2: 2

2

The day the SAT scores came out, Earl sat squarely in the middle of the room.

Mom stood beside him, fists clenched, eyes locked on the computer screen.

Dad held up his phone and hit record, not wanting to miss the thrilling moment.

"Take it easy, our boy. You worked so hard, of course you got in."

He typed the last digit and pressed enter. One line, then another...

"Five-fifty. Over the admissions cutoff. Thank God." Mom threw her arms around Earl and kissed him, tears streaming down her face.

Earl marched into my room like a general home from war.

He tilted his head and glanced at my score page, saw it was blank, and grinned like he'd stumbled on the joke of the century.

He yelled toward the living room. "Mom, come look at this! Dani got a zero."

Mom, still holding a green bean she'd just snapped off, glanced at the screen and smacked me hard across the back.

"You little wretch, are you trying to send me to an early grave?" Dad said nothing in the living room.

If either of them had looked a second longer, they'd have seen the line of text under the blank score:

*Congratulations. You placed in the top 50 statewide in the humanities track. Your exact score will not be released at this time...*

I didn't lift my head. This time, I wasn't going to be stupid enough to tell them my score.

I stood at the hotel entrance for a full three hours and more.

The heels rubbed my skin raw until blood seeped through, and my feet burned and swelled until, in the end, I couldn't feel them at all.

Inside, Mom beamed as she pulled Earl from table to table to toast the teachers.

"Thank you, teachers, for everything you did for Earl. Without you, he wouldn't be where he is today."

Earl's homeroom teacher gave his shoulder a token pat, then turned to Mom.

"Say, where's his sister, Daniela? Her scores must be out by now too, aren't they?"

Mom mumbled something about not being able to find my score yet.

His math teacher sighed. "Daniela has a real gift for this. She won gold at the academic olympiad, she could've had guaranteed admission to a top university, and she gave it up. Such a shame."

...

The teachers went back and forth, and not one of them said a word about Earl.

Watching the party his parents had thrown for him get upstaged by me, Earl's face went from red to white — and something in him finally broke.

Nothing anyone said could keep him at his own party. He covered his face and bolted out through the hotel lobby.

Mom couldn't let herself blow up in front of the teachers, so she chased me out to the entrance and screamed in my face.

"Daniela, today is your brother's day. Why do you always have to steal it from him?"

"Your grandmother was right. You're a curse on him! I should never have gone soft. I should've aborted you back when I had the chance!"

I froze where I stood, forcing myself upright.

I hadn't had a drop of water all day, and now the burning in my stomach rose up with a rush of something I couldn't name.

"Then do it. You should have just beaten me to death back then!"

I clenched my fists and screamed it back, nails sinking deep into my palms.

My sudden shout startled her. She stumbled back a step and dropped hard to the ground.

Before, no matter how much Mom protected Earl.

It hurt, but I'd never once talked back to her face.

The moment I disobeyed, she'd start to cry.

And every time she cried, I gave in.

After long enough, I stopped fighting at all.

Dad came stumbling out after her and brought his hand down across my face, hard.

"Crack—"

It was the first time he'd ever hit me.

I didn't dodge, and I didn't cry. I just turned my face back, slowly, and stared him dead in the eye.

Earl was still sniveling. He pointed toward Mom.

"Dad, all she did was say a few words to Dani, and Dani tried to beat her to death."

Looking at that mouth of his, twisting everything upside down, I felt the blood run backward in my veins, so furious my fingertips spasmed.

I lunged and clamped ten fingers around his throat like an iron vise.

"Earl, you say one more word out of that mouth, and I swear to God I'll finish you right here."

Earl clawed at my hands, face going purple, and wailed at Dad.

"Dad, help, my sister's trying to kill me!"

Mom had been collapsed on the ground, crying. In an instant she came at me like a raging lioness.

She grabbed at the leg of my pants, nails almost tearing my skin, and threw her head back and shrieked at me.

"Let go, let go of him! Do you want to kill your brother?"

I let go, and Earl slid down to the ground like a heap of mud.

Both hands at his throat, mouth wide, gasping for air.

"Hah... hah..."

Mom snatched Earl into her arms. "My boy, my boy! Open your eyes, look at Mommy."

She sobbed, and over her shoulder she shot me a look that could have cut.

The teachers heard the commotion at the door and hurried over to smooth things down.

My father, his face a livid gray, forced out a smile uglier than tears. “I'm so sorry. What a scene for you all to witness.”

Just then his phone rang, and Grandma Valerie Swanson's voice leaked out of the receiver.

“This is all your doing, spoiling that daughter of yours! If anything happens to my precious grandson, I won't go on living either.”

“This morning Bob Lambert's mother sent a matchmaker over. I think that Bob's a fine boy, knows his own mind.”

“Marry Daniela off to him. I don't believe she'll stay defiant then.”

My father was silent a moment, then answered, “All right.”

This Bob Lambert they kept talking about, he'd bullied me all through elementary school. Had they really forgotten that?

“You sit in there and reflect on yourself.” My mother shoved me into the room and locked the door.

I'd actually learned my lesson this time. I thought if I said nothing about my scores, the worst they'd assume was that I hadn't gotten into college.

Just then my phone rang first.

The caller ID read: unknown number. The university admissions office.

I swiped up and pressed the green answer key.

One door between us, and the crowd on the other side didn't lower their voices at all. I could hear every word.

“That's what I always say. You can't spoil a girl. What good is all that studying? She still has to get married in the end.”

My aunt lifted her chin, smug all over her face.

“Look at our Ellie Pope. Finished middle school, went straight into the factory, six thousand a month now.”

