detailed Carol’s sincere concern for her daughter’s well-being: Driver, my daughter gets nauseous, please drive smoothly. She’s a quiet girl, please don’t try to make conversation. I’ll be waiting downstairs an hour early, please be punctual. The newest chat log, dated a month ago: “Driver, we won’t be needing the car. My daughter decided to fly home instead.” The name on the booking? Tiffany Perkins. Never Jenna. I fought back the tears, refusing to let them fall. It had always been like this. Bread had to be measured with a ruler and sliced in half. Milk had to be dated and checked for evenness. Our bedding, our backpacks, our clothing—all the same color and style. As a child, I, like everyone else, believed my mother was the epitome of fairness. As an adult, I knew the truth. I hated cream-filled bread and loathed milk, but Tiffany loved them. I didn’t want a pink backpack or frilly dresses, but Tiffany did. I wanted to attend a university three states away, but Mom insisted I stay here, with Tiffany. The sight of my manager, Sarah, coming toward me snapped me out of my haze. “Jenna, are you coming home for the holidays?” I instantly replied, “No, Sarah, I’m staying. I’m going to power through the Ramsey account.” Just then, the family group chat exploded with photos. My aunts were showing off their Christmas gifts: “Thank you, Tiffany, for the amazing holiday gifts!” The photos showed boxes of gourmet fruit baskets, high-end artisanal beer, and imported seafood. “Thank you, Jenna.” In that second photo, casually tossed into the corner, was a single, generic case of store-brand juice boxes. My eyes blurred with tears of shock. Because I had bought all of it. The gourmet baskets, the beer, the seafood, even the cheap juice boxes—they were all from my account, my card. Tiffany hadn’t contributed a thing! Rage seized my brain. I didn’t care about their twisted game anymore. I typed a furious retort: “These were all bought with my money. How did they become Tiffany’s gifts?” The moment I sent it, my Aunt Brenda jumped in: “Jenna, you really are just like your mother said you were!” It was as if she’d been waiting for me to take the bait. A cold dread washed over me. Next, Aunt Margaret scolded me: “Last year, you claimed you bought us that expensive necklace, too! I praised you for months, only for your mother to tell us afterward that Tiffany had paid for it all!” Her voice memo dripped with scorn. “This year, the boxes clearly have Tiffany’s name on the shipping labels. And now you’re trying to take credit for them again? Get real!” I couldn’t breathe. My body was shaking uncontrollably. I didn’t care about face or courtesy anymore. I had spent the money, and I deserved the credit. But the message I tried to send next bounced back with an unmistakable exclamation mark. “You are no longer a member of this group. Please submit a request to rejoin.” I stared at the group admin’s profile picture. My mother. A moment later, Carol texted me privately, her tone sickeningly gentle: “Jenna, are you mad at Mommy? Let me explain. I’m doing this to maintain fairness!” I laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. What kind of fairness was this? “You two are sisters. You work in a big-city firm; your sister is barely making minimum wage. Everyone praises you. Who praises Tiffany?” “So, I decided to let her take credit for the holiday gifts. That way, things are fair, aren’t they?” Her tone subtly shifted to one of slight annoyance: “Look at you, airing our private business in the chat. Do you want to embarrass me or your sister?” “Forget it. When you get here, take Tiffany to the mall and buy her a nice gold bracelet. It’ll be your compensation to her.” I couldn’t speak. Tears streamed down my face. She was calling me unfair, and demanding I compensate the one who was robbing me? As I reached for my keyboard to unleash hell, Mr. Evans, my division manager, stormed over. “Jenna, with me. Now!” My heart sank, a sickening feeling washing over me. “Do you know your mother just called to quit for you? Are you serious? What are you, a child playing adult? Get out of my office!” My head felt like it had been hit by a bomb. I scrambled for my phone. The last message from my mother was waiting: “Your sister was just fired. Since that’s the case, I’ve quit your job for you. To make things fair!” I took a deep breath, bowed to my manager, and offered my sincerest apologies. After a brutal dressing down, Mr. Evans delivered the final order: “Don’t come back until your family drama is completely sorted out!” My humiliation was a suffocating weight. I walked out of the building, my anger finally reaching a boiling point. I called her. “Tiffany is a waitress who takes advantage of your monthly allowance! She works two days and skips three! Of course, she was fired!” “When I was doing that crushing internship, making minimum wage, barely able to afford rent, did you ever give me a penny? Never!” “Is that fair? Is that what you call fair?” “I’m not coming home for Christmas. I’m not coming home ever again. As far as I’m concerned, you only have one daughter: Tiffany!” I hung up without waiting for her reply. Within half an hour, my phone was besieged by calls from relatives. I ignored them all, letting them pile up as texts and voice memos. Aunt Brenda and Aunt Margaret were the first: “Jenna Perkins, you have some nerve! How can you talk to your mother like that? You’re an ingrate! The city turned you into a monster!” “Do you know how much your mother is crying? Get home and apologize right now!” Accompanying the texts were photos of my mother, Carol, looking pale, collapsed on the sofa, sobbing hysterically. The sight made me feel numb, yet a fresh wave of white-hot anger surged inside me. Aunt Brenda’s voice memo included my mother’s choked-up whisper: “Jenna, Mommy knows. If you want the gifts to be yours, they are, okay? They’re yours.” They were already mine. My hand dropped uselessly to my side, my body trembling. Just before my screen locked, a message came through from Tiffany: “Jenna, you treat Mom like this, you’ll get what’s coming to you.” I blocked them all. I wiped my tears. A sudden, intense sense of self-preservation guided me to my apartment’s spare room. I needed something to guarantee my safety. The next morning, I texted Mr. Evans that the situation was handled and reported to work on time. The minute I walked in, I noticed the disgusted glances from my coworkers. “That’s her, the one who abandoned her mother,” I heard. “Her poor mother worked so hard to raise them both, and that’s how she repays her?” “I saw the video. She’s a monster.” “How can someone like that work for us? It’s a disgrace!” My hands shook as I checked my phone. Top of the local news feed: “Ungrateful Daughter Disowns Mother Over Budget Flight Ticket?” The video showed my mother weeping dramatically, surrounded by relatives who took turns recounting Carol’s “fairness” over the years. They claimed she stayed up for nights trying to buy me a plane ticket, and out of desperation to see me, she bought the bus ticket. Now, I had cut her off. My head swam with fury. I wanted to scream the truth. But Mr. Evans appeared, his face thunderous. “Jenna Perkins, before you say a word, look outside.” I stumbled down the stairs. Outside, a crowd was gathered, holding banners that blocked the company entrance: “Boycott Ungrateful Daughter Jenna Perkins! Support the Fair Mom!” “Find Jenna Perkins—She Needs to Learn a Lesson!” I flinched. Taking a deep breath, I was about to rush out and tell the truth when someone pointed at me. “There she is! That’s Jenna Perkins!” The crowd surged. In the second I froze, a stinging blow landed across my face. “You dare treat our mother like that? I’ll teach you respect!” It was Tiffany. Her face was contorted with fury, but her eyes held a spark of undisguised triumph. I reeled, my vision blurring. I couldn’t speak. The surrounding crowd saw my silence as guilt and began to jeer. Then came the projectiles—rotten eggs and old lettuce leaves—pelting me. “That’s Jenna! Folks, hit the like button! Watch me punish this monster for all of you!” Tiffany held up her phone. She was live-streaming the attack. In the corner of the video feed, my mother was visible on a couch, looking weak, her voice a desperate plea: “Jenna, Mommy knows you were just upset. It’s okay. Just come home today, and you’ll still be my good daughter.” Her words sliced through the last thread of my attachment to her. I started to laugh, a wretched, cynical sound. “Mom,” I choked out, “one last time. Is the truth what the internet is saying?” My mother’s eyes went instantly red, but she didn’t speak. The crowd’s anger intensified. “She has no remorse! She wants to drive her own mother to her grave!” “How can a big company like this hire someone with zero morals? Fire her!” I watched the live stream and saw it—a fleeting, almost imperceptible smirk play across my mother’s lips as the comments rolled in. Just then, Mr. Evans and Mr. Harrison walked out, their faces grim. “Following an internal investigation,” Mr. Evans announced loudly, “Jenna Perkins was found to have engaged in fraudulent expense reporting. We have terminated her employment.” “And we will be pursuing criminal charges.” The termination notice was slapped against my face, the paper leaving a thin cut on my cheek. “Expect a subpoena from the court.” I froze, a thought clicking into place. Because she lived nearby, Tiffany constantly dropped by my apartment, always trying to sneak into my home office. My expense reports were filed and organized there. I looked up, meeting Tiffany’s smug, triumphant gaze. Then I looked at the phone video. My mother lowered her head, avoiding the camera’s focus. She was in on it. I smiled, a cold, empty feeling in my chest. “Well,” Tiffany crowed, “now you’ve lost your job and you’re going to jail. Why don’t you apologize to Mom? We might still give you a handout!” “You’re supposed to be so smart! Write her a letter of apology right now. Kneel and beg for forgiveness!” I reached into my bag and pulled out a sheet of paper. My voice was steady, betraying no hint of fear or defeat. “I do have something to give Ms. Perkins.” “But it’s not an apology.” Someone held a camera up to the paper in my hand. Gasps erupted from the crowd. “What is that?” My mother, unable to see the paper, felt a surge of panic. She instantly perked up. “Jenna, what are you doing? Mother and daughter have no grudges! Even without an apology, Mommy won’t blame you!” She tried to start crying again. Tiffany sobbed: “Jenna, Mom sacrificed everything for us! And you won’t even apologize! You’re waving some stupid piece of paper around just to upset her!” But they were too late. The surrounding crowd was looking at the paper, their jaws dropping. No one was rushing to their defense. Someone finally broke the silence with a shocked exclamation: “Are you kidding me? This woman calls herself a ‘Fair Mom?’ This is disgusting! Look at this list!”

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Three years ago, a major medical malpractice incident cost me my license. My reputation was in ruins. I was forced to scrape by, working in a shabby little clinic. Through it all, my husband, Arthur, stood by me. He sold off family assets to hire a top-tier lawyer who, citing insufficient evidence, managed to keep me out of prison. He was my only light in the darkness. Until the day I found the hidden folder on his old laptop. And discovered the truth about that surgery. The video clearly showed him, identified as the patient’s family, sneaking into the prep room before the operation and swapping a critical drug. The so-called top-tier lawyer? She was just an old university mentee of his. The files showed her coaching him on how to forge evidence and manipulate the media, all to paint me as a reckless butcher who played with human lives. And the one thing he always said to me, over and over? “Without me, Nina, no one in this world would ever want you.” I shut the laptop and looked in the mirror. All I saw was a pair of scarred hands that trembled at the mere thought of holding a scalpel, and a gaunt, haunted reflection, the product of years of deep depression. It finally hit me. These three miserable years of my life… they were all his doing. 1 I sat on the cold floor of the study, my entire body shaking. The laptop screen was still glowing, the video having played to its end. The final frame was of Arthur, wearing medical gloves, carefully switching one vial for another. The date, the time, the surgery number. It all matched. That was the day my world had collapsed. It wasn’t an accident. It was a meticulously planned murder. The murder of my career. The murder of my life. There was more in the folder. Screenshots of emails, chat logs. A digital trail of conversations between Arthur and his “top-tier lawyer” mentee, Stella. 【Don’t worry, Arthur. I’ll handle the media narrative. I’ll make sure she never practices again.】 【And after this is done, your new firm…】 【Of course. Any clients you send my way will be top priority. And as for Dr. Reed… she’ll be more dependent on you than ever.】 【Good. That’s for the best.】 The cold, calculated words on the screen made it hard to breathe. I used the desk to pull myself to my feet and stared at my reflection. My face was ashen, with dark, bruised circles under my eyes from years of insomnia. My hands, the hands that had once held a scalpel with unshakable confidence, were now a roadmap of self-inflicted scars. It was pathetic; I could barely hold a glass of water without spilling it. At 4 a.m., I packed a suitcase and hid it in the back of the closet. He came in at seven, right on schedule, holding a glass of milk. “You’re awake?” His voice was as gentle as ever as he sat on the edge of the bed. “It’s your day off. You should sleep in.” I opened my eyes and looked at him. I had looked at this face for seven years, once believing it to be the most dependable in the world. Now, it was the face of a terrifying stranger. “What’s wrong? You look pale.” He reached out to touch my forehead, and I flinched away. His hand froze in mid-air, his eyes narrowing slightly. “It’s nothing,” I said, looking down, trying to keep my voice steady. “Just a bad dream.” “About the surgery again?” He sighed and handed me the milk. “Here, drink this. It’ll calm you down. I added a little honey, just how you like it.” I stared at the milky white liquid. I’d never questioned it before. He told me it was a supplement to help me relax, and I drank it obediently every day, spending the rest of my hours in a hazy, forgetful fog. Now I knew what it really was. Sedatives. A steady, low dose, administered over years. I took the glass, placed it on the nightstand, and asked casually, “Are you going out today?” “Yeah, a last-minute meeting at the office. I might be back late.” He leaned down. “You just rest here at home. Don’t let your mind wander, okay?” “Okay,” I whispered. He pressed a kiss to my forehead. A touch that had once brought me comfort now made my skin crawl. The moment the front door clicked shut, I ran to the bathroom and poured the milk down the toilet. Back in the bedroom, I opened my phone and found the main number for Arthur’s company. “Good morning, Apex Medical Solutions. How may I help you?” “Hi, I’d just like to confirm if President Arthur Vance has a last-minute meeting scheduled for this morning?” “One moment, please.” I heard the clatter of a keyboard. “No… I’m not seeing any meetings on his schedule for today. May I ask who’s calling?” “Never mind. Thank you.” I hung up. I knew that if he wasn’t at the office, there was only one other place he would be. Stella’s law firm. I saw Arthur’s car parked in a temporary spot on the side of the building. Two minutes later, Stella emerged from the revolving doors. She walked quickly to the car, pulled open the passenger door, and slipped inside. I watched them kiss. It was natural. Practiced. I stood silently in the shadows, feeling no anger, no tears. Just a numb shock and a sharp, twisting pain in my chest, as if someone had reached in and squeezed my heart. 2 After about ten minutes, they finally broke apart. Before Stella got out, Arthur grabbed her hand and said something. I was too far away to hear, but I saw her bright, confident smile and the firm nod she gave him. She didn’t go back into the building right away, instead standing on the curb, looking down at her phone. I walked over and stopped in front of her. She looked up, and the smile on her face froze. “Dr… Dr. Reed?” She quickly composed herself, her expression shifting to a professional, plastic smile. “What are you doing here? Were you looking for me?” I looked at her—the woman who had destroyed my life. Young, beautiful, radiating success. “Just passing by,” I heard myself say, my voice terrifyingly calm. “I saw a familiar car and thought I’d take a look.” Her eyes darted away for a second, but she quickly recovered, a playful smirk forming on her lips as she looked me up and down. “So, Dr. Reed,” she said, crossing her arms, her voice light and airy, “I guess you know.” She let out a short, sharp laugh and took a step closer. “It’s a relief, honestly. Holding it in was killing me.” She savored the moment, watching my face for a reaction. “These past three years, watching you cling to Arthur like a pathetic lost puppy… I almost felt sorry for you.” She paused deliberately. “Did you know? The night of your ‘incident,’ he was with me. In my bed. Taking your tearful phone calls while I was lying next to him.” My nails dug into my palms. The pain was sharp, but it kept me grounded, kept me lucid. “And that ‘calming’ milk you drink every day? The formula was my suggestion,” she continued, her voice dripping with venom. “We couldn’t make the dose too high, of course. That would be suspicious. It’s the classic slow burn, isn’t it? Watching you turn into a walking ghost… I have to say, the results were excellent.” “He only keeps you around out of pity, you know. He’s terrified you’ll kill yourself if you leave, and that would ruin his precious reputation as the devoted, long-suffering husband.” Every word was a poisoned dagger, aimed with precision at my already shattered heart. Strangely, the searing pain I expected never came. There was only a cold, spreading numbness. I even managed a slight smile. “Are you done?” Stella clearly hadn’t anticipated this reaction. She blinked, then her expression hardened, as if I had personally insulted her. “Of course not!” she snapped. “Nina, let me be clear. Arthur is sick of you! He told me himself that the sight of your pathetic, half-dead face makes him lose his appetite!” The sharp crack of my hand against her cheek echoed in the quiet street. Stella’s head snapped to the side, her face a mask of pure shock. A bright red handprint quickly began to bloom on her skin. “You… you hit me?!” she shrieked in disbelief. “Nina, you psycho, do you have any idea who I am?!” I flexed my tingling right hand and stared at her, my face a blank mask. “Is there a problem? A bitch like you deserves to be hit.” She was trembling with rage. “Fine! Just fine! Nina, you just wait. I’m calling the police. I’ll make you…” “Do whatever you want,” I cut her off. Then I turned and walked away without looking back. I went to the little clinic and quit the job I’d held for three years. Stepping outside, the sunlight felt surprisingly good. I took out my phone and deleted the photo of Arthur and me on the beach that I used as my wallpaper. Then I opened my contacts and blocked his number, Stella’s number, everyone connected to them. It was clean, decisive. Not a moment of hesitation. I knew that from the moment the truth was revealed, some things could never be salvaged. And now, it was my turn.

