I was the family's bargaining chip.

My parents were a blended family—each brought a child from a previous marriage.

They'd made a pact: treat each other's kids like their own.

But my sister hated school and wanted to run off with some bleach-blond loser. My brother hung out with troublemakers, smoking and drinking like it was nothing.

Dad couldn't stand watching my sister throw herself away. Mom couldn't stand watching my brother waste his potential.

So they had me—a tool to keep the other's kid in line.

And when it came to me, their shared flesh and blood, they held nothing back.

My sister loved caking on makeup. So Dad dressed seven-year-old me in a short skirt and sent me wandering the streets before dawn. When my sister saw me come back with my clothes torn, she never touched cosmetics again.

My brother liked playing big shot with money he didn't have. So Mom threatened to give me away to some stranger. My brother dropped to his knees, begging her not to send me away.

But Mom was determined to teach him a lesson.

"Actions have consequences. Remember this—your sister is being sent away because of you."

She stuffed three hundred dollars into the woman's hand and dragged my brother out without looking back.

"Mommy! Mommy, I don't want to go!"

I screamed and cried, but she never turned around.

What Mom didn't know was that the woman she'd hired locked me in a basement the moment she left and forgot I existed.

——

"Mommy!"

I shrank back in terror, but Mom grabbed me and yanked me out anyway.

Her friend Rita Crowe looked me over like I was livestock—hefting my weight, prying my mouth open to check my teeth for flaws.

My brother stood there holding Mom's hand, watching the whole thing with a blank stare.

Rita put on a show of deliberation before speaking:

"Kid's old enough to remember things. Taking her in means I'm risking her never bonding with me."

"But let's be clear—once she's mine, she eats my food, she calls me Mom. No more contact with any of you after this."

That's when it finally hit me.

My mother was giving me away.

I burst into tears.

"Mommy, I don't eat much. Mommy, please don't give me to someone else. I'll be good, I promise!"

I tried to run back to her, but Rita's grip was like iron around my arm.

Mom didn't even glance at me. Instead, she grabbed my brother's chin and forced him to look at me.

"Ethan Harper, take a good look at your sister. This is happening because you wasted money. She's being sent away to make up for what you spent."

Ethan froze. Then his whole body started shaking.

He didn't like me. But he never wanted me gone.

As Rita started dragging me toward the van, Ethan couldn't hold it in anymore.

He broke down crying, tears and snot smearing across his face.

"Mom, I'm sorry. I won't waste money anymore. Please don't send her away, okay?"

Seeing her defiant son finally apologize, Mom allowed herself a satisfied smile.

I looked at her, hope flickering in my chest. He apologized. Did that mean I could go home now?

But her smile vanished as quickly as it came.

Her expression turned cold.

"No. Actions have consequences. You wanted to play big shot? Without a real lesson, you'll never understand how hard money is to earn. How immature you've been."

But Mom, I'm not the one who did anything wrong.

I said it out loud. She didn't flinch.

"You're his sister. You failed to keep him in line. How is that not your fault too?"

I clung to the van door with everything I had, terrified of being taken somewhere I'd never come back from.

Thud.

Ethan threw away his pride. Face flushed red, he dropped to his knees before Mom.

"Mom, I'll give you all my allowance. Please don't send my sister away."

He pressed his forehead to the floor, kowtowing again and again. Before long, the skin on his forehead had broken open.

This time, Mom couldn't hold back her expression. She laughed.

To me, that laugh looked twisted beyond recognition.

"Ethan, it's good that you know you were wrong. But only a real lesson will make you remember it—so you never dare make that mistake again."

"Rita, take his sister away."

I couldn't hold on anymore. I was dragged into the car.

The moment we got in, Rita stuffed a rag into my mouth.

I tried to struggle, but she slapped me across the face, impatient.

"Your own mother doesn't want you. Move again and I'll throw you out of this car—let you live as a little beggar!"

I didn't want to be a dirty beggar. I didn't dare move.

"Lily! Lily!"

I looked back. Ethan was chasing the car like a madman, running so hard one of his shoes flew off, but he didn't stop.

Not until he tripped and fell, and couldn't keep up anymore.

Rita didn't actually take me far. She pulled me toward a building that had been half-demolished before construction stopped.

Everything around it was empty. Everyone had moved out.

Rita dragged me upward. I walked carefully, placing each step lightly, trying not to look at the walls that had half-disappeared.

"Relax. It's only half torn down, but it's still concrete. You can live here."

Rita hurried me along with a look of disgust.

Actually, this place was only one street away from my home.

I tried hard to memorize the way back, thinking I'd run home when she wasn't paying attention.

Rita took me up to the third floor and locked me in the only room that was still mostly intact.

