Chapter 1I Became His Worst Curse

My mother died of a hemorrhage when she gave birth to my younger brother. My father always said I was a curse, born with a dark fate that brought ruin to everyone close to me. And so, I became his favorite tool for keeping my brother in line.

When my brother was little, he refused to eat bitter vegetables.

My father didn't force-feed him. Instead, he pried my jaw open and shoved a handful of raw, fiery jalapeños down my throat. I thrashed on the kitchen floor, my throat burning and bleeding, while my brother screamed in terror and choked down his greens, crying hysterically.

When we got older, my brother skipped school to hang out at a local arcade.

When my father caught him, he didn't hit him. In front of my brother’s eyes, he took my entire portfolio of sketches—the ones I’d spent months preparing for the national art competition—and ripped them to shreds, page by page. I cried until my voice went completely raw. Only then did my brother, terrified, drop to his knees and swear he’d never set foot in an arcade again.

And then, the final straw. My brother stole money from our father's wallet to tip a webcam girl on Twitch. When my father found out, he took my college acceptance letter and threw it into the roaring fireplace.

As my brother screamed in terror, my father just stood there, cold and indifferent, watching the thick parchment curl and blacken in the flames.

“Every single penny you waste, Gavin,” my father said, his voice terrifyingly calm, “is another road I block for your sister. Let’s see if you ever touch my wallet again.”

“Dad!” Gavin fell to his knees, sobbing. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry! Please, take it out! Save it!”

But my father didn't move. He let it burn.

I stood by the hearth, watching three years of blood, sweat, and sleepless nights crumble into ash. I didn’t cry. I didn’t scream. I just felt a cold, hollow smile pull at my lips.

Dad, if you really believe I’m a curse... then I will be your curse. Starting with your precious son.

* * *

“Tomorrow, you report to Lyle Briggs’s fish processing plant. It’s eight hundred a month, under the table. The cash goes straight into my account.”

My father kicked at the last of the glowing embers in the hearth, scattering the grey ash across the floor. He didn't even look back as he spoke.

Gavin was still kneeling on the hardwood floor, his face streaked with tears, his chest heaving. “Dad... Maeve’s college letter...”

“College?”

We heard the scuff of his slippers fading down the hallway. He didn't even pause. “A curse like her doesn't need college. Working to put you through school is her only purpose in life.”

I knelt down, my fingers brushing the charred debris at the bottom of the hearth.

The ash was light as a moth's wing. When I touched it, it dissolved into nothing.

“Maeve.”

Gavin crawled over to me on his knees, grabbing the sleeve of my sweater. His voice was raw from crying. “I’m sorry. This is all my fault... I’ll go beg him. I’ll drop out. You should go to college, not me.”

“Gavin.”

I cut him off, standing up and brushing the invisible dust from my jeans.

“Starting tomorrow, I am never shielding you again.”

He froze, staring up at me.

I didn't look at his expression. I just turned and walked into my bedroom—a cramped, drafty space barely wider than two paces.

I shut the door, my fingers finding the loose brass latch on the back of the wood. The door panel was so thin that light leaked through the cracks. Gavin called my name three times from the hallway, each shout weaker than the last.

I didn't answer.

Once his footsteps finally faded, I reached under my pillow and pulled out my burner phone.

I checked my balance. One thousand four hundred dollars. Every cent I had.

Over the last three years of high school, I had washed dishes in the school cafeteria, worked as an assistant at an art studio for younger kids, and spent my winter breaks clearing tables at a hot pot restaurant. This was everything I had managed to scrape together.

My father didn't know about this account. The only account he knew about was the one he’d forced me to open when I turned sixteen, using my ID at the local bank to set up an automatic monthly transfer that swept half of my earnings directly into his pocket.

I opened TikTok and searched for his account.

Old Frank's Parenting Tips. Three thousand followers.

He had posted dozens of videos. How to make a rebellious teenager listen. How to break a child's habit of lying. How to build absolute fatherly authority.

In the comments, strangers praised him. They called him a firm but loving father. They said spare the rod, spoil the child.

My face had never appeared in a single one of those videos. But every parenting methodology he preached had been tested on my skin first.

His latest video had been posted three hours ago. The caption read: Teaching kids the real cost of a dollar.

I tapped it. In the video, he held my college acceptance letter up to the camera, smiling. “My oldest daughter’s ticket to university,” he said to the lens. “Do you believe I’m about to burn this right now?”

The comments section had laughed. No way, haha. Don't go that far.

The next frame showed him tossing it into the fire.

The video already had over two thousand likes and eight hundred comments.

I closed the app and locked the screen.

My hands weren't shaking.

All the shaking inside of me had been used up over the last eighteen years.

Around eleven, I heard my father’s bedroom door creak open, followed by the heavy scuff of his slippers across the linoleum.

He paused outside my door for a few seconds, as if debating whether to push it open. Instead, he just rapped his knuckles against the thin drywall.

“Lyle Briggs is coming over for dinner the day after tomorrow. Don’t embarrass me.”

Lyle Briggs.

The owner of the fish plant.

I had lived in this town for eighteen years, and I knew exactly what kind of man Lyle Briggs was. He was forty-five, twice-divorced, and owned three massive commercial cold storages on the east side of town. Just last month, he and my father had been drinking bud light and calling each other brothers at the local poker table.

My father wasn't talking about me working at his plant.

He was talking about dinner at our house.

And those two things were never going to be separate.

I stared at the hairline crack running across my ceiling, listening to Gavin muffle his sobs into his pillow next door.

Stop crying, little brother.

I told you, I’m not shielding you anymore.

Which means whatever your father does next, you’re going to have to watch with your eyes wide open.

“Maeve...” Gavin’s whisper came through the thin wall, barely audible. “Are you awake?”

I closed my eyes. “Yeah.”

“I’m going to give you all my allowance tomorrow. The money I saved up. Can you... can you please not go to that plant?”

“Gavin,” I said, my voice flat. “Dad spent your savings two years ago. He told you he put it in a high-yield account, didn't he?”

Silence fell over the other side of the wall. It stretched for a long, agonizing minute.

“...You’re lying.”

“Go check the lockbox in his closet. You'll see.”