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Three years after I walked out of the prison gates, my uncle-in-name-only, Barrett Stanford, dragged me out of the shadows of the underground fight club. He smashed his fist into my face, his eyes nearly popping from their sockets with rage. “Kelly, who gave you the nerve to stay away? And look at you—you’ve turned yourself into a monster!” I wiped a streak of blood from my lip and grinned, a smile void of any soul or shame. “Mr. Stanford, that’s ten grand a punch. If you’re not satisfied, keep going. A few more hits and I’ll have this year’s rent covered.” His fist trembled in mid-air, knuckles white, but his voice lost its edge, softening into something almost pathetic. “Come home with me… just apologize to Harper.” “She’s kind,” he added, desperate. “She stopped blaming you for the slander years ago.” His gaze swept over the jagged scars mapping my arms, his expression twisting into something complex. Pity? Disgust? “Look at you. Covered in blood. How are you any different from a stray dog eating out of a dumpster?” A tremor ran through me, but I turned my heel to leave. He didn’t know. He couldn’t know. This blood, this violence—it was the only way I learned to survive inside the cage. “Don’t forget,” he shouted at my back, “I am still your fiancé!” My footsteps faltered. Forget? How could I? Three years ago, on the night of our engagement party, Harper drugged me and shipped me off to a black-market gala. My virtue, my body, my life—put on the auction block like cattle. That night, stripped of dignity, I became the city’s favorite scandal. The desperate, insatiable fallen woman. And the man who signed the papers to sell me? That was my fiancé. … A shrill roar of laughter erupted behind me. Barrett was frantic, humiliated that his pristine reputation was being stained by my existence. He was the wealthiest titan in Seattle, yet his “fiancée” was brawling in a meat market for pocket change, blood and sweat flying everywhere. I ignored him and slipped backstage. Minutes later, I was back in the Octagon. The harsh floodlights blinded me, focused on the opposing iron gate. From the shadows, a guttural, inhuman roar echoed. “Tonight! Number 67 versus The Burmese Tigress! Place your bets!” The curtain was ripped aside. My opponent wasn’t a woman; she was a force of nature, towering and terrifying. I sucked in a cold breath. “Hey, sister.” I looked up to the VIP balcony. There was Harper, draped in designer silk, leaning over the railing with that sickeningly sweet smile. “I heard you’re short on cash. So, I arranged a little gift to help you earn more.” Her tone was innocent, but the cruelty underneath was razor-sharp. “I bet a million dollars on you to win. Don’t let me down.” A million. My fists tightened inside my gloves. I thought of my parents’ estate, seized and sold off. I took a step forward without hesitation. Just then, Barrett burst into the VIP box. Harper practically melted into his arms. “Barrett, I know Kelly has too much pride to ask for help. I just want her to win that million on her own terms.” She looked up at him with wide, doe eyes. “I heard she’s on a winning streak. The owners love her…” Barrett looked down at me, his expression haughty and distant. “Kelly, apologize to Harper right now, in front of everyone, and I’ll give you the million myself.” His voice boomed over the arena. “Refuse, and you’ll have to fight for scraps from the beast.” Every eye in the house was on me, expecting me to break. To beg. Instead, I bit down on my mouthguard and raised my fists. Barrett’s face went dark, his eyes burning with a fury that could scorch the earth. The bell rang. The Tigress lunged. I rolled forward, dodging a blow that would have taken my head off, and kicked hard at her throat. But the weight difference was impossible. Her fists were like sledgehammers. Twice, she nearly cracked my skull open. Barrett stared down, his face growing paler with every blow I took. I wouldn’t tap out. I couldn’t. By the third round, my arms were shredded, my vision blurring red. Thwack. A final, brutal uppercut. The Tigress hit the mat. Barrett threw down his drink, vaulting over the railing and rushing the cage. He grabbed my bleeding arm, screaming, “Do you want to die?!” Blood dripped onto the canvas, mixing with the sweat stinging my eyes. I gritted my teeth. “I didn’t lose. Tell her to pay me.” He grabbed my throat, his fingers cold, staring into my soul. “You are hopeless. If you wanted money this badly, maybe I should have let you go for a higher price at the auction back then!” My body seized. My eyes rolled back, and the darkness took me. Before the silence, the old secret I had overheard that night whispered in my ear. “Mr. Stanford, ruining her reputation tonight finally gives Miss Harper some justice.” “She brought it on herself. This is the price for slandering Harper.” That night at the auction was a recurring nightmare I couldn’t wake up from. Harper had staged it all—leaked her own compromised photos, made herself trending news, and framed me for it. No matter how I begged, how I explained, Barrett refused to believe me. On the night I was supposed to be happiest, he sent me to hell. Through the haze of the drugs, I had seen Harper nestled in his arms, clinging to him like a vine. My heart hadn’t just broken; it had shattered. On stage, men looked at me with greedy, predatory eyes. “The Kelly heiress! Starting bid is open!” I had looked at Barrett, one last desperate plea. I didn’t do it. Through the cigar smoke, his eyes were cold, indifferent. “Mistakes have consequences, Kelly.” The humiliation that followed broke me. The tears, the pain, the absolute betrayal. He hated me that much. When the chaos ended, it was deep into the night. The scandal was already all over the city. I heard him talking to the manager. And that was when I snapped. I lit the match. The fire roared, burning down the venue, burning down our past. The police came quickly. Barrett had kicked me away as they cuffed me. “Harper inhaled smoke! She’s in the ER right now! How could you be so vicious? You tried to burn her alive!” “Just you wait. I won’t let this slide.” On the day of my sentencing, Barrett announced to the press that he was backing Harper to take over the family trust. I lost everything. Three years in prison. I slept near the latrine. I was forced to drink toilet water. I was stripped and humiliated by women who had nothing left to lose. To survive, I learned to use my fists. My only tether to sanity was the hope of buying back my parents’ estate. The day I got out, I scurried into the underground fighting ring like a rat in a sewer, numbing myself to the pain. A million dollars. That money would get me closer to home. I woke up with a start, the harsh white of a hospital ceiling blinding me. “Did the money come through?” The nurse—the fight manager—froze. She hadn’t expected that to be my first question. Silence. My chest felt like it had been caved in by a hammer. Tears, hot and unbidden, spilled over. I was delusional. Why would Barrett let me win? “Forget it,” I rasped. “I’ll fight more matches…” “Kelly.” The manager cut me off, her eyes filled with pity. “Don’t come back. Mr. Stanford put out the word. Any venue that lets you fight gets shut down and sued into bankruptcy.” She dropped a debit card on the bedside table and fled, unable to look at me. The air left the room. I was suffocating. I stumbled out of the hospital, into the pouring Seattle rain. The water mixed with the salt on my face, blurring the neon lights. I clutched the card, knowing my dream was drifting further away. My feet carried me to the Estate on autopilot. Through the iron gates, through the rain, I saw them. Barrett was holding Harper’s hand in front of a wall of reporters. “Starting today, this historic estate is officially gifted to Harper!” “She is now the rightful mistress of the legacy!” The world spun. I pulled out my burner phone and dialed the number I hadn’t dared to call for three years. “Get me out of here.” Harper feigned shock, her hand over her mouth. “But… what about my sister?” Barrett’s eyes flickered, but the cold mask returned instantly. “From the moment she spread those lies about you, she ceased to be family.” “By what right?” My voice trembled with rage. I stepped out of the shadows, soaked, bruised, looking like a revenant. “Is that Kelly?” “It really is her. I thought she’d have the decency to stay hidden.” “Pfft, she’s an ex-con now. What shame does she have left?” “Tsk, tsk. Raising a whore who seduces her own brother-in-law… her father must be rolling in his grave.” I froze. Barrett stepped forward, yanking me under his umbrella. “If you’re hurt, stay in the hospital. Stop making a scene!” I shoved him away. “By what right do you give my home to her?” I screamed. “I am the daughter of this house! She is a foster child! What right—” Slap. My cheek burned, swelling instantly. I held my face, staring at Barrett in disbelief. He placed himself between me and Harper, a human shield. “Your father entrusted both of you to me. In my heart, Harper has never been just a foster child!” “You framed her. You tortured her. You aren’t fit to carry the family name. You have no right to object!” It was absurd. It was a comedy. I flashed back to when I was ten. The day Harper arrived. I gave her my favorite doll. She ignored it. Then, the moment I turned around, she threw herself down the stairs. “Kelly… why did you push me? Do you hate me?” My parents believed me. But from that day on, her tears were weaponized. Mother’s missing jewelry. Father’s broken antiques. Every time she cried, I was the villain, defenseless against her performance. But Barrett… he used to stand by me. “I know Kelly. She wouldn’t do this.” “She has a temper, sure, but I spoiled her that way. And I like it.” I was naive. I thought he would stand by me forever. “You are a disappointment,” I whispered. The cold man in front of me overlaid the image of the boy who once knelt in the grass, crying, promising to protect me. I blinked, and the boy was gone. “Kelly, I’ll give you one last chance. Apologize to Harper. The family, and I, will be your shield again.” I looked at his hand, interlaced with hers. I laughed. It was a dry, broken sound. “No need.” “Give me the million dollars. And from this moment on, we are strangers. Dead to each other.” The silence was deafening. Barrett’s eyes turned predatory, dark and confused. “What did you say?” He stared at the stubborn set of my jaw, and for a second, panic flashed in his eyes. He realized he had miscalculated. “Kelly!” Harper sensed the shift. She lunged forward, dropping to her knees in the mud before me. “Blame me! It’s all my fault! I shouldn’t have come into this family!” “I don’t want the house! I’ll leave Seattle tonight! I’ll give it all back!” She wailed, turning and running toward the stone steps. Then, she tripped. It was theatrical, perfect. She tumbled down. “Harper!” Barrett screamed, his composure shattering. He rushed down. When he saw the blood soaking her white skirt, his voice cracked. “Doctor! Call an ambulance!” He looked back at me, pure hatred in his eyes. “Tie her up! If Harper loses this baby, Kelly pays with her life!” “Mr. Stanford, the patient is in bad shape. The pregnancy… we couldn’t save it. And I’m afraid she may never conceive again.” “What?” Harper wept, biting her lip until it bled. “My baby…” “Who is the father?” Barrett asked, his voice low, suppressing a volcano of rage. Harper buried her face in his chest. “I’m sorry, Barrett. Last month… when you were drunk… you didn’t use protection…” His pupils contracted. Panic, then guilt, washed over him. He pulled her tighter. “No. This isn’t your fault.” Harper let out a guttural sob. “I can never be a mother? Barrett, what am I going to do?” I stood there, handcuffed, staring at her flat stomach. I remembered the excuse Barrett used to avoid touching me. “You’re too young. I respect you too much. I’ll wait until we’re married.” But he got Harper pregnant. Even if the baby was gone now. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t. He just wouldn’t with me. I laughed. A bitter, jagged sound. “Kelly, you are a curse!” Barrett roared, hearing my laughter. He lunged, punching me hard in the stomach. I coughed up bloody foam, mumbling through swollen lips. “She deserved to lose it. It’s karma for what she did to me.” “And if she planned this miscarriage, you better check if that kid was even yours.” He slapped me again, sending me crashing into the corner. Blood from my forehead blinded my left eye. He grabbed me by the hair, dragging me to the open window. He pushed my upper body out over the ledge. Three stories up. One let go, and I was pavement. “You really are insane,” he hissed. “For three years, I wanted to bring you home every single day. I was terrified you were suffering in prison. I pulled strings to keep you safe.” “But you? You’re heartless! Three years, and the moment you get out, you vanish!” “Do you know how long I looked for you? Do you know how it felt seeing you getting beaten to a pulp in that cage?” “Kelly, you don’t know anything.” “You only know how to hurt Harper. You are a complete lunatic!” His eyes were red, brimming with tears that fell onto my shoulder. I hung over the edge, feeling the wind. My heart was colder than the air. “You’re right. We are done.” He hauled me back in and threw me onto the floor like a bag of trash. His voice went icy. “But you made a mistake. And you have to be punished.” I slowly lifted my head. “Confess. Publicly admit to your crimes over the years. Voluntarily renounce your claim to the estate. Do that, and I’ll give you the house back.” My ears rang. I tasted iron. “You…” He looked down at me, a god judging an insect. “Think carefully. This is your last chance.” My fingers brushed the photo in my pocket. My father’s last gift. On the back of the yellowing family portrait, in his shaky handwriting: “Kelly, when Papa gets better, we’ll go to Switzerland. We’ll see the snow.” I remembered his thin, frail arms. Tears hit the floorboards. I bit my own arm to stop the screaming, shaking uncontrollably. “Fine. I accept.” The next day, noon. I knelt in front of the Estate gates. Flashbulbs popped like lightning. I read the “Confession” word for word. “…I caused Harper’s miscarriage. I am wicked.” “…I bullied Harper for years. It was all my fault.” The crowd was furious. Someone threw a soda can. It hit my head. “Die, you poison witch!” “Why don’t you kill yourself to atone?” “Harper is an angel, and this one is a snake!” I curled into a ball on the concrete. Through the legs of the crowd, I saw Barrett lead Harper out of a limousine. “In three days,” he announced to the cameras, “I will hold the wedding of the century with Harper.” As security dragged me toward a garbage truck to haul me away, my burner phone buzzed. “Kelly. I’m back. Let’s burn them down.” … Three days later. The wedding was lavish, grotesque in its opulence. But the guests kept whispering. “Mr. Stanford, Kelly is still family by blood. Did you have to push her that far?” Barrett’s face was thunderous. “I didn’t drive her away! She refused to turn back!” “To her, we mean nothing compared to that house. Don’t mention her name again!” The room went silent. The next morning, Barrett called his assistant. “Find Kelly. Get her to sign the transfer papers for the house. I’m not waiting.” He paused, then changed from his robe into a suit. I used to love seeing him in a suit. He sprayed cologne. Harper watched him, her face twisting. Last night, their wedding night, Barrett hadn’t touched her. He was preparing to see me. He wanted to look good. He was waiting for me to show up, broken and defeated. His assistant’s phone rang. The color drained from the man’s face. “Mr. Stanford… bad news. Kelly is missing.” “And… the Estate. It was just sold at auction to a private buyer for triple the value.”