"You'll stay here for a few days. I left food inside—eat when you're hungry. If you need to use the bathroom, just find a spot. I'll come get you after I'm done playing mahjong."

She seemed like she wanted to say something else, but call after call kept interrupting her.

"You need a fourth? I'm on my way!"

Rita shut the door, locked it casually, and hurried off.

The room had nothing in it except a table and a bed.

On the table sat a few small bread rolls. On the bed lay a dirty blanket.

I didn't want to stay here.

I tried to reach the door handle and found the lock was broken. It couldn't actually hold the door shut.

After struggling all afternoon, the sky outside had gone completely dark.

By moonlight, I walked toward where I remembered the stairs being.

It was too dark in here. I stepped on something—I don't know what—and my foot slipped out from under me.

I didn't even have time to scream. Pain tore through me, and everything went black.

Then I floated up.

I saw myself lying there, my neck twisted at an impossible angle.

So dying was that easy.

I looked around, lost. With nowhere else to go, I went home.

It was dinnertime. Mom was humming while she cooked.

She was making stir-fried beef with scallions—Ethan's favorite.

Beside it sat dishes already finished: braised fish for my sister, braised eggplant for Dad, scrambled eggs with tomatoes for Mom.

Nothing I liked.

I stood next to Mom. She seemed to be in a good mood.

My leaving was apparently just a small thing to her.

"Mom."

I called out softly, wanting her to know I'd come back like a good girl. Could she hug me? Or just smile at me? Today had really, really hurt.

But Mom couldn't see me at all.

The living can't see the dead.

Dad walked into the kitchen and glanced at Ethan, who sat stiffly at the table.

"Don't you think you went too far? Ethan wouldn't even talk to me today. He was shaking the whole time, and his head's bleeding."

Mom's eyebrow arched. I flinched.

I knew that look. Whenever she made that face, I was the one who ended up paying for it.

She tossed the spatula down, her voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Oh, so now I don't know how to raise kids? Being a stepmother is so hard. Haven't I been good to your son? That cut on his forehead? He did that to himself—banged his head on purpose. I didn't lay a finger on him!"

Then came Dad's endless apologies.

But Mom only grew more aggrieved.

"We agreed from the start to treat each other's children the same. Tell me—have I ever skimped on feeding him or clothing him?"

Dad sighed. In a family like theirs, keeping things fair was nearly impossible.

"You're good to my son, and I'm good to your daughter, aren't I? That five-thousand-dollar summer camp—I paid it without blinking."

I crouched nearby, listening to them list all the ways they'd been good to my brother and sister.

Jealousy gnawed at me. Why couldn't I be them? Wasn't I their child too? Why did they only care about each other's kids?

They'd never treated me that way.

"I keep feeling like we've let Lily down. Have we been too hard on her? She's not being mistreated at Rita's, is she?"

I looked up at Dad.

Dad, I was hurt. They cut open my stomach. It hurts so much.

Whenever Ethan or Chloe were wronged, Mom and Dad stood up for them. Maybe this time, they'd stand up for me?

Mom scoffed.

"What's she lacking? Food? Clothes? I just asked her to stay somewhere else for a few nights, and she threw a fit like I was abandoning her forever."

But Mom, I really was cut to pieces and thrown away.

She pulled out her phone to call Rita. It rang for a long time before anyone picked up.

"Hello? Rita? What's all that noise? The kid wants to eat out? Rita, you spoil her too much."

"You're taking her back to your hometown for a few days? Sure, I'll leave her in your hands. I'll come pick her up soon and thank you properly!"

I paced in frantic circles.

"Mom, that woman's lying! She went to play mahjong. She's not watching me at all. Why would I be out eating with anyone?"

Mom believed every word.

She hung up and slammed the spatula against the wok.

"These kids are going to be the death of me. At least this one's ours—I can actually discipline her. If she were like her brother and sister, I'd lose ten years off my life!"

Dad thought for a moment, a hint of worry in his voice.

"You don't think something's wrong, do you? That she's in some kind of trouble?"

Mom waved him off.

"What trouble? Rita's from my hometown. She'll take good care of her. If you ask me, that girl's having the time of her life!"

But Mom, your hometown friend isn't exactly reliable.

My family was strange.

Ethan was Dad's son. Chloe was Mom's daughter.

After they married, they had me.

They'd both been through marriages that left scars. Dad's first wife got sick—really sick—and killed herself so she wouldn't be a burden. Mom's first husband died in a truck accident on a rainy night, trying to earn more money for the family.

Both of them died when the love was still raw.

Mom and Dad didn't marry for love. They married so their children could have a complete family.

On the wall hung a framed piece of calligraphy. It read: Treat them as your own.