Chapter 2

Seren's POV

The new girl was named Eloise Pemberton. In her early twenties, wearing a high ponytail and a healthy apple-red glow on her cheeks, she vibrated with the energy of a young deer.

"I can do any chore, I'm not afraid of hard work," she stood before my mother, nervously twisting the hem of her shirt. "I grew up in an orphanage. I have no family. I really need this job."

My mother transformed.

The perpetually gloomy woman who slapped me at the drop of a hat was now gently holding Eloise's hands, refusing to let her touch anything dirty, only assigning her light paperwork.

"You poor child, this is your home now," she cooed, spoon-feeding her premium bird's nest soup she had boiled for five hours.

I stood in the shadows behind the door, nails digging into my palms. Jealousy bit into my heart like a viper, drilling deeper with every bite. Why? I am her flesh and blood. Yet she looked at Eloise like a rare, priceless treasure.

On the third day, a black bulletproof Maybach slammed its brakes at the back door.

A widow dripping in designer brands dragged a girl inside. The girl was remarkably ugly, with a heavy face and stubborn acne, cowering behind her mother in terror.

"Rosalind, I'm out of time!" The widow slammed a blank check onto the desk, her eyes bloodshot and manic. "The inheritance my dead husband left isn't enough. I've set my sights on a real estate tycoon, but that old bastard's biological daughter is beautiful as a fairy!"

She yanked her own daughter forward, her face twisted. "Make us beautiful. I want to utterly crush that little bitch and take all the old man's money. Take my life if you have to!"

My mother glanced coldly at the check, a grotesque smile creeping onto her lips.

"Eloise, come inside and help me."

My brain buzzed. My mother never let anyone assist with her core treatments; it was an ironclad rule.

"She doesn't know anything, how can she help?" I blurted out.

My mother whipped her head around. Her gaze was a poisoned ice blade that pinned me to the spot. Without a word, she turned and led the widow, her daughter, and a bewildered Eloise into the treatment room.

Five minutes later, the screaming started.

It was agonizing, like someone being skinned alive. What was more suffocating was that it didn't stop for forty excruciating minutes.

I slumped by the stairs, cold sweat drenching my back. What was happening in there? Was someone dying?

The heavy door finally opened.

Holding my breath, I stared at the two women walking out—

The widow's dead skin and wrinkles were wiped clean; her complexion was like porcelain. Even the heavily-featured daughter was now as delicately beautiful as an expensive doll in a shop window, looking so perfect it nearly hypnotized me.

They shrieked with ecstatic laughter at the mirror, signed a staggering figure, and strutted out.

"Where is Eloise?" I squeezed the words through a trembling throat, looking at the half-open clinic door.

My mother, pale as paper, looked at me with an eerie calm. "Go to town and fill this prescription. Talk less, do more."

I took the script, not daring to utter another syllable.

I practically ran for my life to the town pharmacy. My heart sank to the bottom of my stomach when the pharmacist slammed a box of meds on the counter.

Dextran, recombinant human erythropoietin, massive doses of high-concentration iron—

These were all blood-recovery agents used for extreme, life-threatening hemorrhagic shock.

The pharmacist, a one-eyed old man, looked at me like I was a walking corpse and sneered. "Little girl, with the doses your mother buys... if she isn't the worst quack in town, she must be a vampire."

The word "vampire" smashed into my skull like a sledgehammer.

Freezing cold, I hugged the box of drugs and ran back to the clinic.

A few days later, another VIP female client in sunglasses arrived quietly. My mother took Eloise into the room again. Same blood-curdling screams, same rejuvenated client leaving. After seeing the woman off, my mother stroked Eloise's head, a manic fire in her eyes: "Such a good girl. Later on, this clinic will be yours to run."

My feet were nailed to the floor, my stomach churning.

Let Eloise take over? Mother swore she'd never hand her life's work to anyone. Who was she lying to?

For a whole week after that, Eloise was nowhere to be seen. This afternoon, taking advantage of my mother being in the kitchen, I finally couldn't hold back. Tiptoeing, I inched toward Eloise's closed door.

My trembling fingers had just grasped the cold doorknob when—

A heavy, muffled blow exploded against my face, shattering my consciousness. My vision went black as I was thrown backward, slamming hard against the hallway wall.

My mother stood over me like a ghost.

"What exactly are you trying to see?!" Her eyes bulged, viciously bloodshot, her voice crawling straight out of hell. "I warned you. Take one more step toward this room, and I'll gouge out those cheap eyes of yours that look just like Nathaniel's."