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At the graduation ceremony, Jasper Vance’s childhood sweetheart jumped from the upstairs balcony in front of everyone. She dragged a pair of broken legs crying to me: “Sister Scarlett, I won’t pester Jasper anymore, all my eggs have been harvested, doctor said I can never have children again, beg you don’t let them beat me, humiliate me anymore.” Speaking, she revealed purple bruises from abuse on her body. Jasper stared at me with splitting eyes, my brother Sebastian who depended on each other for life also angrily scolded me as vicious. They angrily wanted to break engagement with me, cut ties, and joined hands to send me into a hotel to work. Just to let me earn money alone, to pay Lila’s medical bills. I became a living experiment subject in the hotel, kidney dug out, uterus removed, even suffered various terrifying experiments against humanity. Finally, Jasper and Brother wanted to take me home. But at this time I was like a puppet, habitually lying beside them. “Teacher, not chopping hands tonight?” … Chapter 1 “Mr. Vance, I brought Miss Scarlett.” Hotel manager bowed and smiled to Jasper. I trembled all over following behind him, without the smell of disinfectant in the lab. Various smells outside made me uncomfortable all over. Manager seeing me not moving, stepped aside, presenting me before Jasper’s eyes. I hurriedly raised hand, soft sunlight stung my eyes pain. Three years kept in underground lab, I couldn’t see light, even daily liquid food was poured in dog bowl. That day teachers suddenly learned news I was to be taken back. Urgently injected me various nutrient shots, did scar repair, barely recovered me from skeleton look to normal human appearance. Jasper leaned on sofa, face full of displeasure. Manager seeing situation pushed my arm, smiling lowered voice said. “Still not greet people!” I looked at fake smile on his face, heart panic wanted to hide. Mind constantly surfaced manager’s warning glare at me. Cold sweat constantly seeped from my back, hugging arms rubbing up and down. Stammering said: “Mr… Mr… Mr. Vance… Good.” Long time not communicating with people. My language organization ability degenerated, could only pop out single or double words. Jasper waved hand let manager down first. After people left. He put down crossed legs, face full of impatience questioning me. “Scarlett, what exactly do you want to do?” I trembled even more severe, cold sweat on forehead big drops falling down. Jasper couldn’t see my reaction, walked to me, reached hand forcefully lifted my chin. “Look up at me, speak! You making this scene exactly want to do what!” My teeth chattering constantly repeating. “So… sorry… So… sorry…” His fierce eyes, gradually overlapped with those “Assistants” eyes. I knew this is doing wrong thing. Doing wrong thing needs punishment! I subconsciously walked towards the wall. “Slap! Slap! Slap!” One slap after another fan on my face. Face slapped red and swollen, even mouth corner faintly seeping blood. Guests checking in hotel around, one after another stopped looking at me pointing fingers. “Is this playing some thrill?” “Yo, little girl afraid caught cheating by main wife, right now facing wall self slapping.” “Want me say, definitely this man in suit forced the girl.” Jasper listened temple throbbing, stepped forward dragged me to no one place. “Scarlett what crazy disease you commit ah!” “I was just tone heavier a bit that’s all.” I low voice mumbled: “Heavier… a bit…” Mind surfaced teachers wearing white coats, face expression twisted and crazy. “Subject 8913, today need cut a piece of meat from you for test, teacher technique might be heavier a bit, you endure.” Teachers eyes revealed cold light. I covered wound on leg, pain to faint. Recover spirit, I subconsciously took off pants, grabbed Jasper’s hand probe down. “No… matter, I endure, you fast… point, okay… not okay?” Chapter 2 Jasper fierce pulled back hand, eyes flashed cold light. “Scarlett are you being cheap!” I scared trembling all over, wanted to use hand cut thigh meat down, but I had no knife. Could only use hand scratch blood marks on leg one by one. “Sorry… sorry, I can’t… scratch down, what to do?” “I no knife, no way… cut meat down, teacher sorry, sorry…” My hands dyed blood, wanted to grab Jasper’s arm. “Bang!” He lifted leg, fiercely kicked me to ground. “Crazy, Scarlett you besides going crazy, can do what!” Tile ice me recover spirit. Jasper kicked me? Jasper who once touched my head, said want protect me for a lifetime. Now actually, kicked me with foot! If change to before, I would definitely fiercely kick back, double return. But now, my brain subconscious reaction, definitely is I did wrong somewhere! Yes, must be like this! I hurriedly climbed up, knelt on ground non-stop kowtow. “Thump thump thump.” Consecutive dozen times, I kowtowed very hard, forehead blood flow straight. Just sent to lab time, like this did “wrong thing” kneel kowtow to bleeding. Frequent like home cooked meal. Start “wrong thing” was not cooperate draw blood do experiment. But that day teachers discussed, wanted to intuitively see if human and animal can harmoniously breed next generation. They found a red hair male orangutan. I aimed timing ran out, hid in hotel basement cleaner rest room. Trembling hand, used landline inside called Jasper for help. Let alone how I lowered voice cry complain, apologize, repent. Jasper still not believe, cold voice scolded me. “Scarlett can you stop a bit, isn’t it just some physical work organizing beds, must make noise want die want live!” “You can’t eat this bitterness, how before bullied Lila harmed her can’t have children, insulted by people time, didn’t think you would have today?” I cried want say not, those things all Lila slandered me. Receiver that end, then came Lila delicate voice. “Jasper you don’t be so extreme, I’m fine, as long as Sister Scarlett not angry, want me do what all okay.” “Jasper Vance you listen me say…” I just opened mouth explain, then was interrupted by Brother’s angry voice strong. “With her still have what good say, like this snake scorpion heart person, not stay far point if bitten by her a mouth, not poisoned death is disgusted death!” “I see just let her stay in hotel, when earn back Lila’s medical fee, then take back!” I cried shout: “Brother, Brother I wrong, beg you first take me back…” But no matter how I shout, phone that end like can’t hear generally. Brother urged Jasper enter venue. Turns out they just at hotel top floor, holding graduation celebration banquet for Lila. My crying sound uncontrollable bubble out, door was forcefully broken open. They swarm in, eyes wretched unbearable, sneering reach hand to me. “Dare run then dare accept punishment oh~.” “Since don’t want with orangutan, then try with us ba.” “Yes ah yes ah, try then know, you will fall in love with this feeling.” Malicious laughter, spread whole room. I paralyzed on ground, dead grabbing receiver, voice hoarse shout. “Jasper save me, Brother save me…” They lean more and more close, one after another terrifying twisted face, tight stick on me. Receiver came Lila accompanied by warm applause, go on stage thank Jasper and Brother words. “Here I want very thank, Jasper and Brother Sebastian hold me like princess treat…” Lila smiling finished get off stage. My throat shouted to hoarse, to end no longer can shout out sound. Can only numb watch ceiling shake. Jasper not love me, Brother also not love me, in this world no one love me again. “Bang!” Jasper see me not want life kowtow, one kick flip me. Angry scold: “Madman! Want go crazy also don’t go crazy in front of me!” “You in hotel name is cleaner, night but live Presidential Suite, breakfast lunch dinner abalone seafood not stopped, me and your brother monthly bill all want pay you million, which point treat you bad?” “I warn you don’t pretend in front my eyes! I not eat this set!” I blankly look at him. Can’t distinguish standing in front, is teachers, or Jasper. Jasper see me calm down, face full blood look. Hand grip fist, unnatural coughed two times. “Cough cough… you first wear pants well, I send you home, your brother and Lila prepared welcome banquet at home, waiting you go back.” I couldn’t help think, really waiting me? Since back then Lila transfer school back from abroad. Everything quietly changing, she in school intentional make whole body dirty appear in front Brother, said I in school lead bully her. Later Brother to back her up, school to from only pick Lila. And I can only walk, Brother said this is my punishment bullying classmate. Thinking this, I lift eyes look Jasper. Even always infinite doting to me Jasper, also because that year my birthday party, Lila in monitor blind spot jumped pool, cry complain said is I pushed. Thereafter all gifts he sent, give Lila all full size, give me sample. I angry threw sample into trash can. Jasper gloomy face, cold voice fierce me. “If not Lila said no your share, she not accept, otherwise you worthy let me send you gift?” This words like ten million thorns insert my heart, let me every breath painful unbearable. Back home, Brother busy take off apron on body. Not wait him speak, upstairs clear female voice rang. Chapter 3 Lila wearing lace palace dress, elegantly walked down from upstairs. Neck wearing Yoko London pearl necklace, more set off her gentle lovely. I one glance then recognize that pearl necklace, is year me and Jasper engaged he sent me. Always treasured by me in safe. Safe password only Jasper know, and safe location only Brother know. My lip corner overflow bitter smile. They are really very love Lila ah! “Ta-da, this is my welcome home gift for you, welcome Sister Scarlett home!” Lila face hang smile, from back took out embroidery cloth. Red Red Spider Lily, surrounding middle “Subject 8913”. “Ah!” I scared loud scream, horror wave away embroidery cloth. Lila however like by me big force pushed away, heavy fall on ground. Jasper fierce pushed away me, rush forward help up Lila. “Scarlett! You still dare face bully Lila!” “Lila okay right.” My life most important two men. One for Lila, angry eyes scold me. One only anxious care Lila injury, no one asked me why do like this. Jasper exclaim out sound: “Lila you wrist knocked broken, flow so much blood not pain?” Turns out floor four five drops blood stain, also is flow much blood. “Slap!” I cover face, look full face anger Brother. “Scarlett you once come back you make trouble, I still thought you in hotel, somewhat can learn good, didn’t expect compare before still bad!” Brother raise hand still want beat, stopped by Jasper. “Okay Sebastian, we better first go bandage wound for Lila.” Brother can’t stand Jasper persuasion, cold eyes glare at me. “Table has food, you hungry then first eat.” They two protect Lila in middle, she look back reveal provocation eyes to me. I eyes reveal sad expression. She proud hook lip smile. But pain on my heart, not match stomach cramping pain. Look food on table, careful step over. Before all lie on ground, like dog eat liquid food. I already forgot how like human, sit on chair eat. Wait Jasper they go downstairs, just see me lie on ground, holding soup bowl lick soup juice inside. “Scarlett you are intentional come torture me right!” Brother roaring kick fly soup bowl. I ignore black face Brother, chase soup bowl broken on ground. Sharp fragments cut my lip corner, and tongue. But I still like don’t know pain, continue lick. Just because that time in lab. My bowl bottom left point liquid food not lick clean. Seen by “Assistant” and teachers, they force pour me drink down twenty pounds liquid food. Belly almost bursted. That kind burst to want vomit, but can’t vomit feeling too painful. From then my rice bowl never dare leave things. Brother face gloomy drag up me: “Do wrong thing not apologize also count, make this kind thing, is want intentional lose my face right!” Apologize? I subconscious repeatedly nod. Mechanically repeat say: “I apologize, I apologize…” “Slap slap slap.” Another burst crisp slap sound, accompany my constant repeat: “Sorry… sorry…” Brother scared long time not sound. Jasper frown persuade: “Sebastian almost enough.” Brother wake, ignore reply his words, hurry forward pull my hand. “Okay, your apologize sincerity I felt, you quick stop hand.” I lift eyes, eye rims red staring him. “No, do wrong thing want accept punishment right?” Brother no come reason heart bottom uneasy, but thinking I said also no wrong, just straight nod. “Yes, do wrong thing want accept punishment.” I firm nod, take fruit knife on table, fierce gouge a piece from own arm. “Brother you take do test, forgive me okay?” Brother face pale, trembling back retreat. Chapter 4 I hand bloody lump forward pass. “Brother why you not want?” Blood drop on floor, sound “drip drop drip drop” sound. Jasper rush forward, tight press wound on my hand. Turn head roar shout at Brother: “Still not go call doctor come!” “Good… good.” Jasper twist brows take off clothes, take come bandage my wound. “Scarlett trouble you brain sober point!” I didn’t like he imagined, immediately repent apologize. Instead confused ask: “Is it my punishment strength not enough?” Jasper a burst speechless. I again continue say: “Not enough words, my right hand still can gouge, or you personal come.” “Scarlett don’t pretend! I tell you, even you today die here, also can’t offset wrong you did to Lila before.” “You not think make up, still one energy here go crazy, is want do what?” Jasper angry chest violent heave. I stuff knife into his hand, trembling voice say. “Then you personal come, okay?” Jasper temple crazy jump, a throw knife away. Lila drag his clothes hem, tearful cry complain. “Jasper you don’t angry, definitely is Sister Scarlett not like me stay here, I pass two days then buy plane ticket leave, she won’t deliberate hurt self to win your concern.” Saying, she turn hold my hand. “Sister Scarlett, you don’t angry, I this will asap pack things leave.” Next instant, she fierce poke down my wound place. Use only we two hear voice say. “Subject 8913 how you still not understand, this home not belong you, also not welcome you back!” “Ah ah ah!” In lab, painful memory immediately surface out. I break free her hand, horror cover head squat down. Lila lose strength back fall, Jasper a catch. “Slap!” He momentum fierce pat a palm on my head. “Really a bitch! I almost cheated by you, thought you spirit not normal, now look come is pretend!” I eyes appear double image, fall head faint pass. “Jasper you too impulsive, if hurt Sister Scarlett brain what do?” “All she self-inflicted, can be beaten to retard better, always better than now always make demon!” If can become retard, forget all this. I also will feel very good. Wake up again, already late night. Wound on arm simply bandaged. I lie in bedroom built from storage room, from corner find out box cutter. Walk up second floor, my bedroom hang Lila exclusive sign. Again forward walk is Brother room, Jasper tonight stay, sleep beside Brother. I gently push door enter. Like a puppet, habitually lie beside them. “Teacher, tonight not chop hands?” Brother hear sound look me, scared fall off bed. Jasper cold face, a kick flip me on ground. “Scarlett you still want kill people!” I horror shake head. “No no no, Teacher isn’t you said want chop my hand?” “When did I say want chop your hand!” No ma? I lower head ponder. Jasper and Brother look each other. Two people step forward drag hold me, box cutter fall on ground. “No, beg you don’t tear my clothes, Brother, Jasper save me.” I scared cover chest shout loud scream. Brother instant pale face shout to Jasper. “Jasper, Scarlett this reaction is…” Two people both blood energy strong men. Most clear, girl appear this reaction is encountered what.

