Chapter 2

Sometime after midnight, the greenhouse door eased open.

I was half asleep in the dirt. I heard it, but I didn't move.

Then a sharp chemical stink spread through the air.

Tessa was stamping Mom's orchids flat.

She had two bottles of weed killer, and she was spraying the whole greenhouse down with them.

Then she locked the door from the outside.

The fumes spread. My throat tightened and breathing got hard.

Going by ten lifetimes of experience: pesticide, mid-range way to go.

I shifted into a more comfortable position and took a long, deep pull of it.

Good. This time it should finish the job properly.

Right as my mind started slipping loose, there was a crash outside and one of the night security men shoved the glass door open.

Fresh air poured in. Someone dragged me out by the arms.

Every light in the house came on at once.

Mom, Dad, and Ryan came running into the greenhouse.

Mom took in the wreckage and clutched her chest. "My orchids! I spent three years on those!"

Dad turned, grabbed me by the collar, and slapped me hard across the face.

"Claire! Your mother finally got them to bloom and you ripped up every last one!"

My cheek burned.

I rubbed it and sighed, a little regretfully, then pointed at the corner of the ceiling.

"Wasn't me. There's a camera up there. You can check."

Tessa went bloodless and clutched the hem of her dress tightly.

Ryan gave a cold laugh and strode over. "Fine, let's check. That way you can stop acting like the world's greatest victim."

Tessa tried to stop him, but the housekeeper already had the footage up.

There she was on screen, glancing left and right, stamping and tearing at the orchids, and finally spraying poison like a madwoman.

So much for that.

Tessa dropped to her knees, tears running prettily down her face.

"Mom, I didn't mean to.

"I saw her sleeping in a planter box. She was obviously doing it to humiliate this family.

"I got so angry I couldn't think straight. My hands just — it wasn't me."

Not one of them stopped to consider that concentrated weed killer in a sealed room could have killed me.

Instead Ryan pulled Tessa up, all tenderness, then wheeled around and jabbed a finger at me.

"You hear that? This is still your fault for insisting on sleeping somewhere even a dog wouldn't sleep.

"Tessa's always cared about this family's reputation. If you hadn't pushed her past her limit, would she have ruined the orchids?"

I looked at them. My voice came out dead.

"There's no room for me in this house. Where am I supposed to sleep?"

That stopped Mom and Dad cold.

Mom looked at Dad. "You didn't give her a room?"

Dad frowned. "I thought you did."

Ryan had gone red to the ears, like I'd personally set fire to his day.

"If you didn't have a room, do you not have a mouth? Instead you stuff yourself into a vent, into a planter box.

"You want people outside this house saying the Ashfords mistreat you, is that it?"

I shut my mouth. There was no point answering.

As long as I could lie down and wait to die, it didn't much matter where.

Ryan looked at me lying there past caring what anyone said to me, and he lost it completely.

"You love being a body so much? You love playing dead for sympathy? Then let me help you out."

He turned and gave the security men an order. A long wooden chest came in a minute later and hit the living room floor with a thud.

"Starting tonight, you sleep in this. Let's see how long you can keep playing dead."

"Thank you."

I didn't hesitate. I stepped into the box and lay flat.

Ryan kicked the side of it, hard.

"Look at you. Every day, some cheap little stunt to disgust everyone.

"You'd better die in there and keep quiet about it. Lock it."

The latch went down with a click.

Absolute darkness closed in.

The box fit snugly, exactly the right length, as if it had been made to my measurements.

The pressure of it around me was solid and real. Comfortable — genuinely like being buried.

I let the corner of my mouth curl up and closed my eyes, content.