Chapter 3

He wasn't hiding. He was lying in the bathtub with a shallow cut across his wrist that had already started closing.

A note sat beside him.

It said, "Remy called me stupid, weak, and useless. He said I don't deserve to inherit the Weller family and that I should die."

My father scooped Victor up and ran outside, his legs going so weak he nearly went down twice.

My mother lost all the color in her face. She pressed both hands over Victor's wrist and screamed for help as they rushed for the hospital.

They were so frantic that they knocked into me on the way past and sent me down the stairs without noticing.

The pain nearly kept me from standing, but terror carried me to the hospital on one bad leg.

The second my mother saw me, she crossed the hall and hit my face again and again.

The blows left me unable to breathe.

"If Victor had never gotten sick, you'd have had no reason to exist.

"How dare you say something like that to my son?"

Her voice drove into my ringing ears like a needle.

My father grabbed the back of my neck and dragged me into a treatment room.

A cold needle went into my arm, and the look on his face was terrifying.

"We made you to save my son. We fed you and clothed you all these years, and this is how you pay him back?"

What they drew through the line left me too dizzy to speak.

My mouth opened, but I couldn't get out either sentence sitting inside me.

I didn't hurt Victor. I'm your son too.

When it was over, my parents left without looking back.

The stress and blood loss brought on a high fever, and the terrible thirst came back.

A night nurse named Delia Roarke found me and started shouting after one look.

"Whose kid is this? His fever's dangerously high. Where are his parents?"

I pointed weakly toward the next room, but when she tried to lift me, I went down.

The noise finally brought my parents out, and Delia laid into them.

"What kind of parents leave a child with a fever this high and a broken leg?"

Only then did they notice my right leg twisted out of place below the knee and the blood soaking my pants.

For one second, something like pain crossed my mother's face. She took my burning body from Delia.

It was the first time I'd ever leaned against her.

I breathed in the smell of her coat greedily, and then Victor started crying from the other room.

"Mom, Dad, don't worry about me.

"Every time you pay attention to me, Remy hurts himself on purpose. He's healthy. I'm just a sick burden. Let me go."

My father threw me down on the floor.

He looked at me with heartbreak and disgust.

"Remy, how did you get this calculating?

"Victor's so kind. Why couldn't you have been the sick one?"

The little bit of guilt in my mother's eyes disappeared and turned into contempt.

"Having you nearly killed me.

"The embryo testing showed a perfect match, and your cells still failed to rebuild Victor's marrow. Now he'll depend on you for the rest of his life.

"And now you want him dead so you can take his place. Remy, we can't afford what your donor cells cost this family. Get out."

Everything in me went cold, and I forgot how to breathe.

I dropped to my knees, grabbed my mother's hand, and hit my own face with it.

"Mom, please don't get rid of me.

"I was wrong to compete with Victor. I deserve to be punished for not curing him. I'm the guilty one. Please don't send me away."

I didn't remember how long I stayed on my knees. I only remembered waking up after crying myself unconscious, and learning that because I'd walked so far on the fracture before anyone treated it, my leg had healed with a permanent limp.