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$10,000 a week, night shift only, job content is: Sleep. To get this god-tier job, I signed a contract with a huge penalty clause. The butler Alfred handed me a pure black eye mask, tone serious like giving last words: “Remember, no matter what Mr. Damien does to you, absolutely, absolutely do not open your eyes.” “More importantly, do not let him know, you are awake.” I clutched the eye mask, heart blooming with joy. Isn’t it just playing dead? I’m an expert at this business! Chapter 1 Before winter break, the balance in my card was cleaner than my face. To avoid being despised by my mom during holidays, and save enough tuition for next semester, I refreshed resumes day and night on Indeed. Just when my eyes were about to go blind, a recruitment ad hit me like lightning. [Urgent: Night Companion. Location: Blackwood Manor. Requirement: Female, good sleep quality, quiet and honest. Salary: $500 daily, $10,000 weekly.] Ten thousand dollars! Am I seeing things? This isn’t recruitment, this is simply targeted poverty alleviation! Afraid this splashing wealth would flow to someone else’s field, I submitted my resume at light speed. Didn’t expect the reply even faster, directly sent a location, told me to interview tonight. On the way to Blackwood Manor, I sat in the back of an Uber, heart actually drumming a bit. The driver looked at me several times through the rearview mirror, finally couldn’t hold back: “Miss, going to Blackwood Manor this late? That place is famous for being… weird.” I clutched my deflated wallet tight, thinking what does a poor ghost fear of weirdness? Poverty is the scariest ghost. Arrived at the place, I was awed by the magnificent carved iron gate. This isn’t a manor, simply a vampire castle. Coming out to pick me up was a middle-aged uncle wearing a tuxedo, claimed to be Alfred. Alfred looked me up and down, eyes carrying a kind of… pity I couldn’t understand? “Miss Mia, right? Follow me.” The manor was scary quiet, only our footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Decoration luxurious is truly luxurious, desolate is truly desolate. I couldn’t help shrinking my neck, whispered: “Um, Alfred, what exactly is this job doing? I saw the recruitment wrote quite simple…” Alfred stopped, turned around, expression serious like reading an imperial decree. “The job is indeed simple. My young master suffers from severe sleep disorder and skin hunger, needs someone to act as… a comfort object.” Comfort object? Put bluntly is a human body pillow? My mental abacus crackled loud. Sleep with but not sleep with (sex), still get paid, this deal is profitable! Alfred seemed to see through my thoughts, he took out a black silk eye mask from pocket, handed to my hand. That eye mask felt cold, slippery to touch, like skin of some cold-blooded animal. “Miss Mia, although ugly words are not pleasant to hear, but I must say ahead.” Alfred’s voice lowered a few notches, appearing extra gloomy in this empty corridor. “First, working hours are from 10 PM to 6 AM. During this period, you must wear the eye mask throughout.” “Second, young master dislikes noise, no matter what happens, you cannot make a sound.” Speaking here, he paused, eyes staring straight at me, making my scalp numb. “Third, and the most important point.” “No matter what you feel or hear at night, absolutely, absolutely do not open your eyes.” “More importantly, do not let young master discover, you are awake.” I glanced at the pitch-black eye mask in hand, heart inexplicably thumped. These rules, why sound like filming a horror movie? But turning thought to that money, and the bag lying in my cart for half a year, fear in heart instantly dispelled by the light of money. Isn’t it just pretending to sleep? In Calculus class before, I could sleep with eyes open, now sleeping with eyes closed isn’t it a piece of cake? I patted chest guarantee: “Alfred you rest assured, I have no other merits, just sleep dead! Thunder can’t move!” Alfred looked at me deeply, sighed: “Hope so.” Signed the contract, Alfred took me into a huge bedroom. Room didn’t turn on lights, only thick curtains drawn, black can’t see fingers. Air filled with a faint cold fragrance, like cedar mixed with some unknown herbal smell, very good smell, but makes people inexplicably feel cold. In the middle lay a ridiculously large bed. “Go, young master will come in a while.” Alfred finished saying, retreated like escaping for life, smoothly closed the door. With a “click” sound of locking, the whole world seemed to quiet down. I groped to climb onto bed, obediently put on eye mask. This mattress soft like clouds, lying on it whole person sank in. Comfortable is truly comfortable, just why heart always feels creepy? Time passed minute by minute. Just when I dazedly about to really fall asleep, door suddenly came a trace of movement. No footsteps. Only sound of doorknob being gently turned. I instantly sober, whole body hair stood up. Coming! My sugar daddy… no, is my money coming! I held breath, forced myself relax body, tried to make myself look like a peaceful corpse. Cold fragrance in air seemed thicker. Immediately after, mattress beside slightly sank. A stream of cold breath instantly wrapped me. That wasn’t normal human body temperature, more like frozen in ice cellar for three days and nights. I couldn’t help shivering. Next second, a slender powerful hand, gently rested on my waist. Across thin pajamas, that coldness penetrated bone marrow. I involuntarily tensed muscles. That hand didn’t stop, instead followed my waist line, bit by bit moved up. Action elegant, slow, but carrying a kind of unquestionable control desire. My heart panicked a batch. This plot direction wrong! Didn’t say just sleep disorder? How feels like transforming into The Ring? I dead bit teeth, remembering Alfred’s teaching: no sound, no move, no open eyes. That hand finally stopped beside my cheek. Cold fingertip gently slid across my profile, like appreciating a fragile porcelain. Itchy, cold. Immediately after, a heavy object pressed up. That so-called “young master”, buried head into my neck hollow. Warm breath sprayed on my skin, raising a layer of fine goosebumps. This feeling too weird. Body cold, breath is hot. Is he really human? My mind instantly flashed various horror novel plots read before. Vampire? Zombie? Or some perverted killer? Just when I thinking wild, ear suddenly came a low laugh. Voice deep magnetic, good to hear make ears pregnant, but revealed a strand of evil making back spine cold. “New… pillow?” Is he talking to me? No, he is talking to himself. I kept rules in mind, motionless, even breathing frequency controlled carefully. He seemed very satisfied with me, arms tightened, circled my whole person into arms. That suffocating oppression, made me almost breathless. Don’t know how long passed, just when I thought this night would pass safely like this. Change suddenly born. I felt something, gently touching edge of my eye mask. That is his finger. He is hooking my eye mask strap! My heart instantly raised to throat, crazy hitting chest cavity. Alfred’s words crazy loop playing in mind: [Absolutely, absolutely do not open eyes.] [More cannot let young master discover, you are awake.] I desperately controlled eyelids, even if eyeballs already crazy rolling under eyelids, dare not reveal a trace gap. That finger very bad. It didn’t rush to take off eye mask, instead gently rubbed along edge, like probing, also like teasing. “Heart beating so fast…” That voice sounded again, carrying a trace of playfulness, drilled in sticking to my ear. “Are you afraid?” Boom—— A firework exploded in my brain. He knows! He knows I’m awake! Then what should I do now? Continue playing dead, or jump up shout “Hero spare life”? Before I struggled out a result, that hand suddenly exerted force. A corner of eye mask was lifted a gap. Faint moonlight shone in. That instant, I instinctively wanted to close eyes tight. But human instinct sometimes is just this damn. Stayed in darkness long, once have light, will subconsciously chase. I didn’t hold back, squinted a slit. Just an instant. I regretted. Borrowing that cold moonlight, I saw a pair of eyes. A pair of eyes glowing with weird red light, dead staring at me. That face handsome unreasonable, pale without a trace of blood color. At this moment, that face hanging a touch of evil smile. Our sight, at this moment, collided together without obstruction. Finished. Chapter 2 Barbie Q-ed (Done for). My money, seems going to become my life buying money. He looked at my terrified eyes, smile on mouth corner deeper. Cold fingertip gently tapped on my eyelid, voice gentle like coaxing lover, words spoken let me fall into ice cave: “Didn’t tell you, don’t open eyes?” I looked at that face handsome to anger gods, brain spinning fast. Next second, I fiercely reached hand cupped his face, smack a kiss on it. “Wuwuwu, dreaming can dream of this superb handsome guy, this life worth it!” Air dead silent for about three seconds. Damien —— also my employer, obviously didn’t expect I would have this reaction. His pair of red pupils originally full of killing intent and teasing, at this moment revealed a trace of obvious confusion. Cold finger still stopped on my eyelid, froze. My heart panicked like ten thousand alpacas running, but face must be steady as old dog. This is my only way to live. I must make him believe, I am still dreaming, I am a hungry ghost for sex, I am a sleepwalking patient! After that smack, I even pushed luck rubbed cheek on his cold palm, mouth vaguely mumbled: “Don’t go… my money… my handsome guy… hehe, ten thousand dollars…” Damien’s finger trembled a bit. He seemed evaluating if I am really stupid or pretending stupid. “Dreaming?” He low voice repeated once, tone carrying few parts playfulness. That oppression didn’t disappear, instead heavier. He lowered head, nose tip almost touched my nose tip. I could clearly see my own reflection in his pupils —— a coward risking life for money. “Since dreaming,” he suddenly laughed, revealing a sharp canine tooth, appearing both evil and… damn sexy, “Then doing something else, also not excessive right?” I haven’t reacted what “something else” means, neck suddenly came a burst of severe pain. He bit me! Not that flirting bite, is real bite! Sharp teeth pierced skin, cold liquid injected along wound, or maybe he is sucking something. I pain almost passed away on spot, tears instantly burst out. But I dare not scream. Because people in dream bitten won’t scream like killing pig. I dead pinched my own thigh, forced scream into a charming hum: “Mm… lighter… bite broken have to compensate money…” Damien movement paused. He loosened mouth, extended tongue tip, unsatisfied licked away blood bead on my neck. That action, erotic to death, also dangerous to death. “Really a… money fan.” He low laughed once, killing intent in tone seemed lighter. Then, he waved big hand, pulled that damn eye mask back for me, blocked my sight. “Sleep.” His voice seemed to have some magic. I originally pain spirit shaking, hearing these two words, eyelids actually really started fighting. Last thought before consciousness blurred was: This money, really f*cking hard to earn ah… Chapter 3 When woke up next day, I was woken up by Alfred. Sunlight sprinkled in through curtain gap, shining me a burst of trance. If not for two clear teeth marks on neck, I almost thought last night everything really was a dream. When Alfred saw wound on my neck, that face paralyzed all year round instantly colorful. Shock, fear, unbelievable, finally turned into a look seeing god. “Miss Mia, you… still alive?” I touched neck, pain teeth grin mouth: “Alfred, does this count work injury? Can reimburse medical fee or not?” Alfred mouth corner twitched once: “…Count.” When walking out room, I specially looked at that big bed. Bed empty, not even a wrinkle, as if that cold corpse-like man last night didn’t exist at all. But I knew he was there. This whole manor filled with his aura, that cold, aggressive cedar smell. When settling bill, Alfred handed me a thick envelope. I opened look, stunned. Not ten thousand. Is twenty thousand. “Young master said, this is last night’s… tip.” When Alfred said this, expression very complex, “He also said, Miss Mia’s blood, taste not bad.” My hand shook, envelope almost dropped ground. So I am selling body and selling blood? But looking at those red bills, fear in my heart instantly cured. Twenty thousand dollars! Don’t say sucking two mouthfuls blood, even let him treat me as mobile blood bank, as long as not suck dry, I willing! “Alfred, I still come tonight!” I grabbed envelope, smiled eyes unseen. Alfred looked at me, want speak but stopped, finally just sighed: “Miss Mia, take care.” Chapter 4 Next half month, I lived a painful and happy life. Daytime I am money spending little rich woman, night I am Damien’s human pillow cum mobile blood bag. Damien seemed didn’t expose my “pretend sleep” that night. He enjoyed this cat catch mouse game very much. Every night, he would appear on time, sometimes hug me sleep, sometimes bite me twice. And I found, this guy’s body temperature is slowly changing. At start like ice block, now occasionally can feel a trace of human warmth. Most ridiculous is, he started chatting with me. Although most time is him talking to himself, or roasting “sleeping” me. “Today’s stock fell, annoying.” “Steak made by Alfred too tough, bad eat.” “How this woman sleep drool? Dirty dead.” I wearing eye mask, heart crazy roll eyes: Big brother, you dislike you don’t hug ah! Also, I drool because dream eating roast duck, concern you what matter! Until one night, situation changed. That day I just lay down not long, Damien came. But his state today very not right. Breath disordered, whole body hot amazing, like a stove. He got on bed dead hugged me, strength big like want strangle me break breath. “Hot… so hot…” He painfully groaned, hot body rubbing back and forth on me. I strangled by him straight roll white eyes, thinking this bro is fever? Should we call ambulance? But remember “absolutely no sound” in contract, I can only endure. Suddenly, he fierce tore open my pajamas. Hot kisses densely fell, carrying a kind of out of control crazy. I panicked. This script not right ah! I came to sell art not body! Although he handsome I have money take I not loss, but this also too sudden right? “Mia… help me…” He called my name. Voice hoarse, carrying a trace begging. That string named “reason” in my brain snapped. This is sugar daddy! In case he burned stupid, later who give me salary? I heart horizontal, also not pretend sleep, directly reach hand push away his face, shout once: “Damien! You sober a bit!”

