2
It was Jake Miller, my brother, the one who’d
loved me for twenty years.
When bullies made me cry as a kid, he’d
always hold me and say, “Nobody messes
with Daisy when I’m around.”
<
But after Summer gained a pound from my
diet plan, costing her the lead dancer role, he
started spiking my milk with hormones every
day.
Watching me swell up, he didn’t even blink.
“If it wasn’t for you, Summer wouldn’t have
been kidnapped for over a decade. Now
you’re trying to wreck her dreams? I’ll make
you pay, a hundred times over.”
I stared at my brother, my mouth going dry.
School princess? Self–respect?
From the second they dropped me off at that
camp, there was no school princess, no self-
respect.
Those instructors knew all the tricks to break
a spoiled brat like me.
The more I fought, the worse it got.
To survive, I had to learn to grovel.
For the first month, I still had hope. I escaped,
half–dead, and begged him for help.
But he just shoved me away, like he was
doing now, and sent me back to that hellhole.
“Daisy, I thought you’d finally learned, but
you’re still the same.”
“You knew I was coming to get you, so you
dressed like this for sympathy. Now acting
like you’re crazy?! You only went here to lose
weight and learn some manners. You lost
<
acting like you’re crazy?!”
“You like kneeling? You like begging? Then
kneel right here. Otherwise, forget about
leaving this place!”
He grabbed a box of beer bottles from the
trunk and smashed them all over the ground.
He must have thought I’d do the old Daisy
thing, get righteously angry, and give him a
piece of my mind.
But I didn’t. I just dropped to my knees on all
that broken glass.
The stench of blood mixed with beer, a sharp,
stinging pain shooting through me, but I bit
down so hard my lip bled, without making a
sound.
Г
I wasn’t going back to that nightmare. They’d
beat me, burn me with cigarettes, starve me,
and even make me strip naked and confess in
front of everyone.
My desperate screams only made them laugh
harder, searching for new ways to break me,
so they could play new mind games next time.
I was doing exactly what he wanted, but Jake
still looked furious.
“Daisy, are you insane? You do everything
you’re told? This dieting messed with your
brain!
“I don’t care if you’re faking or not. This isn’t
the time. When we see Summer, you better
get down on your knees and beg for her
く
He shoved me into the car.
Everywhere I looked, I saw signs of her.
A cartoon sticker of Summer and Jake
making silly faces was plastered on the
dashboard, with “Summer’s Seat” written on
- it.
I thought I was past caring, but seeing all that
still stung.
Jake kept lecturing me.
“Mom and Dad have missed you this year.
They had to send you away. Just don’t do
anything to cause problems. Don’t make
things difficult for Mom and Dad.”
<
“Mom and Dad have missed you this year.
They sent you away because they don’t want
to see your bad habits. The family can’t stand
you.”
Missed me? Why didn’t they ever visit?
A few times, after I was beaten so badly they
had to rush me to the ER, I begged the
nurses to call them.
But as soon as they heard my name, they
hung up.
“I only have one daughter, Summer. I don’t
care about anyone else. Don’t call this
number again.”
“You haven’t learned in all this time, then just
く
stay there for another year. Get that in your
head.”
Seeing me staring, Jake glared at me in the
rearview mirror.
“Are you deaf?”
His tone sent a jolt of fear through me.
I couldn’t argue.
Arguing meant being stubborn, and being
stubborn meant being held underwater for
hours, just my nostrils above the surface, until
I learned to be soft.
I swallowed my fear and whispered, “Okay.”
This pathetic act only made Jake frown
harder, but he didn’t say anything else.
