Ficorpio
Chapter 1
And I had just received a DNA test report saying I was not related to them by blood.
My mother smiled at me, cool and distant.
“Annie, since you’re not our biological daughter, you’ll need to repay us for the cost of raising you these past seventeen years.”
My father gave a cold snort.
“Starting today, you’re one of the servants in this house. We’ll count five hundred dollars a month as wages toward your debt. Room and board not included.”
I didn’t ask them how it was possible that my younger sister and I were twins, that we looked almost carved from the same mold, and yet somehow I wasn’t their daughter.
I only nodded calmly.
Because last night, standing outside the door, I had heard everything.
Sophie had clung to our parents’ hands and wheedled, “Mom, Dad, my birthday wish is to be the Ashfords’ only daughter. I want all your love to belong to me. Just let Annie be a servant for a year, okay?”
My father’s face had been full of indulgence. “All right. Whatever you want.”
My mother had smiled along with him. “For this year, Mom and Dad will belong only to our precious Sophie.”
After everyone left, I looked at the half-eaten birthday cake on the table, stuck a candle into it, and made a wish of my own.
I want to leave the Ashford family.
Not for one year.
Forever.
…
Sophie Ashford covered her mouth and gasped.
“Annie, no wonder you’re so ugly. You don’t look like Dad or Mom at all. So you really are a fake.”
Her voice was loud and theatrical, as if she had completely forgotten we were twins and shared most of the same features.
“Oh, wait. You’re not my sister at all. You’re just some stray little thing that crawled in from God knows where.”
My mother’s expression was detached and cold.
“Annie, now that the truth is out, you’re not a child of the Ashford family. This birthday party was prepared for our precious daughter Sophie, and Sophie alone. You have no right to be here.”
I lifted my eyes and looked at Sophie, whose face shone with triumph.
She wore a custom princess gown, and the tiara on her head was worth as much as a small house.
Then I looked down at myself—my faded shirt, my jeans washed pale from years of use, the cuffs already fraying.
I smiled bitterly.
The right to be here.
That was something I had never truly had since I was a child.
How could I lose what had never belonged to me?
My father raised his voice. “From today on, you’ll move into the servants’ room. For the sake of the years we called each other father and daughter, we’ll let you stay here until you find your real parents. You’ll work as a servant in this house. Five hundred dollars a month will go toward paying back the cost of raising you for seventeen years. Food and drink not included.”
Whispers rippled through the room.
Under all those mocking, amused eyes, I felt like a wretched clown.
I bent down and picked up my backpack.
Sophie rushed over so fast I barely had time to react. She grabbed my backpack and yanked hard.
Chapter 2
The broken zipper, held together only by a safety pin, burst open at once. Everything inside spilled across the floor.
Sophie cried out, “I knew it! You really did steal from us!”
Among the scattered books lay a single pink sanitary pad.
My mother’s face shifted with faint discomfort. “Sophie, let it go. It’s just a pad.”
Sophie refused immediately. “Mom, I’m the Ashfords’ only daughter now. What is she? She mooched off our family for years, and now she’s stealing from us too. If I say she doesn’t deserve it, then she doesn’t.”
The moment my mother saw Sophie was angry, her voice softened into coaxing tenderness.
“All right, all right. Don’t be upset, sweetheart. Everything you say is right. You’re Mom’s only darling now. You can do whatever you want.”
Satisfied, Sophie stepped on the sanitary pad. She ground her heel into it, twisting back and forth.
“There. I don’t want it anymore. You can have it.”
I stared at the pad covered in dirty footprints. It felt as though my throat had been stuffed full of wet cotton—heavy, swollen, suffocating.
In the end, I bent down and picked up only my books.
After the party ended, Martha Brooks, the housekeeper, led me to the storage room.
The space was barely fifty square feet. It held only a wooden plank bed piled with junk and a rusted iron-framed window.
Martha stood in the doorway, hesitant.
“Miss… Annie, Mr. and Mrs. Ashford remember the good in you. Once they come around, you’ll still be the Ashfords’ eldest daughter…”
Before she could finish, two cockroaches darted out of the corner and vanished.
I pretended not to see the embarrassment on her face.
“Thank you. I understand.”
Martha shook her head and left.
As she went, she muttered under her breath, “You look so much alike. How could you not be theirs? Honestly…”
I sat on the plank bed and stared blankly out at the black night beyond the window.
It was fine.
If I waited one more year, I could leave forever.
That night, cramps twisted sharply through my lower abdomen.
Without any sanitary pads, I could only fold up tissues and use those.
When I came out of the bathroom, I heard my parents speaking in lowered voices.
“Honey,” my mother said, “do you think Annie will hate us for treating her this way? She is our biological daughter, after all.”
My father snorted. “Then she shouldn’t always bully Sophie. As the older sister, she never learned to give way to her. Letting her suffer a little is for her own good.”
“After a year, once Sophie has had enough fun, we’ll find an excuse and say the DNA test was wrong. When Annie gets her status as the Ashford heiress back, she’ll be too happy to complain.”
My fingertips went cold.
Chapter 3
It was absurd. Almost funny.
What made them think that after they trampled me until nothing was left intact, I would still obediently stand in place and wait for them?
The next day, I went out to buy sanitary pads.
At checkout, the cashier told me my card was declined for insufficient funds.
But I had saved two hundred dollars on that card.
When I returned to the estate and opened the door, the three of them were laughing together at the dining table.
A gift bag sat on the table.
My mother fondled the silk scarf in her hands as if she couldn’t bear to put it down.
“Our Sophie is such a thoughtful little angel. You’re already buying gifts for Mom. I’m so happy.”
My father turned the plastic water cup in his hand, grinning so broadly he could barely close his mouth.
“Dad likes his too. That’s my precious daughter.”
Sophie leaned against my mother’s shoulder and pouted. “But the two gifts only cost two hundred dollars. You and Dad won’t blame me for buying something too cheap, will you?”
My mother shook her head at once.
“Of course not. As long as it’s from my precious girl, even two dollars would be priceless to me.”
My father didn’t forget to degrade me while comforting her.
“Exactly. Unlike your sister, who only knows how to spend this family’s money and has never bought us a single gift. An ungrateful little wolf, that’s what she is. How could she ever compare to my Sophie…”
Then they noticed I had come back, and their voices stopped.
Sophie tilted her head and looked at me.
Her smile was full of malice.
That two hundred dollars…
It was two months of living money I had saved.
It was all the money I had.
Cold spread through my whole body. Something in my mind detonated with a roar.
By the time I came back to myself, I had already grabbed Sophie and raised my hand.
But before the slap could fall, my father kicked me away.
My spine struck the sharp corner of the coffee table.
Pain exploded through me, and my vision went black.
Sophie lifted an arm marked by the faintest red patch and sobbed as if the world were ending.
“Mom, Dad, it hurts so much. Is my arm broken?”
My mother shouted in panic, “Call an ambulance!”
My father hurriedly said, “There’s no time for an ambulance. I’ll drive Sophie to the hospital myself.”
Sophie pointed at me where I lay on the floor.
“I don’t want to go by car. This bastard hurt me. I want her to carry me to the hospital.”
The Ashford estate was twenty miles from the nearest hospital downtown.
My mother looked down at me with eyes as cold as glass. “You ungrateful little thing. We fed you, clothed you, raised you for more than ten years, and you still dared to lay a hand on my real daughter. Fine. We’ll do it Sophie’s way.”
When my father saw that I still couldn’t get up, he grabbed me by the arm and hauled me to my feet.