The Unwanted Daughter
Spurn’s POV
Crack! The sound split in the kitchen like a whip. Pain exploded across my cheek, hot and sharp, and my palms slid against the wet floor where I had been scrubbing on my hands and knees. “What the f**k are you doing? Get up, you lazy piece of s**t. You need to wash this for the party.” Crack! My sister’s hand caught me again, and this time my teeth clamped down on the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood. I had learned a long time ago not to cry, not to whimper, not to make even the smallest sound. Sound only fed them. Tears only made them meaner. By the time she finished screaming, she had a fist in my hair and was dragging me down the basement stairs. My knees hit every step. My scalp burned. The last thing I felt was my body slamming into the cold metal side of the washer. The last thing I heard was her voice calling me worthless. The washer and dryer were not normal household machines. They were industrial size, two washers and two dryers, huge and hard and unforgiving. Being thrown into them felt like being smashed against a wall that could not care whether I broke.
My name is Spurn. I am the daughter of Beta Blake and Ursula, though most days, daughter feels like a word that belongs to someone else. I have a twin sister named Morgan. We are non-identical 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 was what I told myself every morning when the basement was still dark and the pack house above me had not yet begun to stir. School was the only place where my name appeared beside something good. A grade. A score. A scholarship recommendation hidden inside a teacher’s careful smile. They could call me slave in the halls. They could make me scrub floors until my hands cracked open. They could feed me scraps and dress me in Morgan’s ruined clothes. But when a test landed on my desk, the answers belonged to me. No one could beat them out of my head.
Most mornings, I woke before four, cleaned the kitchen, washed whatever laundry Morgan had thrown at me, and tried to make myself look less like someone who slept in a basement. It never worked. My clothes were too loose, my shoes were worn thin, and bruises had a way of blooming where sleeves could not hide them. Still, I went. I carried my books against my chest and walked through Moon Howlers Academy like I belonged to the floor more than the halls. No one sat with me. No one walked beside me. The few who pitied me kept that pity quiet because kindness toward me was dangerous.
Teachers noticed. I knew they did. Some looked at the marks on my arms and looked away. Some slid extra worksheets onto my desk because they knew I would 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.
