Chapter 1Rigging My Father's Deadly Game

My father loved to play God under the guise of perfect fairness.

To ensure he never showed "favoritism," every choice between my sister and me was left entirely to a blind draw. From who got to go on the middle school trip to Washington D.C., to which one of us he would help pay for college.

Somehow, I was always the one with the worst luck.

Even when my mother was diagnosed with leukemia and desperately needed a bone marrow transplant—and both my sister and I were confirmed as perfect matches—he still brought out that antique mahogany humidor. He forced us into a "fair" lottery of life and death.

And when my sister pulled the white slip from the box, the one that meant she didn't have to be the donor, something inside me finally snapped. I was done playing his game.

...

* * *

The cold, white wooden slip fluttered from my sister Betty’s fingertips, drifting down like a snowflake sent to seal my fate.

My father, Richard, let out a long, shuddering breath. His face washed over with the sanctimonious relief of a high priest whose prayers had just been answered.

"The universe has spoken," he declared.

He turned to me. There wasn't a trace of paternal warmth in his eyes, only an ironclad command that brokered no argument. "Heather, get ready for the surgery."

My mother, Evelyn, lay in the sterile hospital bed, her face as pale as the sheets beneath her. She reached out and grasped my hand, her grip as weak as a newborn kitten's.

"Heather, sweetheart..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "Listen to your father..."

Betty hurried over to my other side, her eyes rimmed with perfectly timed, cinematic tears. She took my free hand.

"I'm so sorry, Heather... It's so unfair to you," she murmured, her voice thick with practiced sympathy. "If I hadn't been so lucky just now, it would be me lying on that operating table."

Her words were dressed up as comfort, but they only made the bile rise in my throat.

Lucky. What absolute bullshit.

For as long as I could remember, every ounce of "luck" in our house had fallen onto Betty's lap. The last slice of birthday cake, the brand-new dress for the holidays, the only college tuition fund we had. Every single time, my father would bring out that polished wooden box, shake those little birchwood slips, and use the word fairness to gag me into submission.

And now, it was my bone marrow on the line.

I yanked my hands away from both of them and stood up.

"I'm not doing it."

Three words. They dropped into the quiet hum of the hospital room like a live grenade.

My father’s face darkened instantly, the veins in his neck pulling taut. "What did you just say?"

"I said, I'm not donating," I repeated, enunciating every syllable. "If you want a piece of spine so badly, you give it. Leave me out of it."

"You ungrateful little bitch!"

He lunged forward, raising his hand to strike me.

I didn't flinch. I didn't even blink.

The slap never landed. Not because he found a shred of mercy in his heart, but because Betty caught his arm.

"Dad! Don't! She's just scared, she doesn't mean it!" Betty pivoted toward me, the tears now flowing freely, a picture of tragic innocence. "Heather, I know you're upset. But this is Mom! How can you just stand there and watch her die?"

"If you keep this up, you're no daughter of mine!" my father roared, pointing a trembling finger an inch from my nose. "If you dare defy the will of the universe and kill your mother, you are dead to this family! I will disown you!"

"The will of the universe? Dead to the family?"

A hollow, jagged laugh scraped its way out of my throat.

"Dad, your 'universe' is just a wooden box on a bedside table."

I walked over and picked up the mahogany humidor he treated like the Holy Grail.

"If fate is so infallible, let's draw again," I challenged, staring him dead in the eye. "If I pull the red slip this time, I won't say another word. I'll march straight into the OR."

"But if Betty pulls it..." I shifted my gaze to my sister, watching the color instantly drain from her cheeks. I offered her a freezing smile. "Then Betty can make the 'sacrifice' for Mom this time."

Betty went completely ghost-white. She stumbled backward, instinctively hiding behind my father's broad shoulders.

My father glared at me, his eyes burning with a hatred so intense it felt physical.

"Blasphemy!"

He snatched the wooden box from my hands, clutching it to his chest like a priceless artifact. "The universe has already decided! I will not let you make a mockery of it!"

He looked down at me with an expression I had memorized over a lifetime—a suffocating cocktail of profound disappointment and utter disdain.

"Heather, I have taught you since you were a little girl. You are the star, and your sister is the moon. Stars exist to guard the moon. They exist to burn themselves out so the night sky is dark enough for her to shine."

"Betty is the moon. She is singular. Why can't you just know your place and be the backdrop you were born to be?"

"Sacrificing yourself just this once for your mother... is that really too much to ask?"