Framed, Starved, Then Proven Innocent After Death

On a night twenty degrees below zero, in the middle of a blizzard, my own parents stripped off my coat and locked me outside.

All because my sister said she felt cold. To survive, I struck a bargain with a stranger—my own health as the price.

From that night on, my body began to fall apart. I told my parents I felt sick. They said I was faking it again, just to steal my sister's attention.

Then came the ice skating competition. Racked with pain, I begged them on my knees to let me withdraw.

They said, "This is Daphne's dream. You have to help her make it come true."

I was forced onto the ice. One jump. My bones shattered on landing.

When I collapsed and couldn't get up again, they finally realized—I hadn't been lying.

"Mom, please, it's snowing outside—"

I clung to Odette's arm, my voice shaking so hard I could barely form the words.

"I'll freeze to death out here. Please don't close the door. I'll do anything you say—"

"Rowan. You're going to stand right there."

Odette wrenched her arm free.

"Until you understand exactly what it feels like when Daphne can't breathe the warm air."

"Mom! I didn't do anything—"

The door slammed shut before I could finish.

I stood barefoot in the snow, alone in the middle of the mansion's garden, wearing nothing but a thin gray shirt.

Daphne is my twin sister. Born seven minutes after me.

Those seven minutes have cost me seventeen years of blame.

Daphne had been fragile since birth. The slightest drop in temperature and she'd struggle to breathe. Alaric and Odette had turned nearly the whole house into a climate-controlled greenhouse just for her.

But she still got sick anyway.

And every time Daphne got sick, every time she cried that she was cold, my parents dragged me outside—or dumped me into a bathtub filled with ice.

They believed it was my fault.

"If you just take on all the cold for her, Daphne won't feel it anymore."

When Daphne's throat hurt, they forced fistfuls of coarse salt down my throat.

When she ran a fever, they locked me in the basement all night with no heat.

I used to cry, begging them to stop.

All I ever got back was a slap across the face from my father, Alaric.

"Shut your mouth! If you hadn't stolen her nutrients in the womb, she wouldn't have been born so weak. You owe her this."

I never understood it.

Why did every one of Daphne's weaknesses have to become one of my crimes?

Snowflakes landed on my skin. They didn't melt anymore.

My heartbeat was slowing.

God, it was so cold.

I used to believe that if I stayed obedient enough, patient enough, one day they'd finally see I was innocent.

Now I understood the truth.

In this family, my existence itself was the crime.

I let my eyes fall shut.

So this is what it feels like to freeze to death.

I almost envied Daphne. She was probably curled up by the fireplace right now, sipping hot tea.

Just as my consciousness began to slip completely into the dark—

The storm stopped.

A man in a black vintage coat appeared before me, holding a black umbrella.

"Poor little thing. Your soul's practically frozen solid."

"Who... who are you?"

He crouched down, tilting my chin up with one finger.

"I'm a merchant of the crossroads. Pay the right price, and I can give you anything you want."

I forced my eyes open and stared at him.

"I'm... so cold."

"I want... to stop feeling cold. I want to live through tonight."

I want to prove to my parents that none of this was ever my fault.

"Stop feeling cold? That's simple enough. But my deals don't run on credit. What do you have to offer?"

I thought about it.

I had nothing.

No money. No love. Not even this body—it had never really belonged to me anyway.

"All I have... is this life."

Something flickered behind the demon's red eyes. Surprise, maybe.

"Once you pawn it, your body will start failing—fast. Your bones will turn brittle. Your organs will rot. You'll die in unbearable agony, and there's no taking it back. Are you sure?"

I nodded.

"Then they'll stop thinking I stole Daphne's health... Just—just make the cold stop. That's all I need right now."

Besides, what good was a healthy body anyway, if all it was ever going to be used for was absorbing Daphne's pain?

The demon sighed and hung a necklace around my neck—a coin forged from something black as midnight.

"Deal's done. From this moment on, you'll never feel cold again."

Warmth—strange, unnatural warmth—spread out from my palm and rushed through every inch of my body.

That bone-deep cold vanished completely.

I got to my feet, brushed the snow from my clothes, and started walking toward the house on feet gone purple with frostbite—one step, then another, toward the door that had shut me out.

I didn't notice it then.

But in every footprint I left behind in the snow, a few drops of dark red blood were already soaking into the white.

My body had begun to break.