The Unwanted Daughter

Spurn’s POV

Crack! The sound splits through the kitchen like a whip. Pain explodes across my cheek, hot and sharp, and my palms slide against the wet floor where I have been scrubbing on my hands and knees. “What the fuck are you doing? Get up, you lazy piece of shit. You need to wash this for the party.” Crack! My sister’s hand catches me again, and this time my teeth clamp down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. I learned a long time ago not to cry, not to whimper, not to make even the smallest sound. Sound only feeds them. Tears only make them meaner. By the time she finishes screaming, she has a fist in my hair and is dragging me down the basement stairs. My knees hit every step. My scalp burns. The last thing I feel is my body slamming into the cold metal side of the washer, the last thing I hear is her voice calling me worthless. The washer and dryer are not normal household machines. They are industrial size, two washers and two dryers, huge and hard and unforgiving. Being thrown into them feels like being smashed against a wall that could not care whether I break.

My name is Spurn. I am the daughter of Beta Blake and Ursela, though most days daughter feels like a word that belongs to someone else. I have a twin sister named Morgan. We are fraternal twins, so we do not look alike, but sometimes it feels like the Moon Goddess went out of her way to make us opposites. Morgan is tall and blonde, with curves in all the right places and bright blue eyes that make everyone stop and stare. She has our mother’s eyes, our father’s hair, and our father’s strength, which means she is stronger than almost anyone her age. Me? I look like no one in my family. My hair is raven black, my eyes are emerald green, and my skin has an olive tone that makes me stand out in a house full of fair skin and golden hair. I am not curvy like Morgan. I am thin in a way that makes people look away if they have any shame left. Malnourished. All bones and sharp angles. My clothes hang off me because they are nothing but old rags my sister no longer wants, and my hair has lost its shine. My skin is dull and dry, like even my body has given up asking to be cared for. I want to escape this place more than I want my next breath, but I do not know how. My parents only wanted one pup. When my mother found out she was carrying twins, she had already decided one of us was unwanted. Morgan was born first. I came ten minutes later, and somehow those ten minutes became the first thing I ever did wrong.

The abuse did not truly begin until I was six years old. I remember that day because it was our birthday, though only Morgan’s name seemed to matter. I stood in the corner and watched everyone celebrate her again. She opened magnificent gifts, soft new clothes, pretty things wrapped in ribbons, and every smile in the room belonged to her. On my sixth birthday, my gift was being removed from the beta floor and sent to the basement. That was the day they told me I was no longer part of the family. I was the pack slave. From then on, every day of my life came with the same lesson: I was worthless, and no one would ever accept me. I wore Morgan’s castoffs, even when the fabric was ripped thin and stained from being worn too long. I was fed just enough to stay alive, usually once a day, and hunger became a constant ache curled under my ribs.

One night, I thought if I was quiet enough, I could steal a little food and no one would know. I crept into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and reached for something—anything—that might fill the hollow place inside me. Before I could taste it, a strong hand grabbed me from behind. “No, Dad. Stop it, please. I’m so hungry. Stop it, please.” He hit me so hard the kitchen spun white around the edges. Each blow came with his voice. “We don’t tolerate thieves in this pack. You have no right to be in the kitchen after hours. You are the slave.” Those were the last words I heard before he threw me back into the basement. I missed school the next day. Dr. Bennett Cross sat with me until he knew I would survive, and I could see concern in his eyes, but he did not dare say a word.

After that, the beatings only got worse. Eventually, it was not just my father. It was my mother. It was Morgan. Then it became everyone in the pack. I was not only their slave. I was their punching bag. Every beating took me within an inch of my life, and my back became a map of scars from the whip. Somehow, I learned to carry the pain and still make it through school as a straight-A student. Good grades became my secret doorway. If I could earn a scholarship, I could leave this place for college and never look back.

That is what I tell myself every morning when the basement is still dark and the pack house above me has not yet begun to stir. School is the only place where my name appears beside something good. A grade. A score. A scholarship recommendation hidden inside a teacher’s careful smile. They can call me slave in the halls. They can make me scrub floors until my hands crack open. They can feed me scraps and dress me in Morgan’s ruined clothes. But when a test lands on my desk, the answers belong to me. No one can beat them out of my head.

Most mornings, I wake before four, clean the kitchen, wash whatever laundry Morgan has thrown at me, and try to make myself look less like someone who sleeps in a basement. It never works. My clothes are too loose, my shoes are worn thin, and bruises have a way of blooming where sleeves cannot hide them. Still, I go. I carry my books against my chest and walk through Moon Howlers Academy like I belong to the floor more than the halls. No one sits with me. No one walks beside me. The few who pity me keep that pity quiet because kindness toward me is dangerous.

Teachers notice. I know they do. Some look at the marks on my arms and look away. Some slide extra worksheets onto my desk because they know I will finish them before anyone else. Mrs. Halden, my literature teacher, once wrote, You have a brilliant mind. Do not let this place convince you otherwise, across the top of an essay. I folded that paper so many times the crease nearly tore through the words. It was the closest thing to praise I owned. Whenever I start to feel defeated, I look at the message Mrs. Halden wrote me. I will hold on to this because it gives me hope.