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Julian Vance hated taking photos the most. When his company held press conferences, he forbade any reporters from bringing cameras; Married to me for three years, the photo frame on our Wedding Certificate remained empty for three years. He was naturally indifferent, wouldn’t waste life in front of a lens, thinking it meaningless. Until I saw a photo of him and a girl in a Photo Booth at the mall. The girl smiled sweetly, the man’s eyes were doting, snuggling together, it was the couple photo template hanging right in the center of the wall. I tore the photo down, threw it on Julian’s office desk. But the man just glanced at it, lightly said: “Little girl loves to play, insisted on pulling me in.” “Just a photo, worth you getting so angry?” I smiled. Turns out the joint photo I painstakingly managed three years of marriage couldn’t get, was just a “game” that girl could play after acting spoiled for three minutes. I took off my wedding ring, placed it on that photo. Since so, let me disappear from his life’s lens forever. … Chapter 1 When the ring fell, Julian finally willing to look up at me. Just, his face still had no expression. “A photo, actually worth you taking off the wedding ring?” “Yes.” I looked into his eyes, calmly said: “Also worth me ending a marriage.” Julian’s face finally showed a trace of fluctuation. “Scarlett.” He looked at me: “You look like this now, not a bit like Mrs. Vance.” My tears instantly surged out. “Mrs. Vance.” I gritted my teeth, suppressing the stinging pain in my heart. “What kind of Mrs. Vance?” “Is it the Mrs. Vance who has been married for three years, but can’t even get a photo on the marriage certificate?” Julian’s face sank even more. “I said it, I don’t like it.” “Three years, what are you still calculating?” “Are you marrying me, or marrying a photo?” Tears burst, I looked at his face, almost suffocating. I still remember that day at City Hall, before the photographer’s lens pressed down, he vomited beside me. He said he loathed taking photos, could never face the lens. He apologized to me, I chose unconditional trust and understanding. Until I saw him and that girl. They were so close, took so many versions. And my marriage with him, like that empty corner on the marriage certificate, void and absurd. So, I don’t want to continue anymore. “Mr. Vance, do you say yellow looks good, or——” Office door pushed open, girl in yellow dress barged in, like a bright flower. That was Julian’s assistant, Lila. Also exactly, the girl in the photo. “Madam!” Lila nervously said: “Sorry, I didn’t know you were here.” She timidly lowered her head, then paled when seeing the photo and ring on the table, hurriedly said: “Madam sorry, I didn’t mean to pull Mr. Vance to take photos!” “I just treat him as brother, let him play a game with me…” “Why did you take off the ring, did I make you misunderstand…” I said nothing. Girl’s voice started to tremble, looked at Julian with teary eyes. “Scarlett.” Julian’s voice cold: “Apologize to Lila.” I simply couldn’t believe what I heard. “Apologize?” I sneered: “Based on what?” “Based on your random suspicion, hurt the little girl.” My heart felt like dipped into a pool of ice water. Seeing I refused to bow, Julian lost patience, just moved his gaze, gently said to Lila: “Don’t fear, that’s not a wedding ring.” “It’s one I casually found, if you like, take it to play.” Lila looked at that brilliant diamond, cheered, hugged him. “Thank you Mr. Vance!” She joyfully put the ring on her own hand. I turned and left, no more lingering. “Scarlett.” He called me again. “I will order a new ring tonight…” “Bang”, I slammed the door hard. Then rushed into the restroom, vomited dark heaven dark earth. I muddled went back home, at night, Julian indeed sent someone to deliver a new ring. Diamond bigger, also more expensive. But I didn’t look, threw directly into trash can. I fell on the bedroom bed, lost mind looking at phone screen, until swiped a familiar picture. It was the wedding ring I threw away today. Now wearing on another girl’s finger. “New ring from boyfriend, love it!” My heart beat like drum, clicked that avatar. Then, I saw endless photos at a glance. That was Lila’s social account. Every day, she would post a post. Every post, was full eighteen photos. And every one, had him. My husband, Julian Vance. Lila actually never took photos of Julian’s full face. Only parts about him. When sick, his hand feeding her medicine spoon by spoon; At New Year fireworks show, his back under the sky full of brilliance; Between birthday cake candlelight, his deep affectionate doting eyes gazing at her. Her photography skill actually very ordinary. But Julian was willing to appear under her lens. He told me, because of illegitimate child identity, his childhood was spent in endless bullying and humiliation. Every bullying, they would aim at his body full of scars, take photos. So, he suffered psychological illness, henceforth hated all lenses. I heartache his experience, for him, even gave up my photographer career after marriage. But just short three years, he broke the rule for a girl. He appeared in Lila’s lens, calm, and eyes full of love. “Madam, Mr. Vance drank too much tonight, my home is closer, so brought him back to take care first.” A message suddenly popped up, sent by Lila using Julian’s phone. “I send a few photos to report to you oh.” Another photo. And, it was a Live Photo. Julian lay on the sofa, eyes blurry. Picture moved, was Lila pulled by his hand, whole person tightly pressed on Julian. Screen black, Lila withdrew the message. “Sorry Mrs. Vance, Mr. Vance just drank too much and slipped hand, nothing happened between us!” Lila’s proud voice message followed closely, my heart seemed numb. I just remembered wedding night, also Julian drank too much, I picked up phone, smiling wanted to sneak a photo of him. But was fiercely choked by him, suddenly pressed into sofa. I will never forget in his eyes, that instant alertness and disgust. And tonight in that photo, his deep obsession. I wiped dry tears, turned on computer, sent an email. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Chapter 2 Overnight passed, Julian returned to the villa. Bringing Lila. “Drank too much last night, stayed at Lila’s for a night——” “Mm, knew.” He calmly explained to me, I also calmly interrupted him. Julian looked at me stunned a bit, brows dyed with some indescribable irritability. But soon recovered that cold look: “Good no misunderstanding.” “I bring Lila today, have matter need your help.” “Lila wants to hold a photography exhibition, weren’t you a photographer before, guide her a bit.” My fingers instantly pinched into palm, painful to unable breath. I gave up photography career for him, and now, he wants to hold photography exhibition for another woman. “I stopped being a photographer long ago, can’t teach her anything.” I coldly dropped a sentence, turned to leave. “Madam, wait!” Lila chased up pulled me, put a stack of photos in my hand: “I sincerely want to learn from you!” I looked down, looking at photos in hand. Top one, was Julian pressing on her, a bed photo. She leaned close to me, that innocent look on face faded, voice full of provocation: “Mrs. Vance, those who know to let go themselves, are smart people.” She forcefully stuffed photos into my hand, I pain pushed, she actually suddenly fell backward—— “Lila!” Julian instantly rushed over, caught Lila falling down few stairs. Then stood up, directly gave me a slap! “Scarlett, your mind indeed vicious!” He still wanted to scold me, but paused when seeing my dead water like eyes. Lila in arms let out a painful cry, he immediately carried her away. I self-mockingly smiled, let go hand, let a palm of fresh blood flow down. Just now inside that stack of photos, Lila sandwiched razor blades. But I didn’t want to pursue these anymore. Ringtone rang, I answered that long-awaited call. “Scarlett, you sure?” Opposite came surprised voice. And I gave an incomparable affirmative answer. “Good, I said before, as long as you willing to come back, team forever has your place.” I laughed, hung up phone. Yes ah. Come back. I indeed, should return to my original place. Not long after phone hung up, Julian’s message also sent over. “Lila sprained ankle, you have time come hospital look, conveniently boil her a Bone Broth.” “She taste light, you note put less salt, oil stars also skim clean, also don’t add scallion.” Turns out Julian’s memory, can also be so good. Me and him married three years, three birthday cakes he sent me, every one added mango. And I am allergic to mango. First year, he said too busy, hugged me apologized, on spot cooked a new cake for me. Second year, he said forgot note, let cake shop immediately send a new one home. Third year, he said what big fuss, tell assistant, change not fine? Now, I finally understood. Actually what I want to change is not cake, but this unsuitable person. Next day, I sent the drafted divorce agreement to him. His call immediately came, let me stop making trouble. I said I didn’t make trouble, I am voluntary. “Voluntary?” Julian’s voice indifferent and carrying sarcasm: “Back then how you low three down four in front of my mom to marry me, you forgot?” My pupil shrank. When with Julian, Mother Vance not satisfied with me. She felt my background not worthy her son, at family banquet let me take photos for her dog. She said, I only worthy be photographer for dog. That time I for not let Julian embarrassed, active admitted, picked up camera. Was Julian pulled my hand, on spot left family banquet, told his mother, I am the partner he decided to spend life with. That time he for be with me, even cut ties with mother words could say out. But now, he use such thing to humiliate me. He said, was me deliberately planned to marry him, be this Mrs. Vance. Endless silence spread between me and him, he seemed also remembered something, uncomfortable coughed once. “Anyway, you don’t make trouble anymore.” I powerless dropped hand, just want think other way, heard him say: “Next week Lila want open photography exhibition, she first time do this thing, inevitable nervous, you that time join together, let her feel safe.” My chest tight, just want refuse, again interrupted by him: “Scarlett, I advise you this time don’t move those crooked thoughts.” “Go, I then consider sit down with you talk feelings matter.” Like charity, he still that high above. And I long sighed, to clear face to face with him, thoroughly cut off, could only attend exhibition as promised. But what I didn’t expect was, Julian, far more cruel than I imagined. From moment stepping into exhibition, my whole body blood cold through. All photography works displayed in corridor, every one, every piece—— All were my works! And on stage, Lila smiled bright moving, pointing at a photo beside said: “This ‘Grassland Under Morning Light’ is my recent shot, most special work…” That photo, was photo I took risking life on African battlefield three years ago. I rushed on stage, fiercely slapped Lila, shouted: “You just said, who took this photo?” Just asked this sentence, I was taken away by few bodyguards swarming up. They immediately covered my mouth, explained to audience, I was a mental patient broke into venue, then escorted me to backstage. I desperate struggle, until saw Julian figure. “Julian Vance.” Tape on mouth torn off, my voice trembling: “Those are all my photos.” “You stole my photos, gave to Lila!” Julian seemed stung by my question. He frowned, unhappy and contemptuous: “Stole?” “You stopped being photographer long ago, those photos also never published, give to Lila what wrong?” “She want stand firm in photography circle, must have works rely on.” I fell into ice cellar. “Then me?” I hissed ask: “My heart blood, based on what use to pave road for her?” Julian eyes deep, said: “I will compensate you.” “Madam, I beg you, just this once, help me!” Lila crying ran into backstage, kneeled at my feet: “I really like taking photos, you just fulfill my greed this once!” Seeing her kneel, Julian’s eyes immediately full of heartache. He hugged Lila into arms, then gave bodyguard a wink. I could no longer bear, used all strength want break free control, but pushed by a bodyguard, heavy fell down stairs. Lower abdomen hit ground, instant burst a burst severe pain. I dazed looking at blood spreading under body, met Julian suddenly panic eyes. Then, I exhausted fainted. Chapter 3 Wake again, I learned news of miscarriage. One month plus child, child I hoped for three years, just silently left like this. Julian sat by my bed, rare brought few points guilt. He said, child will have again, this time just an accident. He also said, if I really care photos so much, wait I well, go take wedding photos with me. And I looked at ceiling slowly laughed out sound. Julian face change. “What you laughing?” “I laugh this child went really timely.” I ignored his gloomy scary face, word by word said: “I don’t want compensation.” “I want divorce with you.” Julian angrily stood up, heavy slammed ward door. Three days later, a signed divorce agreement sent to my bed. I looked at agreement, mouth corner hooked a relief smile. Julian never came see me again, until day I left. Car carrying me didn’t drive to airport, but drove to a abandoned factory in suburb. Lila proudly looked at tied me, hand waved, dozen eyes shining men immediately surrounded me. And she raised camera, put on stand aside. “Madam, aren’t you like taking photos, then take enough at once.” “You rest assured, video so long, I will help you pick few ‘Good Looking’ photos post online.” Clothes torn open, I despair looked at men surrounding up, but couldn’t break free. And Lila answered a phone, then heart full joy left here. Beside trampled broken phone screen lit up, on it was message Julian just sent. “Little girl also want take wedding photos, today I go with her first.” “Yours, next time compensate.” Blood taste spread in mouth, I looked at those few words, I silently laughed. Won’t have next time. Julian Vance, we forever also have no next time. In wedding dress shop, Julian held phone, brows slightly frowned. Message sent out two hours, Scarlett didn’t respond a sentence. This completely didn’t fit her habit. He inexplicably some restless, even when Lila came out wearing wedding dress, only perfunctory praised few words. Distracted waiting message, a set of large scale private photos suddenly topped hot search. Moment click in, Julian pupil sudden shrank. Meanwhile, secretary phone called in. “Mr. Vance, bad!” Phone other end, secretary voice like thunder explode in his ear: “Suburb abandoned factory suddenly explode, already burned two hours!” “Madam, Madam seem inside——” Julian suddenly stood up. “What you say?” “Scarlett not good good at home, how possible go what suburb factory!” His voice higher and higher, secretary other end sweat flow back, could only explain slowly to him: “Villa butler called, said Madam went out morning, always didn’t come back.” “And, butler said car Madam sat, and factory explosion scene that car plate, exactly same…” “Impossible.” Julian fast interrupt him: “She absolutely won’t go that kind place alone, you guys saw wrong.” “But…” “Enough.” Julian more irritable: “Later nothing out of nothing things don’t report over, my time very precious, no time talk these with you.” He put down phone, heart beat like drum. Explosion? Scarlett? He sneered. How possible. “Mr. Vance, this one, how is it?” Lila walked out surrounded by clerks, wearing a gorgeous wedding dress, smile like flower. And Julian gaze always on screen news message, long time not lift head. “Mr. Vance——” Lila unhappy pout, directly sat beside Julian hooked his hand. Julian suddenly avoided, then stunned seeing wedding dress on Lila. “Iris…” He remembered, that was Scarlett favorite flower. On her wedding with him, she also wore a wedding dress embroidered full of Iris. That burst float in heart more clear, he suddenly lost all interest, turned notify subordinate immediately go home. Lila face white, hurry pull his hand said: “Mr. Vance, didn’t you agree accompany me try wedding dress all day, then take photos?” “You try yourself.” Julian threw off her hand: “We again not couple, take what wedding photos.” Message sent to Scarlett, was he intentional. He didn’t want take wedding photos with Lila, he just because that divorce agreement, want stimulate Scarlett. But she now… Julian sat in car call one after another, all stone sink ocean. He again start send her message. “I wait you in villa tonight, have words say to you.” “Anger disappear almost then go home, me and Lila matter, I will solve well.” “Divorce agreement void, Scarlett, you don’t think leave me.” “I didn’t take photos with her, just now was lie you.” “Scarlett, reply my message.” Sentence after sentence, to end, Julian even apologized to her in message. But still, didn’t get any reply. “Where is Madam?” Once back villa, Julian walked towards bedroom. “Madam went out morning, now haven’t return…” Servant fear gall tremble follow Julian behind, until he open bedroom, stop at door. Things belong Scarlett, all disappeared. Clothes, jewelry, everything related her daily use, like evaporated, didn’t leave half trace. Julian heart beat faster and faster, turn question servant: “Went where? Why not report to me?” He whole body air pressure extremely low, servant dare not breathe loud, can only small voice explain: “Madam only said go out relax, didn’t say want take, also not let us follow…” Relax. A person want go out relax, will take so many things? Julian inexplicably felt a burst fear, as if something like quicksand constant flow from his fingertip, and he already no way redeem. “Go check surveillance.” Actually until previous second, he didn’t believe secretary words. But when surveillance pulled out, that car carrying Scarlett plate number appear in front his eyes, that car all way drive to suburb, disappear at a hidden fork road—— His hand finally trembled. “Impossible, impossible…” “Go check this car whereabout, now check for me!” Beside subordinate face difficult. This car just at that factory, already bombed face unrecognizable. But Julian not believe. He eyes red, start like headless fly call people. Until secretary another call ring. “Mr. Vance, you better come scene look.” Secretary voice bitter: “Just now rescue team found a bracelet at scene, engraved on it, is you and Madam name——” Night deep like ink. Julian dazed looking at bracelet in bag, face pale. That is Scarlett bracelet. Is gift he gave her on third day of wedding. That perfect Aquamarine on it, world only one, unique. He won’t recognize wrong. But he also won’t believe. “Body?” He voice low hoarse: “No identification, then is fake.” “Mr. Vance, explosion too strong, fire also burned too long, rescue team said, even if can find human tissue, probably also all carbonized, can’t do identification——” “Then she didn’t die!” Julian like crazy, ignore image grabbed secretary hand: “Find for me! Find now!” How could Scarlett die? He looked at factory almost razed to ground, in a mess painfully kneeled down. His mind suddenly flashed eyes Scarlett looked at him when fell in love. So bright gentle, as if world only left him one person. But don’t know when start, eyes she look him, gradually dim down. Until she found Lila. He again thought in ward, she smiled so decisive, told him, that child went good. That time, in her eyes, already completely no his shadow. A burst piercing cold come, he stumble stand up walk out, said want personal find Scarlett. “Mr. Vance!” A familiar voice ring, actually is Lila. She grab Julian hand, look surrounding tragedy, eyes flash a trace panic, but still force smile: “You don’t rush, a bracelet only, Madam maybe just bet anger with you.” “You first go back my place rest a bit, tomorrow find also——” “Roll!” Always indulge dote him Julian first time suddenly push away her hand, head not back left here. And Lila look surrounding scene, eyes full unwilling, but soon drowned by unease. She just let them take Scarlett photos, she simply didn’t want kill person ah! If let Julian know, is she planned Kidnapping—— She thought just now Julian eyes, instant shiver, start panic no choose road want clear self. But person more panic, more easy make mistake. That day drive this car owner info soon found, and in his call record, impressively appear Lila name. “Is her, is she let me do!” Basement, kidnapper fear point Lila, latter still want argue, slapped by Julian fall on ground! That palm strength extremely heavy, Lila embarrassed lift head, vomit a mouthful blood. She incredible look Julian, that man said endless sweet words to her, promise will dote her lifetime. Julian look her, like walk fire enter demon, ask her word by word: “Lila, who you want kill?” His hand put on Lila neck, instant tighten. “I no… no want kill person!” “I just let people tie her, want give her a lesson, take few her photos.” “I don’t know how that factory explode——” One second before strangled alive, Lila use full strength said truth. She fall sit on ground, tears rustle down, to Julian say: “Mr. Vance, you clearly said, person you like is me, I do what all can, you forever will protect me…” Julian brain blank. He never regret like now. Those words said, things done, if late blade, slice him again again. Does he really like Lila? First meet, he just appreciate young vigor on her, just like——he first time meet Scarlett at photography exhibition. She stand before own work talk freely, so dazzling bright, like a beam light shine into his heart. She would smash all cameras for him, voluntary give up career accompany by his side; She for help his career, force herself watch those business finance she dislike, social block wine for him, everything thoughtful proper. But him? He wish come true marry her, again because her change, lost original passion. Until Lila appear, again attract his gaze. But he forgot, that kind change, start to end, all because him. To end, is he killed her! He painful squat down, emit a hoarse cry howl. “Impossible, impossible…” “She absolutely won’t suicide, also absolutely won’t die.” “I want find her, I want find her——” He again fall into crazy, start crazy like seek my trace. And he said, actually not all wrong. I indeed didn’t die there. I early made prepare, before factory explode, success break away here, fly far high. I not fool, Lila so hate me, she will do what, I not strange at all. I very early contact friend, before kidnapper she hire hijack me to factory, his people already waiting there. Lila thought those dozen men is kidnapper she find call come, but actually, those all come protect me people. I under their escort leave from another no monitor small road, conveniently blow up that waste factory, create illusion I already bury in fire sea. Of course, I do that, also for let Julian believe, I forever won’t appear in his world again.

