Chapter 2

Five years ago, the day my mother was diagnosed, I walked out of the hospital with nowhere left to turn.

I sat down on the steps outside and buried my face in my knees. The tears wouldn't fall and wouldn't go away.

Then I heard the voice.

[Host in crisis detected. Emotional Conquest System now active.]

My head snapped up. I thought I was hallucinating, that I'd finally lost my mind.

[The host must select a target and complete one hundred of the target's demands, until the target is willing to marry the host.]

[Upon completion, the system will grant the host one wish.]

I didn't even have to think. "Cure my mother."

[Wish locked. Please select a target.]

My phone lit up. I scrolled through my contacts and stopped on Ethan.

The Harts had money, resources, connections. He was the obvious choice.

[Target locked.]

That night I went to his apartment, knelt on the floor, and begged.

"Ethan, I'll do anything. Just marry me."

Ethan lounged on the couch, one leg crossed over the other, flicking a Zippo open and shut.

"Beg me? With what?"

"You can give me a hundred demands. Anything you want. I'll do all of them."

He gave a soft laugh, tossed the lighter onto the table, sank back into the couch, and watched me through half-closed eyes.

"All right. Get down and kowtow to me first."

I bent forward and pressed my forehead to the floor with a dull thud.

The hardwood was cold, and the cold spread up through my knees and into the rest of me.

[Progress: one percent.]

His friends laughed, the sound passing around the room.

"Ethan, this girl's something else. You tell her to kowtow and she just does it?"

Ethan had a cigarette between his lips, his eyes narrowed, smoke leaking from the corner of his mouth.

I didn't stop. I kept going until my forehead split and blood ran down past my brow and dripped onto the floor.

It ran into my eyes and blurred everything. I forced my head up and looked at him.

"Is that enough?"

He didn't answer. He found a damp towel and wiped the blood off my face.

His voice was very quiet. "Nora, are you stupid?"

"Fine. Finish a hundred demands and I'll marry you."

We signed an agreement, and from that day on Ethan was my fiancé.

What followed could be summed up in one word: a transaction.

He made demands. I carried them out.

One night Ethan had a fight with his family, and Vivian happened to be out of the country, so there was no one to keep him company.

He sat alone on his apartment floor and drank, empty bottles all around him.

When I picked up the phone, his voice was slurred.

"Nora, didn't you say you'd do anything?"

"Yes."

"Then go buy some rat poison and swallow it."

I paused on my end of the line. Then I said okay.

I went to an all-night convenience store, bought a packet, and got it down.

My stomach started to churn. A burning pain clawed up from somewhere deep, and I curled in on myself and passed out.

When I woke up I was in the hospital, with a tube down my throat.

Not long after, Vivian got sick and needed a transfusion. As it happened, we had the same blood type.

Ethan called me. "Come to the hospital. Vivian needs blood."

I tried to refuse. "I'm anemic. The doctor said donating could be dangerous for me."

He just scoffed. "Don't lie. It's only blood. It won't kill you."

In the end I went.

When the needle went in, the nurse looked at me twice and asked if I was feeling all right, said I looked pale.

I said I was fine. But when I stood up afterward, everything went black.

I woke in a hospital bed with no one beside me.

Ethan was in the next room with Vivian, never leaving her side.

One wall between us, and he wouldn't even come look at me once.

After that his demands only got worse.

When his company went under, he told me to hand over everything I had, and I did.

Then he moved Vivian into my house and left me to sleep in my car.

The night he was tangled up with Vivian at a private party, he sent me over with something for his hangover, and made a point of telling me to bring a box of condoms, the right size.

I stood at the door holding the soup I'd made and heard him sneer. "She's my ATM. I use her, then I throw her out."

He'd gotten used to me coming whenever he called, used to me saying yes to everything, used to all the things I did for him.

It never once crossed his mind that one day I would leave.