Chapter 2

Days later, I was in a hospital bed in David' s mansion. Not for care, but for harvesting. A cold doctor stood over me, his face showing no emotion. He slid a needle into my arm.

"1000cc," he said to his young assistant.

The assistant looked at me, pale and weak on the bed. "Sir, will this kill her? Did she do something terrible?"

The doctor sneered. "What do you know? Patients from those clinics aren't really human. Mr. Sterling is being merciful just by letting her live."

He pulled the needle out. The room spun. I clutched the single baby shoe I had managed to hide, the last piece of Anna I had. Tears soaked my hair, silent and hot.

Sarah wanted my blood. She had heard that bathing in the blood of "special patients" could keep her young. David arranged for them to draw it every three days. He told me if I tried to kill myself, he would feed Anna's body to the alligators in the back swamp.

The doctor left. The door burst open again. A housekeeper with a grim face threw a sheet at me. It landed on my face, wet and heavy with the metallic smell of stale blood.

"Mrs. Miller wants you to wash this," she said, her voice full of disgust.

I stumbled outside. The sun was scorching hot. My head felt light and my body trembled. I managed to hang the heavy, blood-stained sheet on the line before the world went black. I collapsed onto the hot stone patio.

I woke up to the sound of laughter. David and Sarah were home. They walked arm-in-arm, followed by bodyguards carrying dozens of shopping bags from designer stores. I remembered asking David for a $600 stroller for Anna. He had yelled at me, called me wasteful. Now, he didn't even blink as Sarah showed off things worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Sarah saw me on the ground. She shrieked and buried her face in David' s chest, pretending to be scared.

David frowned. He saw my pale face, my dirty clothes. He walked over, picked up a bucket of ice water from the patio bar, and dumped it all over me.

"Olivia, what are you doing?" he snapped. "Sarah just recovered from her scare. If you frighten her again, I won't forgive you!"

The ice-cold water shocked my system. I was still weak from childbirth and the blood loss. I shivered violently, curling into a tight ball on the ground, trying to find some warmth that wasn't there.

Sarah peeked out from behind David's arm. "Aren't these modified people supposed to be super resilient?" she said with a laugh. "How can she be so tired from washing one sheet?"

David' s face darkened with anger. "Olivia, do you think playing weak will make me let you go? I' ll make you pay for every single thing you did to Sarah!"

He pointed a finger at me. "Get her to the screening room. Make her 'understand' what she's done."