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“The apocalypse is coming, Ava. You need to come home!” “Mom, this is the 32nd excuse you’ve invented to trick me into coming home for a blind date. Your creativity is flowing better than the plumbing in this old apartment.” I hung up on my mother helplessly and slumped back onto the sofa, half-watching TV while scrolling through Reddit. A thread popped up on my feed: “February 14, 2028: New infectious disease case found in Seattle. Potential for extreme aggression.” I clicked on it. — This content has been removed by moderators. 1 “Meow!” A sharp, urgent cry pierced the night, ripping me from my sleep. I opened my eyes to see Lucky, my fat orange tabby, facing off against my vibrating phone. I scooped up the bristling cat to comfort him. Lucky was stressed. He leaped from my arms, arching his back and scratching anxiously at the concrete floor, making a teeth-grinding sound. I was about to check on him when the phone grabbed my attention. The video I had clicked on earlier was no longer blocked. It was playing on a loop. It was grainy surveillance footage. A hulking man, face obscured, was on all fours, lunging and biting into a crowd of people. Suddenly, a “Loading…” buffer wheel spun on the screen. I glanced at the top right corner. The Wi-Fi signal had a big red ‘X’ over it. “Garbage internet.” I lived in a cheap studio in the old part of the city. The wiring was ancient, and the router failed constantly. I dialed my landlord, Mr. Henderson, hoping to get it fixed. After several attempts, he finally picked up. The background noise on his end was chaotic—a static-filled mess of shouting and screaming. Mr. Henderson didn’t even say hello. He was yelling hoarsely, “Quit shoving! If you keep pushing, nobody gets any groceries!” Then came a string of panicked muttering I couldn’t quite catch. Something about… “…madness… biting… can’t run…” My stomach tightened. When the noise subsided slightly, he finally addressed me. “Ava? What’s going on?” I explained the internet issue. “Ava, it’s not the wiring. The signal is down across the whole downtown area. The tenant group chat is blowing up about it.” “I’ll add you to the group.” “People are organizing bulk buys. Get in on it. Stock up on food.” Mr. Henderson was rambling, but I froze. “Is Seattle going into lockdown again?” Before he could answer, a piercing scream cut through the line, followed by the sickening thud of a heavy object hitting the ground. I instinctively pulled the phone away from my ear. In that brief silence, a faint voice came through the receiver. I pressed the phone close again. I only caught two words: “Run. Fast.” … The signal cut out completely. I tried redialing multiple times with no luck. I tried calling 911. While waiting, I typed keywords into my notes app: “Apocalypse,” “Madness,” “Biting,” “Panic Buying,” “Run.” None of these were good words. The emergency line was busy. My heart sank. Combining my mom’s warning with Mr. Henderson’s chaos, it seemed Seattle had an outbreak. Something far more aggressive than the flu. I had to go home. If the world was ending, I might be just another casualty, but I had to be with my family. I didn’t want to die alone in a rented box. 2 Priority one: Don’t get infected on the way. I raided the kitchen for plastic wrap. I wrapped it around my limbs to ensure no skin was exposed. Then came the layers: a heavy windbreaker, thick pants, boots, a beanie, a face mask, a scarf, and gloves. I even stitched the gaps between the fabrics with a needle and thread. I looked ridiculous, like a paranoid marshmallow, but I was sealed tight. I checked the airline app. Plenty of tickets available. It was 10:00 PM. To be safe, I selected a 2:00 AM flight to my hometown, Portland. But the payment screen kept spinning. Loading… I closed the app and retried. Nothing. I called the airline hotline. Busy signal. The automated system said there were 487 callers ahead of me. Was I trapped? My hands started shaking. I pinched my thigh hard, using the pain to force myself to focus. Optimistic view: Maybe the cell towers were just jammed. I couldn’t sit and wait. I decided to head to the airport. At worst, I could get information from the counter. I didn’t pack clothes. I shoved Lucky into his carrier, stuffed two bottles of water and some energy bars into the side pockets, and left. The subway was too crowded; too risky. I flagged down a taxi. The driver gave my weird outfit a second look but didn’t say anything. As we drove toward the outskirts, the signal improved. Before I could dial, my mom called. “Thank God! Ava, you have to stay away from crowds. Don’t let anyone bite you.” “I swear on my life, I’m not joking. Those things are eating people!” “Your dad and I are packing the truck. We’re driving to get you. In my last life… Seattle was the first to fall. I won’t let you die this time!” “Mom…” My eyes welled up. Last life? Was she having a premonition? “Mom, Dad, don’t be impulsive.” “It’s an eight-hour drive from Portland to Seattle. If the city is ground zero, you’re driving into a death trap.” “I’m heading to the airport. If all goes well, I’ll be home by morning. Use this time to buy supplies.” “In times like this, food and weapons are the only currency.” With the driver listening, I couldn’t say much more. I hung up after calming them down. I checked the GPS. The highway to the airport was a solid red line. Ten miles. Estimated time: three hours. The airtight suit was suffocating. I pulled down my mask, took a deep breath, and sealed it back up. The air smelled faintly of rot. While stuck in traffic, I made two lists on my phone. List A: High-calorie, shelf-stable food and essential medicine. List B: Tools, hardware, and defensive gear. I sent List A to my parents. These items make you a target; they had to buy them personally. For List B, I contacted a delivery courier service in Portland. I had used them before to send gifts home. I paid an extra $1,500 for a rush order, demanding delivery to my parents’ house by 10:00 AM tomorrow. Shortly after sending the list, Dad texted: [Ava, we’re at Costco. Buying everything.] [Text us the second you land. We’ll be waiting.] I replied in the family group chat: [If we hoard this much, the neighbors will notice. The apartment isn’t safe.] [We should move to the old Lighthouse. Dad still has the keys, right?] We all agreed. The Lighthouse was isolated, sturdy, and defensible. [Mom, Dad, I ordered tools. Sign for them tomorrow morning, but wait until no one is looking to load the truck.] I remembered reading survival novels. Never expose your stash. I looked up. The line of cars stretched endlessly. The red taillights looked like hundreds of eyes watching me from the abyss. Something was wrong. Lucky poked his head out of the carrier, scratching frantically at the plastic mesh. He hadn’t made a sound since we left the apartment. Now he was hissing. I realized what was wrong. The traffic toward the airport was gridlocked. The lanes heading back to the city were empty. Aside from cars making illegal U-turns, no one was coming back from the airport. The airport had likely already fallen. Before I could process this, the driver pulled over on the shoulder. “Miss, I can’t take you any further.” “Don’t blame me. The driver group chat says the airport is a slaughterhouse. I need to get home to my family.” … He dumped me on the side of the overpass. No matter how much cash I offered, no one would stop. For three hours, I watched cars U-turn and flee back to the city. I refused to give up. I started running along the highway shoulder toward the airport. Maybe a plane would take off. Maybe there was a chance. I ran until my lungs burned. The outline of the airport terminal came into view. I watched a plane taxi down the runway, lift off, and then—nose dive straight into the tarmac. BOOM. The shockwave nearly ruptured my eardrums. I stood frozen, watching the flames turn the night sky blood red. “Hello? Mom,” I called, voice trembling. Mom sounded out of breath. “We split up. Your dad got the food. We used our savings to get everything on the list. We even managed to get two compound crossbows.” She kept talking about picking me up. I listened quietly, waiting for her to finish. “Mom, I decided not to come back.” “I’m staying with Ethan. He has a villa in the suburbs, fully stocked. It’s safe.” “You know Ethan, he’s a doctor. He has resources.” My voice sounded calm, even cheerful. “I transferred $40,000 to Dad’s account. Buy more supplies.” “Protect yourselves.” Suddenly, a hand snatched the phone away. I whipped around, terrified. A man was leaning against the guardrail, phone pressed to his ear, looking at me with a smirk. “Yes, Auntie, this is Ethan.” “As much as I’d love for Ava to stay in my villa…” “It wouldn’t be right to keep her from you.” “I promise, I will bring her home safely.” Ethan hung up. His warm hand brushed over my eyes, wiping away tears I didn’t know were there. “I’m late.” I realized I was crying uncontrollably. “Not late. Just in time to see your ex-girlfriend make a fool of herself.” I turned my face away. Dealing with an ex during the apocalypse was awkward. He didn’t argue, his tone softening. “Still got the sharp tongue. Good. You’re not in shock.” “Hey! Ethan! Stop flirting with the sister-in-law, we gotta move!” A voice shouted from above. I looked up in shock. A rescue helicopter was hovering just overhead. The rotors were deafening. I had been so overwhelmed I hadn’t even noticed it. 3 Almost no cars were left on the road. Ethan set up flares to block the lane. He took Lucky’s carrier and slung it over his shoulder. He pulled a climbing harness from his bag, strapped himself in, and then strapped me to his chest. We were pressed tightly together. I looked away. “Scared?” he asked, checking the buckles. I shook my head. The helicopter lowered a rope ladder. He held me as we climbed. Inside the chopper, there were three men in camo gear and helmets. One took off his helmet and grinned. “Sister-in-law! When we got the call about Seattle, Ethan went crazy.” It was Leo, the guy who shouted earlier. “Leo!” Ethan barked. Leo shut up. Ethan handed me a hazmat suit identical to theirs. “How did you find me?” I asked. “You never turned off your location sharing from when we dated. I saw you were near our flight path.” “We’re heading to Sea-Tac Airport for extraction. Saving you was just a detour.” He placed the cat carrier on an empty seat and sat opposite me, avoiding eye contact. Back to the “business only” attitude. Fine. I examined the suit. It had a peculiar pouch near the waist. I leaned in to sniff it. A wave of rotting stench hit me. I gagged, covering my mouth. “Heh.” Ethan chuckled. “It masks your scent. The chemicals inside evaporate quickly, so it only lasts thirty minutes.” “Open it only if you’re in immediate danger.” “Otherwise… don’t be curious.” Before I could retort, a roar echoed from below. Like wild beasts. The smell of blood filled the air. I looked out the window. A full moon illuminated the airport sign: Welcome to Sea-Tac. Beneath it, the ground was painted red. The moonlight was too bright. I could clearly see the “Zombies”—mangled, bloody figures—tearing into the remains of the crashed plane survivors. The helicopter noise drew their attention. One by one, dozens, then hundreds of heads snapped up. They began to converge, forming a massive circle below us. One of them looked straight at me with hollow, leaking eyes. I recoiled. The pilot kept the chopper hovering just outside the perimeter. Are we bait? I noticed many zombies wearing shredded military uniforms. “The first responders are already dead,” I whispered. “If we’re bait, there must be survivors inside.” “Medical Team Alpha, ready for insertion!” Ethan stood up. They were all gearing up to jump. He paused, looking at me. “The pilot will take you to the port. I have people there who will get you on a boat to Portland.” A sense of powerlessness washed over me. Ten years. Five years as a couple, five years as strangers. We graduated med school together. I became a vet; he became a surgeon. We were intersecting lines that had drifted apart. “Ethan, listen to me!” I unbuckled my seatbelt and grabbed his collar, forcing him to look at me. “Don’t come back into my life if you don’t care.” “We haven’t settled our score yet. You are not allowed to die quietly.” “Or I will haunt you.” Ethan didn’t push me away. When my tears hit his face, I heard him sigh. “Okay.” “Neither of us dies first.” I wiped my eyes and helped him buckle his helmet. … The rest of the trip was a blur. They rappelled down to the terminal roof. The helicopter drew the horde away, buying time for the ground team. The pilot dropped me at the Port of Tacoma, where I boarded a private cargo ship headed for Portland. 4 6:00 AM. Arrival. The port security was intense. I filled out a form: Origin – Seattle. The moment I wrote it, I was pulled aside by hazmat-clad officers. They inspected every inch of my skin for bites or scratches. Then, I was locked in a quarantine room for three hours. The room was white and sterile, reminding me of the tiny apartment I rented when I followed Ethan to grad school. I texted him. Delivered. No reply. Three hours later, I was released. I had to wear a GPS ankle monitor and quarantine at home for 14 days. Compared to the alternative, this was freedom. My parents were waiting at the dock. Mom cried the moment she saw me. Dad took the cat carrier. “You’re back. That’s all that matters.” We drove straight to the Lighthouse. It was built on a cliff, surrounded by ocean on three sides. Solid stone walls. It was the perfect fortress. We unloaded the trucks. Mom went back to the city to get the tools I ordered. Dad went for one last supply run. I was left to clean and organize. The lighthouse had seven floors. The ground floor was spacious, about 400 square feet, getting smaller as it went up. The top floor was the lamp room, surrounded by a glass enclosure and a narrow balcony. There were two high-powered binoculars mounted there. I cleaned the lenses and looked out. I could see the highway entrance clearly. I sketched a map, marking blind spots, and installed micro-cameras in those areas. I checked my phone. Food delivery apps were all “Temporarily Closed.” I called a local agricultural supplier. I paid triple for three heavy-lift agricultural drones, ten LED grow lights, and boxes of vegetable seeds. I designated the 4th floor for hydroponics and water purification. We had stored water, but we needed a renewable source. The drones could haul buckets of seawater up to the tower for desalination. The plants would provide food and oxygen. Waste management? Cat litter. It absorbs moisture and odor. The main ingredient is silica. Sand is silica. We were surrounded by a beach. I grabbed a shovel and spent hours hauling sand to the first floor. I ordered 20 barrels of waterproof cement from a local factory. I called Dad. “Get liquid nitrogen and dry ice.” I organized the supplies. Heavy items on floors 1-3. Sand on 1. Tools on 2. Canned food on 3.

