Chapter 3

When I got back to the mansion, the house was empty. They were still at the hospital with their perfect, precious daughter.

I wandered into the living room. It was huge, with a fireplace big enough to stand in. And hanging above it was a piece of art.

It was a stunning piece of digital art, a complex, surreal landscape of floating islands and crystalline trees. A small plaque underneath it read: "First Prize, National Youth Art Competition. Ashley Parker."

My breath caught in my throat.

I designed that.

It was a concept I had sketched out in a tattered notebook a year ago. I' d spent months trying to render it on my old, secondhand computer. But every single time I got close, the computer would crash. The files would corrupt. I' d lose everything and have to start over. After the fifth time, I gave up, convinced I just didn' t have the talent.

The comments appeared, confirming my worst fears.

[The villain' s artistic talent was the first thing the system siphoned. Ashley needed it for her art school application!]

[It' s so beautiful! Good thing Ashley got it. The villain would have just wasted it.]

Bitterness rose in my throat, hot and sharp. It wasn' t just luck. She was stealing my skills, my dreams, my very potential.

I looked at the painting, at the signature in the corner. Ashley' s signature.

So this was how it was going to be.

Fine. If she wanted my talent, she could have it. But she' d have to deal with the consequences.

I went up to the guest room they had assigned me. I took out my textbooks, my notebooks, my art supplies. And I put them all away in the bottom of the closet.

From now on, Hailey, the hardworking student, was gone.

I was going to do nothing. I was going to slack off. I was going to let my grades plummet and my skills atrophy.

Let' s see how the "Luck-Siphon System" liked that.