Chapter 1

On the first day of summer break, I got kicked out of the house to go work off my father's gambling debts.

What I actually did was empty every cent of my savings to check myself into a private correction center.

I gave them only one condition.

"I want to not go soft when my father comes to me covered in bruises, begging for money. I want to feel no guilt when my mother cries about how hard her life is. I want to feel no pity when my little brother asks me to take care of him."

"I want to become a complete egotist."

My money was too little, so a three-month program got compressed into twenty days.

In those twenty days, every feeling I had for my family was warped.

At the final exam, the instructor asked me only one question.

"If your father owed a huge debt, and he'd die unless you paid it off, what would you do?"

I smiled.

"Let him die."

"Congratulations. You've graduated."

...

The instructor handed me a graduation certificate.

I took it and left without a word.

For the rest of summer break, I went looking for somewhere to keep working and earning money.

That money was all I had to cover the cost of repeating senior year.

My parents called, and I didn't answer a single one.

The instructor had said anything that disturbed my own mood, I was allowed to refuse.

I was a top graduate. I kept that firmly in mind and carried it out without wavering.

I only went home when break was nearly over and school was about to start.

The place was the same old mess. My father lay on the floor with a swollen, bruised face, groaning and moaning.

My mother sat off to the side cracking sunflower seeds and watching TV, not sparing him a single glance.

When he saw me, his eyes lit up.

"My good girl, how much did you earn? Why didn't you answer the phone? Those debt collectors nearly beat me to death!"

He lunged at me, going straight for the bag on my back.

I twisted aside.

"You gambled again?"

He rubbed his hands together, grinning.

"I was just trying to win it back so you'd have less pressure, that's all. Bad luck, that's all. Owe a little more now."

"Not much. Just ten thousand."

At the electronics factory I stood from morning to night, ten hours a day, and made two hundred.

I stood for twenty-eight days, until my legs swelled up, and it came to just forty-six hundred.

But my father, light as air, had gone and lost ten thousand.

I'd expected myself to fall apart, to shout at him, sick of his failures: "Didn't you say you'd stop gambling? Didn't you say you'd work hard and provide for the family?"

I pressed a hand to my steadily beating heart.

Nothing.

I felt nothing at all.

As if the man in front of me wasn't worth wasting a single glance on.

Through those twenty days and nights at the correction center, the instructor set photos of my parents in front of me every hour, playing all their sob stories in a synthesized electronic voice.

The moment anything inside me wavered, he shocked me without hesitation. Even if I wet myself, he'd keep shocking me until I was immune to scenes like this and could make the most self-serving choice.

Every time I chose wrong, he'd pull up my SAT scores.

The English column, that glaring zero, was what choosing my parents got me.

And now I was home. This was exactly the test of what I'd learned.

My father paid no mind to my cold stare, his eyes darting toward my backpack again and again.

"Daddy doesn't want much. Just give me five thousand, I'll pay off the one hounding me hardest first. Sweetheart, you can't bear to see your daddy's hands broken, can you?"

He held out his bruised hands, pitiful.

Before, seeing him this wretched, I'd have handed over the money I'd worked for to pay his debts without meaning to.

I was truly afraid he'd be beaten to death, and then I'd have no father at all.

Blood, morality, pity, duty. Every one of them had dragged me down and pinned me in this swamp called family, unable to move.

But now, I only sighed mechanically and said in a cold, flat voice:

"The instructor said anything that harms my own interests is an enemy."

The first rule the correction center instructor taught me.

There's no need to go soft on an enemy.

"So how come your hands didn't get broken?"

My eyes circled over his hands, as if it were a real shame.

All he could do was gamble anyway. What did he need hands for?

He yanked his hands back fast, staring at me with alarmed confusion.

He hesitated.

"Sybie, are you just worn out from work?"

My mother stopped cracking her seeds and looked over too.

"You know I'm worn out, and you're still blocking the doorway?"

I shoved him aside and strode into my room.

Two months away, and the room had gathered a fair layer of dust.

I dropped my bag on the chair and reported the situation at home to the instructor.

"Did you go soft?"

"No. He just seemed loud to me. He's in debt, so why doesn't he go die? Death cancels the debt. Wouldn't that be nice."

"Good. Keep it up. Remember, you give an inch and they'll take ten. You're my best student. Don't ruin my reputation."

I kept the instructor's warning in my heart.

"Yes, instructor."