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My mother was the most meticulously fair woman on earth. For my sister, Amelia, and me, she insisted on what she called the Law of Perfect Parity. Identical dresses. Identical allowances. Even a bowl of fruit had to be measured with a ruler to ensure perfect size equality. This kind of scrupulous balance was, for the most part, a comforting background hum to my childhood, but sometimes, it became a source of ridiculous, unnecessary stress. Like the recent blueberry season. Knowing Amelia loved them, Mom bought her two large boxes. Then, she insisted on forcing another two huge boxes onto me. It didn’t matter how many times I told her I couldn’t stand blueberries—they were always too tart, too mushy, or both. She was adamant: “You both have to have the same amount!” “What you do with them is your business!” Reluctantly, I offloaded my stash onto a colleague I knew was a berry fan. But later that day, as I was leaving the office, I found the boxes in the trash. And I overheard the colleague snarking to someone else: “I don’t know what she was thinking, deliberately giving me these bitter little bombs. Tastes like garbage.” My blood boiled. That night, I called Amelia to vent. “Blueberries are just… naturally bitter and tart,” I griped. As I was talking, I reached for a small bowl of fruit on her coffee table, popping a berry into my mouth out of habit. The taste, however, was a shocking jolt of sweet, crisp freshness. 1. I froze. Amelia looked confused. “What are you talking about? Blueberries aren’t bitter. They’re perfectly sweet and so crunchy.” The taste in my mouth certainly wasn’t a lie. Sweet without being cloying. With a crisp bite that gave way to a clean, sugary burst of juice. They were nothing like the blueberries I remembered eating, which had always been sour, oddly woody, and sometimes soft and slightly slimy. I was still puzzling over it when Amelia chuckled. “Your taste buds are so weird, Scarlett. You’ve been saying strawberries are sour since you were a kid.” “But Mom always buys the really expensive ones. Huge, perfectly sweet, with a hint of vanilla!” Really? Yet, the strawberries I always tasted were bitter and sharp. They were pretty to look at, but the texture and flavor were consistently disappointing. Why would the fruit my mother bought be so different between me and my sister? The only conclusion, an outrageous one I was desperate not to believe, was that she played the role of Fair Mom in public, while secretly running a two-tier system. Amelia got the Grade-A premium, and I was stuck with the economy-pack duds. I forced a brittle smile onto my face and told Amelia, “Maybe it’s just a taste difference thing.” I fled her apartment, rushing out the door. Next, I called Mom. After a casual chat, I slipped in what felt like an innocent question: “I stopped by Amelia’s earlier, and she’d already finished her strawberries.” “Mom, you really don’t have to buy two portions anymore. I don’t even like them. Just give all of it to Amelia.” “Let her eat her fill.” Mom instantly reverted to her old rule: “Absolutely not. I have to keep the scales perfectly balanced between my two girls.” “If you refuse your portion, I won’t buy any for Amelia.” Hearing that, the jumbled thoughts in my head coalesced into something heavy and hard. The impulse to confront her was almost overwhelming. But in the end, I sighed into the phone. “Fine, fine. Buy them. I’ll choke them down if I have to.” I hung up and started scrolling through a decade of memories. When we were kids, Mom would always buy Amelia’s favorite fruits: strawberries, cherries, and blueberries, a constant supply. I didn’t like those, and would beg for the cheaper, easier-to-eat clementines. She would tell me: “If you won’t take your portion, your sister won’t get hers either.” Amelia would, of course, throw a fit. So, for the sake of the family peace, we developed a system, a kind of secret swap. I’d give her my “good” portion of what she liked, and she’d give me her portion of what I liked. It was the same with clothes. Mom would buy Amelia the beautiful, expensive, picture-perfect party dresses. And she’d buy me the plain, gray cotton tees. At first, I liked the dresses. But those fancy outfits were always scratchy and uncomfortable, like they were lined with tiny, invisible sand. So, I would trade clothes with Amelia, too. This black market exchange continued until we both moved out for work, and swapping became too cumbersome. But now, a sick certainty was settling in: Why did Amelia never complain about the bitter fruit? Why did she always say my scratchy dresses were perfectly comfortable? 2. The week Mom said she was mailing the latest shipment of strawberries, I beat her to it. I drove home and offered to take the boxes myself, claiming I wanted to save her the shipping fee. Before I left, she gave me strict instructions: “The top box is for your sister.” “The bottom box is for you.” “Don’t you dare mix them up.” I feigned ignorance. “Why? Aren’t they exactly the same?” Mom’s expression went rigid for a split second before she recovered. “Amelia’s box is a little riper. She eats them fast, you know.” “Yours, you’ll probably forget about until the cows come home, so I picked ones that are less ripe, so they’ll last a few extra days.” It was a perfectly rational explanation. I didn’t press her. I simply drove off, dropped my box off at Amelia’s place, and kept her box for myself. The minute I broke the seal, the sweet, intoxicating perfume of real strawberries burst forth. I didn’t even bother to wash them. I grabbed one and shoved it in my mouth. A massive, succulent bite. It exploded with sweet, clean juice. Not sour. Not woody. Just the kind of transcendent, deep sweetness I had only ever dreamed of. I kept going, one after another, driven by a raw, primal hunger. I ate until my stomach was painfully full, until I was hiccupping strawberry-scented air. Then, I started to cry. It really was true. They were different. How could she talk about the Law of Perfect Parity and yet, when it came to something as simple as fruit, still have a triple-A grade for one daughter and a failure grade for the other? I was certain now. The first time I ever tasted strawberries and blueberries, they were awful. That’s why I refused to try them again. Amelia’s first taste, however, must have been heavenly, leading to her lifelong love. The bias started so early, from when we were just babies. Mom’s phone call came right on cue. She launched into a furious tirade: “How many times did I tell you, don’t mix them up, don’t mix them up! You are so incompetent! You can’t even handle one small chore…” I cut her off gently. “I ate the strawberries. They were amazing.” The scolding on the other end of the line went completely silent. Then, I continued. “I also finally got to taste Amelia’s blueberries.” “They were a flavor I have never, ever experienced before.” “Mom, you’ve worked so hard all these years. Putting on this elaborate, decades-long production of ‘The Fair Mother,’ all while running a covert operation to keep the good stuff out of my hands. Even a simple box of fruit requires this much emotional labor.” I’m usually a hothead, the type to turn any dissatisfaction into a Category 5 hurricane. But this time, I only felt a crushing, profound weariness. I simply didn’t understand. “We’re both your kids. Why the good stuff for one and the cheap stuff for the other?” “If you didn’t like me, or didn’t want to spend top dollar on me, you could have just said so!” 3. I hung up, then blocked her number. Relatives quickly started calling, trying to mediate. “You’re an adult now. Why can’t you just talk things out?” “Why the standoff? She’s never truly wronged you all these years.” I told them exactly what Mom had done. Since she was capable of such deception, she shouldn’t fear the gossip. After a few calls, the relative intervention ceased. Amelia came to see me, looking awkward. “Mom’s getting old and maybe a little confused,” she stammered. “Scarlett, why are you making such a big deal out of this? You’re successful. You don’t need the money.” I laughed, a cold, sharp sound. “She’s confused now? What about ten years ago?” “Amelia, I’m asking you straight: Back when we did the swaps, were the things I was giving you good or bad?” Amelia was silent for a long time. Finally, she spoke. “The very first ones—the fruit and the clothes—were bad. The fruit was sour, and the clothes were cheap quality.” “After Mom found out about our secret swaps, the things you traded me later were the good ones.” So, it was all true. Mom favored Amelia. She wanted her to have the best. But afraid I’d kick up a fuss, she faked the Law of Perfect Parity. She bought me the cheap knock-offs to make me hate them, then used my voluntary trade with Amelia as the perfect cover to give Amelia the premium products, guilt-free. This was the first time I had ever truly confronted my parents’ bias. And the realization filled me with a sickening disgust. I couldn’t believe how masterfully my mother could perform affection. I cut off Amelia’s attempt to defend Mom, my voice thick with rage. “It’s easy for you to sit there and preach, Amelia. You enjoyed all the best things—the sweet fruit, the perfect dresses—since childhood.” “I was the idiot, happily handing over the prime cut, thinking I was getting a great deal.” “And you, Amelia? You’re no saint, either. When you got the good stuff, the sweet berries and the pretty dresses, why didn’t you ever clue me in?” Amelia scrambled to defend herself. “I didn’t know! If I’d known, I would have told you how good the strawberries and blueberries were!” “Who could have guessed Mom would go to such lengths?” Amelia’s feigned innocence only made her look more repulsive to me. I hung up and blocked her number, too. It wasn’t until my father, Richard, returned from a business trip abroad and learned what happened that I broke my boycott. The holidays were approaching, and he insisted I come home. “Whatever the argument is, you have to say it face-to-face,” he urged. “You’re bottling up this anger, and it’s going to turn into a sickness. Whether you want to cut ties or not, you need to state your case.” It was my father’s words that convinced me to return for Christmas Eve dinner. I was burning with hatred, but the moment I saw my mother’s face, the rage seemed to drain out of me. She refused to acknowledge the issue of the cheap produce, and I, too, couldn’t summon the courage to fight her in person. It was easy to do over a screen, impossible in her presence. After dinner, Mom produced two necklaces, acting as if nothing had happened. “I wanted to get you both solid gold bracelets,” she said. “But the price of gold has skyrocketed. Now I can only afford two necklaces.” Before she could finish, I blurted out, “I suppose you got Amelia the real gold and me the gold-plated vermeil?” The room went instantly cold. I regretted it immediately. Why couldn’t I be direct? Why did I have to be so cutting and passive-aggressive? That wasn’t my personality. Mom’s eyes reddened. Dad shot her a dark look, then told me, “You choose first.” “Your mother’s tendency to run a two-tier system… she gets it from your grandmother.” 4. My father offered a plausible explanation for my mother’s favoritism. “Your mom, Debra, was the oldest. Your grandmother always favored the younger siblings.” “Sometimes, the rare time your mother was given something, her younger brother and sister would immediately try to take it from her.” “She has a soft personality. She was never able to fight them off.” Dad glanced at Amelia. “Your sister has your mother’s disposition—soft, compliant.” “But you, you take after me.” “You are the squeaky wheel. If you’re unhappy, you make a scene. When you were small, if you saw your sister eating something good, you’d try to snatch it.” “So…” I interrupted him. “How small are we talking about, Dad?” “I can remember things from seven or eight, and I never remember trying to snatch anything from Amelia.” Amelia chimed in softly, “I don’t remember that either.” Mom looked defensive. “When you were in a high chair, eating solid foods, you were constantly grabbing at your sister’s plate!” “If you saw her eating something you didn’t have, you’d scream and throw a tantrum. You were so demanding! You ate so much, you nearly bankrupted us.” So, because of something that happened when I was a toddler… Mom decided I shouldn’t have nice things, or else I’d keep fighting Amelia for them? “So, you’ve been fooling me like an idiot for all these years?” Mom didn’t answer, just wiped her tears. “We didn’t have a lot of money back then. We couldn’t buy two of everything.” “And when you ate the good stuff, you wouldn’t stop. I simply decided not to give you any. Later, I saw you were perfectly happy with clementines…” I let out a cold, cynical laugh. Dad, meanwhile, continued to scold Mom in front of me. He concluded: “To prevent your mother from being ‘confused’ again, from now on, you pick first.” “If you feel it’s not enough, you take both.” Since Dad had given me the green light, I unhesitatingly collected both necklaces. I wasn’t about to give up something good now that it was in my hand. It was the only way to appease the anger boiling in my chest, since I couldn’t actually sever ties with my mother. She had her bias, and I had my very real hurt. But she had also done things right—helping with my education, taking care of me when I was sick. Those acts couldn’t be instantly erased. I couldn’t cut the cord, so I settled for taking temporary, tangible compensation. Call it a lesson. But that very evening, I noticed a solid gold bracelet on Amelia’s wrist. I immediately cornered her. “Did Mom give you that?”

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My annual salary was fifty-five thousand dollars. I happened to glance at the new hire in my team’s pay stub, and the number printed there was a stunning one hundred twenty thousand dollars. I said nothing. I continued to train him, debug his messy code, and prep his progress reports for the management. He used my work to snag the quarterly bonus, swaggering with confidence in the all-hands meeting. When my contract renewal came up at the end of the year, the HR manager smiled and told me, “Young people need to focus on the big picture, not get bogged down by every single dollar.” I pushed my resignation letter across her desk. The next morning, the entire core project my department was responsible for—the system’s backend—went completely dark. 01 Monday’s team meeting was stifling. The air was thick and heavy, like a waterlogged sponge that you couldn’t wring a drop of fresh oxygen from. The fluorescent bulbs overhead emitted a faint, irritating hum, casting a pale, sickly light that made everyone’s faces look greasy with exhaustion. I finished my report on last week’s development progress. Every milestone, every data point, was clear and precise. It was the result of two all-nighters. Mr. Harrington, our department head, gave a curt nod. His expression was as flat as the horizon, as if I were reciting an entirely irrelevant weather forecast. “Mmhmm, noted.” He cleared his throat, leaned forward, and a proprietary, almost smarmy appreciation instantly plastered itself across his face. “Next up, let’s hear from Brody. Brody’s only just started, but he has such fresh ideas, and huge potential!” All eyes in the conference room shifted to Brody Wells, sitting next to me. Brody, twenty-four, private school and an ivy-league graduate, with a résumé that practically glowed. He stood up, adjusted his tie, and opened a sleek, professionally designed PowerPoint. The cover slide, I noticed, was his sole “contribution” after I’d stayed up all night writing the report’s core content. He launched into his presentation, talking fast, using my core analysis and wrapping it in layers of trendy corporate buzzwords. Synergy, deep dive, leveraging the ecosystem, optimizing the critical path. Mr. Harrington and the other leaders nodded along, mesmerized. I sat there, my face a carefully constructed mask of neutrality, my fingers curled beneath the table. My nails dug deep into my palm. Every word, every piece of data, in the foundation of that report was mine. After the meeting, I went to retrieve my documents from the printer. The machine spat out warm paper. As I was stacking the sheets, the corner of my eye caught sight of a forgotten slip of paper lying tucked away. A pay stub. The name “Brody Wells” was printed clearly at the top, searing into my vision. A purely instinctive, almost criminal impulse took over. I picked it up. Base salary, performance bonus, stipends… Finally, the net pay section. A number branded itself onto my retina like a red-hot iron. $120,000. One hundred twenty thousand dollars a year. My hand gave an uncontrollable shake. The flimsy paper in my grip suddenly felt as heavy as a lead weight. The number on my own pay stub was $55,000. The sheer, sickening absurdity of it, the raw, gut-punch of humiliation, washed over me in a tidal wave. I could hear my own heart pounding in my chest—a heavy, slow, painful thud. Snapping back to reality, I quickly slid the pay stub under my own pile of files and walked back to my cube, moving with a calmness that belied the internal earthquake. Brody sauntered over, collapsing into the chair next to mine, and spun his laptop around. “Jessica, quick, check this out. What’s going on with this bug? It’s driving me crazy.” His tone was one of entitled complaint. I glanced at the screen. The bug was the result of a single wrong parameter he’d coded yesterday afternoon—a mistake so low-level it was embarrassing. I didn’t say a word. I took the laptop. I didn’t ask why he couldn’t fix it, and I certainly didn’t explain the underlying logic. My fingers flew across the keyboard: modify, save, compile, run. The whole process took less than five minutes. The green “success” prompt popped up. He peered over my shoulder, a look of easy relief on his face, and tossed out a casual, “You’re a lifesaver, Jen.” Then, he grabbed his coffee mug and headed off to the breakroom. I heard his voice bragging to another colleague over the partition. The words were indistinct, but the smug confidence in his tone cut through the office noise. “…a tiny issue, fixed it in two seconds, no big deal…” I stared blankly at my computer screen. The file open was the core code documentation I was writing. These lines of code were the skeleton of the entire system, built by my own hands, one keystroke at a time. That afternoon, he came over with a USB drive. “Jessica, can you copy those documentation files and maintenance guides for me? I need to, you know, ‘study’ them.” He smiled, wide and harmless. I looked at him. I plugged in the drive. The six months of meticulous work, my personal knowledge base, everything I’d compiled so the company wouldn’t be blind if I took a vacation—I copied all of it to him. No hesitation. After he left, Doris, the test engineer from our team, a woman in her forties who had seen a decade of corporate drama, leaned in. She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Jessica, you’re… too generous. You have to be careful.” I managed a smile, one that probably looked more like a grimace. “It’s fine, Doris. It’s just for work.” I knew I wasn’t being generous. I was handing them the rope to hang me with. No, I was handing them a gun, and I’d already loaded the bullet destined for their own heads. The quarterly review meeting included all senior and mid-level management. Brody, armed with my data and my documentation, gave an impossibly polished presentation. On stage, he spoke eloquently, confidently, acting as though he was the one who had spent the sleepless nights solving the impossible problems. Below him, Mr. Harrington listened, his face flushed with pride, whispering excitedly to the executives next to him. When the meeting concluded, Mr. Harrington announced, on the spot, that due to Brody’s “outstanding contribution” and “massive potential” on the core project, he would receive a fifty-thousand-dollar quarterly bonus. Applause erupted. Brody took his bow, his eyes sweeping past me without a pause. I was just part of the background. The next day, to celebrate, Brody ordered a fancy espresso bar delivery for the entire department. Cups of gourmet lattes and artisanal teas arrived at everyone’s desk, their sweet, warm aroma filling the air. My desk was the only one empty. He hadn’t forgotten me. He was deliberate. He presented the last cup, a top-shelf pour-over, to Mr. Harrington. Mr. Harrington accepted it, clapping Brody on the shoulder. “Brody, keep up the great work. You are the future of this department!” I watched them, feeling like I was observing a ridiculous play that had nothing to do with me. The last ember of my hope went cold. Smashed. Reduced to a pile of glacial ash. I wasn’t enduring. I was waiting for my moment. From that day on, I started working even more diligently. I quietly compiled and organized every piece of my work: documentation, code records, and the final System Operational Procedure (SOP) for my role. The definition of every interface, the logic of every module, every potential exception—I recorded it all in the most detailed, standardized language possible. I even wrote independent user guides for every critical script, meticulously detailing the meaning of every parameter and the consequence of modifying it. My work was impeccable, perfect. A masterpiece. A perfectly crafted offering for the grand funeral I was preparing. Doris looked at me with a mix of concern and confusion. She found me again in private. “Jessica, what are you doing? At this rate, he gets all the credit and you’ll get all the blame.” I simply smiled at her. “Don’t worry, Doris. My worth isn’t something they get to define.” But my price, I decided, was something I was going to collect, with interest. 