I was a product of science, a test-tube baby born after years of struggle. My brother, Anthony, was a miracle of nature—conceived effortlessly seven years later. The difference in our origins defined our existence.

Anthony was born with a terrified soul, especially when it came to insects. If a fly even landed near him, he would dance around me in a panic, begging for salvation.

"Sis! Sis! Get it off! Help me!"

His terror was my entertainment. I clutched my stomach, laughing at his frantic flailing and comical expressions.

The laughter died instantly.

Mom stormed over, her hand connecting with my cheek before I saw her coming. Smack. Smack. The sting radiated across my face, silencing me.

"I told you I'd buy you new clothes next time! When will you stop being so spiteful? You actually put a bug on Tony just to scare him?"

My head rang. The buzzing in my ears drowned out the rest of her tirade. The next thing I knew, I was banished to the woodshed to reflect on my sins.

Winter had settled into the cracks of the wooden walls. My hands and feet were swollen with chilblains; the itch was maddening, the pain a dull, rhythmic throb.

"Sis? Look what I snuck out for you."

Anthony appeared at the door, his breath misting in the cold air. He pulled a bright red apple from his pocket, sat beside me on the freezing floor, and began to peel it with the intense focus only a child possesses.

I stared at the swirl of hair on his crown. A poisonous thought took root: If he died, maybe there would be some love left over for me.

I reached out and took his wrist. It was warm.

"Tony," I whispered, pressing my thumb against his pulse. "Do you feel that? That jumping thing inside your wrist? That's a bug. We need to get it out, okay?"

——

The fruit knife glided through his skin.

Crimson bloomed against the pale flesh of the apple, spreading like ink in water.

Anthony looked up at me, his eyes swimming with tears. "Sis, it hurts a little."

I gripped his hand, suddenly paralyzed. Stop. Stop it.

"Tony!" Mom's voice cut through the air from the courtyard. "Get away from there. The woodshed is freezing. Don't waste your time on her—she deserves to suffer."

The door creaked open.

Mom froze. Her gaze locked on the knife in my hand, then the blood dripping from her precious son's wrist.

She didn't scream. She attacked.

Her boot slammed into my stomach. A twisting agony exploded in my gut, and I curled into a ball on the dirt floor, gasping for air.

Mom scooped up Anthony, who had burst into terrified sobs. She cradled him, her voice trembling.

"Tony! Did that wretched girl hurt you again? Let Mommy see. Oh god, look at this blood..."

She turned back to me, eyes blazing. She grabbed a piece of firewood from the stack and brought it down. Thud. Again. Thud. Shoulders, back, legs.

"I... I didn't..."

My voice was a broken croak. I wanted to scream, I'm your daughter too! My blood is your blood! But the pain silenced me.

When her arm finally tired, she turned back to Anthony, panting. "Tony, tell me the truth. Did your sister cut you with the knife?"

Anthony shook his head.

For a split second, a flicker of guilt crossed Mom's face. But it vanished as quickly as it appeared.

"Sis didn't cut me," Anthony sobbed, burying his face in her coat. "I... I did it myself. Because Sis said the jumping thing inside my wrist is a bug. She didn't mean to hurt me. She was just helping."

Dad appeared in the doorway just in time to hear the explanation.

Mom pointed a shaking finger at me, screaming at her husband. "Look! Look at your good daughter! She wants to kill my son that badly!"

"I told you she was vicious. She's a monster made by cold, unfeeling machines in a lab. How could she ever compare to my own natural-born son?"

Mom carried Anthony away, shooting Dad a look of pure venom before she left.

Dad stared at me. He picked up the piece of firewood, now stained with my blood.

"Killing your grandmother wasn't enough?" His voice was low, dangerous. "Now you want to slaughter your brother too?"

The stick came down again.

I lost track of time after Dad left. The bone-piercing wind seeped into my marrow, dragging my mind back to a similar night one year ago.

That day, Anthony had broken a porcelain bowl. I had rushed to clean the shards to protect him from getting cut.

But Mom walked in and assumed I had broken it. She beat me then, too, and locked me in this same woodshed.

Anthony had brought me an apple to apologize that day as well. But back then, I was still fueled by rage. I refused his apology.

I told him the only way I would forgive him was if he went to the river behind the mountain and caught me a fish.

