Chapter 1

I died on a cold operating table.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the hospital, my parents were celebrating my older sister Betty Chase's new lease on life.

An hour earlier, my mother, Dr. Mary Piper, had forced me into that operating room even though my body was far too weak for the procedure. When I begged her to stop, she only sneered.

"Zoey, quit your acting," she said. "It's just a bone marrow donation. Do you think it's going to kill you? You were born with rotten luck, and I've told you a hundred times: this life of yours only exists because your sister does. You owe it to her."

I sobbed until I could barely breathe, my whole body shaking with cold.

I'd been my sister's walking blood bag since the day I was born.

Whatever she needed, however much of me it took, none of it had ever mattered, not even if they drained me completely dry.

My parents always said the same thing: if my sister hadn't gotten sick, I never would have been born at all. She was the reason I existed, so I owed her, and I was supposed to pay that debt back.

But who could really accept being born for someone else's sake, and wasn't even allowed to choose their own death?

I bit down on my lip and fought against them, my body swaying, worn thin from years of having my blood drawn.

"I want to live, Mom. I just want to live."

Staying alive should have been the simplest thing in the world. For me, it was a luxury I couldn't afford.

It wasn't that I refused to donate marrow to my sister. It was that my body, in its current state, wouldn't survive the slightest mistake.

Mom's eyes stayed cold as she pushed the anesthesia into my veins, then dragged me onto the operating table like a slab of meat. My mind slipped further into fog with every second, and I trembled with fear.

Grief and injustice welled up inside me all at once.

I could feel the cold press of her instruments against my hand. Her expression was grave and composed, her hands perfectly steady.

She really was the hospital's top surgeon. She couldn't even change her expression for her own daughter.

I squeezed my eyes shut against the pain, my heart pounding hard in my chest.

But soon enough, that heart would stop being alive at all.

In the last second before I lost consciousness, there was no one left beside me. Mom had already taken the marrow and rushed off to her beloved older daughter, leaving me alone on the table.

Pain tore through my whole body. I wanted to call for help, wanted to scream for my mother.

But nobody came. To save her precious daughter, Mom had taken every last member of the medical staff with her. She didn't even glance back at me.

Tears slid down my face as I died slowly, drowning in endless despair.

The instant my soul left my body, I clutched at my chest. The pain was suffocating.

It took me a long moment to claw my way out of that feeling. I forced out a breath.

My own body lay right in front of me, looking wretched, its eyes still open, unwilling to close even in death.

My mother's voice drifted in from somewhere nearby, and I floated toward it.

She was shouting, thrilled, "It worked! It worked!"

I didn't know exactly when it had happened, but I guessed Betty's surgery must have gone well.

As my older sister, she'd never given me anything in return. Meanwhile, I'd just paid for her with my own life.

Mom worked methodically, transfusing my marrow into Betty and monitoring her for complications.

Time passed quickly. By evening, Betty was awake.

Mom held her close, crying with worry, cursing my name the whole time.

"My poor baby, you've been through so much. Thank god that little wretch Zoey didn't slow things down, or I'd have drained every last drop out of her hide."

She never once asked whether I was safe. She never even remembered I'd been left behind in the operating room.

All she cared about was how much her older daughter had suffered, and how close I'd come to ruining her surgery.

A sharp ache burned behind my nose. I covered my mouth and answered in a whisper, "I'm dead, Mom. I died on your operating table. Are you happy now?"