02 By the end of the year, the air was thick with the jittery anticipation of contract renewal season. Ms. Davies, the HR Manager, called me into that familiar, eternally chilly conference room. She greeted me with a professional, flawless smile and poured me a glass of water herself. “Jessica, two years already. Time really does fly.” She slid a renewal contract toward me, her posture elegant. “Have a look. This is the company’s recognition of your contribution.” I flipped it open, my eyes zeroing in on the salary column. A five percent raise. $55,000 multiplied by 1.05 equals $57,750. A raise of twenty-seven hundred fifty dollars a year. A cold, internal scoff escaped me, but my expression remained placid. Ms. Davies launched into her performance. Her voice was as gentle as a spring breeze, yet her words carried an unmistakable corporate weight. “Jessica, I know you have salary expectations. But you need to focus on the big picture, the future.” “This company is a top-tier platform. The projects you’re exposed to, the experience you gain—it’s far more valuable than the number on your paycheck right now.” She paused, taking a sip of water, her eyes meaningfully flicking to the side. “I know you’ve been working hard with the new hire. But that’s a test for you, too. It shows trust from management. Mr. Harrington is watching, you know.” That last sentence was the switch. It instantly ignited the banked-down coals of my anger. But I didn’t let it show. I simply looked up, met her eyes, and calmly cut her off. “Mr. Harrington was watching, Ms. Davies. And then he gave Brody the fifty-thousand-dollar bonus.” Ms. Davies’s smile froze for a split second. The air in the conference room seemed to solidify. She clearly hadn’t expected this silent, reliable employee to confront her so directly. “Uh… Jessica, that… you can’t look at it that way,” she tried to recover. “Brody has a strong background, and he brings a certain type of resource to the company. That is… that is a strategic decision, Jessica. High-level corporate strategy.” I laughed. It was a genuine, visceral laugh—the kind that comes when you realize the sheer absurdity of your situation. “So, Ms. Davies, what you’re saying is: my technical skill is worthless, but his PowerPoint skills and his background are worth $120,000 a year plus a fifty-thousand-dollar bonus?” I’d laid the issue bare. I wasn’t going to play their fake corporate games anymore. Ms. Davies’s composure finally shattered. The professional mask was ripped away, revealing a core of arrogance and impatience. She leaned back in her chair, adopting the cold, official tone of a bureaucrat. “Jessica Reid, I suggest you think carefully. You know the job market is tight right now.” “You shouldn’t be so fixated on personal, short-term gains. People who nitpick every dollar don’t have room to grow professionally. You will hurt your career trajectory.” Classic PUA tactics. In the past, those words would have sparked anxiety and self-doubt. Now, they were just laughable. I stopped wasting time. I reached into my bag and pulled out another document, one I’d prepared long ago. My resignation. I slid it across the table, right next to the contract offering me a paltry raise. “Thank you for the coaching, Ms. Davies.” I stood up, looking down at her. “Perhaps my perspective is too narrow. I can only focus on short-term gains.” “So, I’ll leave this contract, which is focused on the future, for someone with a larger perspective.” I picked up my bag, preparing to leave. Ms. Davies was utterly stunned by my move. She sprang up, her voice sharp. “Jessica! What is the meaning of this? Are you threatening the company?” I paused, turning back, a faint, unreadable smile on my face. “Oh, I forgot to mention, Ms. Davies.” “I’ve already accepted an offer for double my current salary.” The statement was a lie. I hadn’t looked for a new job. But I needed to use it to cut off any avenue for them to try and retain me or lowball me. I didn’t want a raise. I wanted out. And I wanted to watch the magnificent stage I’d personally built, and which they had so carelessly trampled, crumble the second I walked off. Watching Ms. Davies’s face contort from shock to anger to utter disbelief gave me a feeling of release I’d never known. I turned, opened the conference room door, and walked out without a backward glance. Behind me, the silence was absolute. 03 My exit process went surprisingly smoothly. During the handoff, I placed a thick stack of my “perfect” documentation—my magnum opus—on Mr. Harrington’s desk. “Mr. Harrington, all code access has been transferred, and server credentials have been moved over to Brody. This is the handoff document. Every detail is in here.” Mr. Harrington didn’t even look at the documents. He impatiently waved his hand. “Yes, yes, I know.” His face held a look of unconcealed dismissal, as if to say the company would continue to spin perfectly well without me. Brody stood nearby, a smug grin hanging on his lips. To me, he looked like a spoiled heir taking the throne, blissfully unaware he’d inherited a kingdom on the verge of volcanic collapse. After completing all the formalities and walking out the front doors with my cardboard box, Mr. Harrington made a show of saying goodbye. He patted my shoulder, his voice artificially cordial. “Jessica, keep in touch. I wish you all the best.” I smiled. “I’ll hold you to that.” I didn’t look back. I stepped into the afternoon sunlight of the winter day. The sun was a bit blinding, but I felt cleansed, renewed. The air of freedom felt incredible. The day after my resignation was a Monday. An ordinary Monday where I didn’t have to rush to catch the subway. At nine-thirty in the morning, the stock market’s opening bell. I was comfortably sitting at my kitchen table, enjoying a fresh-baked pastry and a hot cup of tea. My phone suddenly erupted in a frenzied vibration, like an agitated beehive. Notifications exploded, lighting up the screen. It was the old department group chat. Though I had already quit it, Doris had added me to a private, smaller chat with a few old colleagues. In that small group, my former coworkers were frantically forwarding screenshots from the main department thread. “Massive crisis! The core trading system backend is showing all red flags!” “It’s crashed! Everything has crashed! All trading modules are offline!” “Client order requests are timing out, the logging system is spamming errors—it’s blowing up!” “What the hell is going on? Is this the apocalypse?”

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When my aunt kicked me out of the house, the Sterling family’s heir took me in. He brought me into his mansion and became my deskmate at school. He was notoriously difficult, the most unmanageable student on campus. I walked on eggshells around him, terrified of provoking him. Mrs. Sterling, who had always dreamed of having a daughter, held my hand happily and said, “Sweetie, how about I become your godmother? Caleb happens to need a sister.” Beside us, the heir’s handsome face darkened. He smashed a bowl on the floor and laughed in anger: “Who said I wanted her as a sister?” 1 When my brother knelt on the ground begging my aunt not to kick us out, I was happily holding a bag of steamed buns, planning to bring them home for him. School was far from home, but I didn’t take the bus because the money I saved could buy four big meat buns for my brother. The buns were still steaming hot, but as soon as I turned the corner, I heard my brother’s pleading. “I’ll go, but… sister is good, please, please don’t kick her out.” He was kneeling at the gate, luggage scattered at his feet. My brother’s clouded eyes were full of anxiety. He rubbed his hands helplessly and kowtowed. “Auntie, sister needs to study, needs to go to college. I’ll leave, don’t kick sister out.” He then crawled over to grab the man’s pant leg, begging, “Uncle, I won’t contact sister, please don’t kick her out.” Neighbors poked their heads out to watch the commotion. The man felt embarrassed, a flash of disgust in his eyes, but he still put on a façade of kindness. “Uncle has no choice. We’ve done our best raising you for so long. We’re just relatives. We don’t ask for gratitude, but you can’t just leech off us forever. We have our own son to raise.” My brother stubbornly held onto the man’s pant leg. A boy kicked my brother hard and said impatiently, “Dad, why talk so much to a retard? Does he understand? He’s so dirty.” My brother was kicked to the ground but didn’t dare say it hurt. He scrambled up and smiled ingratiatingly. “I can do a lot of work. Sister goes to school, I go wash dishes at restaurants, make money.” 2 My brother was born intellectually disabled, but he never forgot to love me. When he was eight, he gave all the candy in his pocket to five-year-old me. When he was thirteen, afraid that his scavenging would embarrass me, he held back tears on the street and refused to admit he knew me. When he was sixteen, for a few cookies, he listened to my aunt’s son, crawled on the ground barking like a dog, and let them beat and scold him. In the end, with a bruised face, he held the cookies out to me like a treasure. That day, my eyes turned red with anger. I threw the cookies on the ground. “Who asked you to beg them for cookies?” Usually meek, I fought with my cousin for the first time. My aunt rushed over and pushed me far away. She hugged my cousin distressedly. Without listening to any explanation, she started scolding me, “Harper, this is your cousin! Why don’t you know how to yield? How can you be so heavy-handed at such a young age?” I clenched my fists tight. “He brought people to bully my brother first.” My aunt looked at my brother without any apology on her face. “Ava, your brother is an idiot. What does he understand? He’s trouble to begin with, so you should be more sensible. What’s wrong with letting your cousin win?” I didn’t speak, but the light in my eyes dimmed significantly. They all thought my brother was stupid, so they could bully him wantonly, but my brother felt pain too. But my brother and I were unwanted children. No one cared if we hurt. 3 My mom got cancer when I was five. The day she left, my dad sat at the hospital entrance all night, cigarette butts scattered on the ground. At dawn, he took us home. He never mentioned Mom’s name again, but the extremely suppressed sobs always came from his room late at night. Back then, Dad said his biggest wish in life was to raise us healthy. Although we were poor, the love my brother and I received was no less than anyone else’s. But when I was ten, Dad went to prison. My aunt was abused by her husband for a long time. Our grandparents passed away early, and as her brother, Dad couldn’t stand seeing his sister bullied. He stood in front of her with a wooden stick. But that day was too chaotic. The abuser was beaten into the hospital by Dad and ended up in a vegetative state, never waking up. To fight for custody of my cousin, my aunt gave up the forgiveness letter from the abuser’s parents, and my dad was sentenced to 15 years. The day Dad went to prison, my aunt hugged me and cried, “Ava, I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I harmed your dad. But Auntie is a mother. Your cousin is still too young; he can’t live without me. A child without a mother will definitely be bullied.” She said she was apologetic to us, but she turned around and remarried with my cousin, moving into our house under the guise of taking care of my brother and me. She pulled my brother and me aside and repeatedly instructed, “Your uncle is a good man. He’s willing to live with you two, so you must be sensible and obedient. Remember your uncle’s kindness and be filial to him when you grow up.” Our luggage was moved into a small, dilapidated utility room, while the master bedroom was taken by my aunt as their new room, and my cousin lived in the second bedroom. Although my brother didn’t understand anything, at the door of the utility room, he held my hand tightly and spoke slowly, “Ava don’t be scared, brother protects you.” My cousin never hid his hostility towards my brother and me. He thought we killed his father. So he often took pleasure in bullying us. He didn’t let us eat at the table, saying my brother was an idiot and sitting with us would make him stupid too. Afraid my cousin would cry, my aunt quickly held a bowl and coaxed him, “Okay, okay, we won’t eat with them. Mom will tell them to eat after you finish. You are still growing, don’t starve yourself, Mom’s heart aches.” So, their family sat happily together, using our bowls and chopsticks. My brother was very good. His clouded eyes could understand everyone’s disgust towards him. For me, he compromised countless times. He put all the little food left into my bowl and rubbed his stomach. “Ava eat, brother is so full, can’t eat anymore.” Chronically malnourished, he was skin and bones, not convincing at all. 4 My brother and I didn’t fight or snatch, hoping to find a place in this house that wasn’t a home, because we had nowhere else to go. I did all the housework, and my brother was forced by them to do odd jobs, but now they weren’t even willing to let us live in the utility room. I clenched my hands tight and quickened my pace. “Brother!” I ran over to help my brother up. My brother hung his head and refused to look at me, like he had done something wrong. I looked straight at the scattered luggage. “Is Auntie trying to kick us out?” Embarrassment flashed across my aunt’s face. “Ava, what are you saying? How would Auntie kick you out? Auntie just thought your brother is 20 years old, and it’s really unreasonable for us to keep supporting him.” My brother nodded quickly. “I go, I can go, sister stays.” My brother could hardly take care of himself. If he left, how could he survive? But now he only thought about letting me stay. Sourness rose in my heart. I patted the dust off my brother’s hands. “Brother, you are not allowed to leave me.” Hearing this, my aunt frowned tight. “Ava, do you still want me to support your brother? You know how hard it is for our family. You can’t be so selfish. Auntie always knew you were sensible.” I looked up at her, eyes red. “Sensible? I’m tired of pretending.” More and more people were watching. I straightened my back. “Auntie seems to have forgotten that my dad bought this house. We have lived here since we were young. The ones who should leave were never us.” Stung by my gaze, my aunt, who knew I was always soft-tempered, was shocked by my words. Her chest heaved with anger, looking like she wanted to eat someone. “Harper Vance! I am your aunt! What do you mean by saying such things? We raised you for so many years, shouldn’t this house be ours? People need to know gratitude!” My cousin fanned the flames on the side. “Mom, I told you, they aren’t good things. Look, Harper Vance can’t pretend anymore, she’s an ingrate. Should have kicked them out long ago.” My aunt was furious. She picked up a wooden stick from the corner, her voice piercing. “Seems I spoiled you too much usually. You still want the house? Auntie will teach you a lesson on behalf of your dad today.” My brother blocked in front of me. The wrist-thick stick fell, and the skin on my brother’s back split open instantly. I quickly supported him, tears streaming down my face. I was so useless. At such a critical moment, my tears couldn’t stop flowing. I couldn’t cry. Crying would lose momentum. I finally toughened up once. But the stick was about to fall again. I closed my eyes waiting for the pain. But this time, the stick didn’t fall on me for a long time. I looked up. A large hand with distinct joints appeared above my head, firmly catching the falling stick. A deep, pleasant male voice sounded, but with a hint of coldness. “Harper Vance, who allowed you to be bullied like this?” 5 Luxury cars drove into the alley one by one. More than a dozen tall bodyguards poured into the yard and surrounded my brother and me. The sun was setting. The tall boy blocked the sunlight above my head, his posture lazy and cool. I froze slightly and called him softly, “Caleb Sterling.” He looked at me lazily, his eyes darkening for a moment, lips curling up. “Not bad, you remember my name.” He was famously difficult. How could I not remember? Caleb Sterling, the only heir to the Sterling family, the most unmanageable figure in school. Also, my new deskmate. Before today, becoming deskmates with Caleb Sterling was something I didn’t even dare to imagine. Caleb stood on the podium with his hands in his pockets, wearing the ordinary school uniform in a wild and rebellious way. Caleb, who had always been idle, suddenly changed his nature and wanted to study. The Sterling parents were so excited they donated three buildings to the school. The teacher wiped the sweat from his forehead, screaming internally. Who dares to manage this young master transferring to our class? But on his face was a kind smile. “Student Sterling, where would you like to sit?” Caleb lifted his chin, his gaze landing on the corner of the classroom, and said casually, “I can choose anywhere?” The teacher wiped his sweat again. This was the school’s God of Wealth; no one dared to offend him. “Of course, of course. Wherever Student Sterling is happy.” Caleb nodded, shouldering his bag and walking off the podium with satisfaction. His tall figure stopped at my desk. I, who was buried in questions, paused my pen. No way, did he fancy the seat next to me? Looking up stiffly, my gaze fell on that handsome face. High nose bridge, dark eyes. Indeed very fierce. After meeting his eyes, I quickly looked away. The pen in my hand was almost snapped by me. But Caleb looked straight at me, his gaze falling on the deformed pen in my hand. He smirked. “Classmate, mind if I sit next to you?” Snap. The pen broke. I mind! I mind so much! But he looked so fierce, I didn’t dare say it. I stiffly pulled out the chair next to me, smiling forcedly. “Don’t mind, please sit.”

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