Mom had strictly forbidden Anthony from going near that river. Every year, the currents claimed countless children, sweeping them away never to be seen again.

If I hadn't gone, Mom wouldn't have forced me to take Anthony's place at the school across the river. Anthony was her golden boy, the one who listened to her every command. He was terrified of the water; he would never have gone near that riverbank on his own.

But the moment I stepped out of the woodshed, the blow came.

Thwack.

Mom brought a thick stick down across my back, the pain exploding along my spine.

"You wretched girl! I let you go to school, and this is how you repay me? Scheming against your own brother?" Her face twisted into a snarl. "You wanted him to feed the fish, didn't you? I ought to beat you to death right here!"

I curled in on myself, shielding my head, but her words cut deeper than the wood.

"You're just waiting for Anthony to die so you can hog the morning drumstick, aren't you?" she shrieked. "You heartless monster. You freak."

But I knew the truth. Anthony's clothes were bone dry. He hadn't been near the river at all.

Mom, Anthony is lying to you. I screamed it silently. He wants to steal you and Dad away from me completely.

That night, I was banished to the woodshed. Grandma tried to intervene, her voice trembling as she pleaded for mercy. It only earned her the same sentence.

"You old bat!" Mom spat, turning her rage on her. "Isn't it enough that you leech off this family? You want to side with that little wretch? Fine. Go freeze with her!"

Dad stood by the door, silent as a statue. He didn't dare speak. He only watched.

The woodshed was bitter cold. Grandma whispered in my ear, her breath forming faint clouds in the dark.

"Cat, don't mind your mother's temper. She let you take the school spot, didn't she? Deep down, she still dotes on you."

She rubbed my freezing arms. "She's just angry right now. Apologize tomorrow. She's your mother; she won't hold a grudge forever."

Grandma kept chattering, trying to distract me from the cold, but her voice grew fainter and fainter until it was just a murmur.

It was the warmest night I slept that entire winter.

It was also the last.

Morning brought a bone-deep chill that woke me with a start. My body felt heavy, as if something were pressing the air from my lungs. I turned my head.

Grandma's face was inches from mine.

Swollen. Purple. Still. Frost clung to her gray hair like cruel jewels.

Grandma was dead. And with her went the last person who might shield me. From that day on, Dad never tried to stop Mom's beatings. He only looked relieved that the target wasn't him.

Just as my parents blamed me for their misery, I directed every ounce of my hatred toward Anthony.

I wish he were dead.

Tonight, the cold bit into my skin. No one was there to warm me. I curled into a tight ball in the corner of the woodshed, silently praying for my brother's demise.

I never imagined that when heaven finally answered a prayer, it would hurt this much.

In the dead of night, a shadow moved in the corner. Through my daze, I saw a hand pick up a half-peeled apple. I thought it was a stray cat until a burst of sweetness exploded on my tongue.

"Catherine, eat."

Anthony's voice drifted into my ear, soft and terrified.

I didn't speak. I chewed mechanically, accepting the apple he fed me bite by bite. Then the taste turned metallic. Copper mixed with sweet juice.

I opened my eyes. In the pale moonlight, I saw the gash on his finger. He had sliced his own flesh while peeling the fruit in the dark.

He was a boy who cried over a scraped knee, yet now, with blood dripping from his hand, he didn't make a sound. No tears. No fuss. He just kept feeding me.

I opened my mouth to speak, but his small, sticky hand covered my lips.

"Catherine, don't talk," he whispered, eyes wide. "If Mom hears, she'll hit you again."

The moonlight caught the tears swimming in his eyes. They shone like stars.

Why?

Why did he always do this? Every time I took a beating for him, he would sneak in to comfort me. Every time Mom gave him a drumstick, he saved it until I came home from school. He followed me around like a shadow, looking at me with those big, innocent eyes that made everyone pity him.

If he didn't do these things—if he were just a spoiled brat—I could hate him properly. I could use every vicious method I could think of to steal our parents back without a shred of guilt.

Anthony stripped off his down jacket. He draped it over me, though it was too small to cover more than my chest.

"Why?" I choked out.

He pressed his hands down on the jacket, tucking me in to keep the warmth from escaping.

"Remember when Mom took Dad to visit relatives?" he whispered. "You went to school and didn't take me. I was mad, so I tore a page out of your textbook."