“Couple more years, that'll go up too.”

“Hey, how much is Bob putting up for the bride price?”

Earl flashed a hand signal.

“A hundred eighty thousand. Mom already said it. Every cent stays with me.”

My aunt paused. “I'm guessing she won't go along with it.”

“That little brat's stubborn. What if she kicks up a huge fuss? Aren't you afraid somebody ends up dead?”

......

The other side of the door went dead quiet, until Earl spoke again.

But his voice dropped low, too low for me to catch a word of it.

It didn't matter. I'd already booked my bus ticket for tomorrow night.

My bag was packed in no time. One small twenty-inch suitcase held everything I owned.

I took one last long look at the little room where I'd lived for eighteen years.

My mind slowly went hazy, and I sank into a heavy sleep.

Late that night, a black sedan lurched to a stop in the alley outside our door.

Four burly men climbed out, hauled me straight off the bed, and shoved me into the car.

I screamed as hard as I could, but not one person in that house came out.

A few seconds later it all came clear to me, and I stopped wasting a scrap of strength.

Before long they'd brought me to the “Mingde Reform Boot Camp.”

Concrete walls over ten feet high ringed the place, topped with a coil of electrified fencing.

Below the wire, jagged shards of glass stood packed thick along the top.

The car hadn't even fully stopped when I heard the chanting drifting out from inside, echoing like something wailing.

【The obedience codes, taught by the sages.】

【Above all comes honoring your parents.】

【Your body, your very skin and hair, all of it granted by your parents.】

Two thick-shouldered instructors swaggered up to me, grabbed an arm each, and dragged me inside like a bag of garbage.

The dormitory building reeked of mold and disinfectant.

They flung me into an eight-bunk dorm.

“New girl. Behave yourself!”

Behind me came a heavy clang as the lock dropped.

That sound jolted me clean out of my sleep.

I looked around at everything, the room dim, the iron frames of the bunks scabbed with rust.

A few girls about my own age raised their eyes to me, their gazes dull, bruises scattered somewhere on every face and body.

I struggled to my feet and glanced at the four big yellow characters on the red banner on the wall, 【Be Grateful to Your Parents】, and a cold smile tugged at my lips.

Half an hour later, those same two instructors dragged me out of the dorm again.

They threw me into a room with a sign hanging on it that read “Psychological Correction Room.”

"Daniela Swanson, right? Your parents warned us. Said you've got a stubborn streak."

"Doesn't matter. We've got plenty of home remedies here. Cures every kind of defiance."

The head instructor waved that so-called "consent form" in front of my face and burst out laughing.

"Ha, see this? Your dad signed it. Your mom put her thumbprint on it!"

"They said as long as we fix that filthy temper of yours and get you married off nice and quiet to Bob Lambert, they don't care if we fry your brain out doing it."

The assistant beside him grinned. "Butch, this one looks all high and mighty. Be fun to watch her cry once the current's going."

"Start!" Before the word was even out, the assistant hit the switch.

In that instant it felt like my soul was being torn apart.

The pain exploded from my scalp and swept through my whole body at once, like countless steel needles driven straight into the marrow of my bones.

My teeth chattered out of my control, clacking together.

My body convulsed hard. I wanted to scream and couldn't get the sound out.

The second the current stopped, I slumped into the chair like a heap of mud, drool running down my chin without my say-so.

In the haze, I thought I saw Earl's face, gloating.

After a few rounds I didn't dare fight back anymore. I knelt on the hard cement floor like the rest of them, mouth reciting mechanically:

"The Codes of Obedience, the teaching of the wise ones..."

"Louder! Where's that grateful heart?"

The pointer cracked hard against the wall, "Snap——"

I jerked my voice up. "When parents call, answer at once. When parents command, do not delay."

Over and over I kowtowed and begged, tears sliding down my cheeks one drop at a time, mixed with shame.

"Instructor, please, I know I was wrong. Please call my parents and have them take me home."

"They said it's still early. Let us grind that temper down a little more."

I froze, then clenched my fist and slammed it against the wall like a madwoman, over and over, until it was a bloody pulp.

I curled into the damp corner, my mind blurring, and it seemed like there were noisy voices coming from outside.

The iron door was slammed open with a violent bang.

The old guard from the front booth shouted them down.

"Who are you people! You know breaking into a private facility is against the law? Get out, all of you!"

Squinting, I saw several people rush in wearing purple short-sleeves and staff badges, the last one with a video camera hanging off his chest.

"We're here for this year's statewide humanities valedictorian!"

"Where's Daniela Swanson?"

Through the haze I heard my own name and, by reflex, dragged my hand up with effort.

Butch, the one in front, froze for a second, then planted himself in the doorway, both hands gripping the shock baton.

"What crap valedictorian? Her? I might as well say I'm the king of heaven."

The words weren't even finished before the room broke into laughter.

"Her parents handed her over to me completely. Here's the authorization. We run a legitimate school here."

The camera turned on me. My hair had been buzzed down to a crew cut, not a trace of a girl left in me. No wonder they hadn't dared claim me all that time.

I shrank back on instinct, my face all tear-streaks and grime, my wrists covered in the scorched marks left by the current.

The dean's eyes went red. He reached a trembling hand toward me. "Daniela Swanson, I'm sorry. We came too late!"

The moment the video went up, it shot to number one on dozens of trending charts at once.

*On the scene: university admissions team breaks down the door and rescues statewide humanities valedictorian Daniela Swanson.*

*Corrupt correction facility running illegal school: valedictorian shocked and covered in injuries.*