He sniffled. "Grandma saw and slapped me. It hurt so much, Catherine."

He looked at me, his expression devastatingly earnest.

"When Mom hits you, I feel just like that. My heart hurts. Catherine, I don't want you to be in pain."

Anthony used the purest, most innocent words to expose the rot in my soul. After Grandma left, he was the only one who offered me a shred of pity.

Sobs tore through my throat, breaking the dam I'd built against the pain. I clung to my little brother, two small bodies huddled together in the dark, sharing what little warmth we had against the freezing night.

The next morning, Anthony scrambled back to his room at first light.

Not long after, Mom's frantic scream pierced the air.

"Honey! Hurry! Take Tony to Dr. Zhang at the village entrance! He slept all night but his body's ice cold—did he catch a chill?"

The sheer panic in her voice stirred something buried. I remembered that once, I had been this family's treasure too.

I recalled a winter tantrum I threw over a dress I'd seen on TV. To appease me, Mom had crossed the frozen river in the dead of winter to buy it. On her way back, the ice gave way. She was nearly swept under by the current; if Dad hadn't been a strong swimmer, she would have drowned.

The first thing Mom did when she woke up, coughing water from her lungs, was apologize to me.

"Cathy, I'm sorry. Mom lost the new clothes. Be a good girl—once I'm better, I'll go buy them for you again."

I didn't blame her. She must have just forgotten. That had to be why she never gave me those clothes, even now.

Mom loved me. She definitely loved me.

In the main bedroom, Anthony hugged Mom and planted a kiss on her cheek.

"Mom, I rolled off the bed this morning. That's why I'm cold. I'm fine." He rubbed his stomach theatrically. "You must be hungry, right? It's cold out. Let's let Dad eat first too."

Anthony was an angel—far kinder, far more thoughtful than I ever was.

Later in my childhood, when I asked for clothes again, Mom didn't cross a river. She crossed my face with her palm.

"You ungrateful little wretch! Hurting me once wasn't enough? You won't be happy until you see me dead, is that it?"

She had just given birth to Anthony then. I only wanted to steal her attention back; I hadn't cared about her safety.

I was detestable. No wonder Mom hated me.

But I didn't truly wake up to that reality until Anthony died.

After starving for a full day, the clinking of bowls and chopsticks in the courtyard drew me out like a moth to flame.

When Mom saw me emerge, her expression hardened. She tossed an old, dented iron basin onto the dirt. Splashed cold water mixed with leftover rice into it.

"Eat."

Mrs. Harmon happened to be passing by the gate. She paused, her face twisting.

"Mrs. Simmons... Cathy is your daughter, not a stray dog. How can you not even let her sit at the table?"

Mom slammed her chopsticks down.

"Don't you dare lecture me. She came out of me; I'll discipline her however I see fit!" She stood, voice rising. "Besides, who was it back then that called her a monster? Who told me not to bring her back to the village? Now you're pretending to be a saint?"

Years ago, when Mom gave birth to me via IVF, the village gossip mill churned with rumors. They said the blood in my veins wasn't human, that I was a test-tube monster who would grow up to eat people.

If Grandpa Whitney hadn't used his influence to back us up, Mom—who had fiercely protected me back then—would have been driven out of the village along with me.

Mrs. Harmon opened her mouth to argue, but Mom cut her down with a single question.

"When are you going to pay back the money you owe my husband for treating your eldest son's illness?"

Mrs. Harmon snapped her mouth shut. She cast a fleeting, pitying glance at me before hurrying away.

The mother who once shielded me from rot-throwing villagers was gone.

She looked at me with eyes like ice. Stood up, grabbed the basin, and dumped the watery porridge into the chicken coop.

"If you won't eat, fine. Raising a dog is better than raising you. At least a dog knows to bite my enemies." She sneered. "Raising you? You just wait for me to die."

Her words carried a hidden barb. I knew exactly what she meant.

It was a memory from years ago. Mom had taken me to Grandma's house for a visit. We were walking back, her hands full of bags stuffed with my favorite snacks.

We were passing the cornfield when two men lunged out from the tall stalks.

They ripped me from Mom's grip and spiked me into the hard earth. The impact knocked the wind out of me, and the metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.

Then they dragged Mom into the cornfield.

She screamed, thrashing against them, yelling one thing over and over:

"Run! Cathy, go find Dad!"