Chapter 1

The glow of the Chromebook screen cast a pale blue light across Sophie’s face as she hunched over her homework. The machine ran slow, agonizingly slow, and the screen flickered every time she switched between tabs. A MacBook. That’s all she wanted. Something sleek and silver, something that didn’t take five minutes to load a single webpage. But Mom was already gone most of the time, working doubles at the hospital and then pulling shifts at the gas station off Highway 19. Sophie knew better than to ask.

Her stomach growled, a low, persistent ache that pulled her focus from the algebra worksheet. She hadn’t eaten since the stale cereal that morning. She pushed back from the wobbly desk chair and padded barefoot down the hallway, the worn carpet scratching softly beneath her feet.

The house was dead quiet. No television. No music. No Charlene. She was supposed to be here. That was the arrangement. Mom worked, Charlene watched Sophie, and somehow that last part never actually happened. Charlene was always gone, off doing her “adult responsibilities,” as she called them with a smug little eye roll whenever Sophie pressed her. She never elaborated. She never apologized. She just left, and Sophie was alone in this small, stale house somewhere outside Spring Hill, Florida.

The kitchen light was off. Sophie flipped the switch and opened the refrigerator. The shelves were mostly bare, a half-empty jar of peanut butter, some wilted lettuce, a container of leftover rice. And there, on the second shelf, sat a half-finished milkshake from PDQ. The cup was still cold, condensation beading on the outside. One of the fancy ones with the whipped cream and the chocolate drizzle on the lid. Charlene’s.

Sophie stared at it. The anger came quick and hot, rising in her chest like a fever. She hadn’t even asked. Charlene had ordered food, good food, and didn’t bother to text, didn’t bother to knock on Sophie’s door, didn’t even bring her a single fry. She grabbed the milkshake, wrapped her small fingers around the cold cup, and shut the fridge harder than she meant to. The sound echoed through the empty kitchen. She took a long sip as she walked towards her bedroom. It was warming now, the ice cream thin and watery, but it was sweet, and her stomach accepted it gratefully.

As she reached the end of the hallway, a sharp ping echoed from down the hall. Then another. Then a third in quick succession. Charlene’s bedroom door was wide open. A violation of the unspoken rule that Sophie was never to go inside. But Charlene wasn’t here to enforce it. Sophie drifted toward the sound, milkshake still in hand, and stopped in the doorway.

The room was a disaster. Clothes were strewn across every surface, lace bras, crop tops, denim shorts, thongs balled up in the corner like discarded candy wrappers. The bed was unmade, the sheets twisted and half-dragged onto the floor. Makeup cluttered the vanity. The air smelled like perfume and body spray, sweet and heavy. It looked like a hurricane had torn through Florida again but this time it had only hit Charlene’s bedroom.

Sophie stepped inside, her bare feet landing on something soft, a silky camisole. She bent down and picked it up, rubbing the fabric between her fingers. It was beautiful. Everything in here was beautiful. Sequined tops. Designer jeans with the tags still on. A handbag she didn’t even recognize but could tell was expensive. She held the camisole against her own chest and caught her reflection in the vanity mirror. The contrast was almost comical. The garment hung past her knees. Her chest was flat beneath it, no curves, no cleavage, nothing to fill it.

Sophie set it down and stared at herself in the mirror. She was so small. Four feet, four inches of pale skin and sharp little collarbones. Her long brown hair hung past her waist, thick and dark, the one feature she didn’t mind. But it couldn’t compensate for everything else. No breasts. No hips. No figure to speak of. She looked like a child and not just in the way teenagers sometimes did. People genuinely mistook her for a ten-year-old. Cashiers asked where her parents were. Kids at school moved aside for her in the hallway like she was a lost elementary schooler who had wandered into high school.

And then there was Charlene. Tall, blonde, and golden-skinned. Curvy in all the places that mattered. Full breasts that strained against every top she wore, an ass that turned heads in the grocery store. Boys had been tripping over themselves since she was fifteen. Women envied her. Men stared. Charlene walked into a room and owned it without trying. Sophie was the shadow that followed.

Another ping broke her spiral. Her eyes drifted to the desk. The MacBook sat open, its screen bright and luminous. The Apple logo gleamed on the lid. Sophie ran her fingertips along the edge of it, feeling the cool aluminum beneath her touch. She had no idea how Charlene could afford something like this. Mom could barely keep the electric bill paid. But here it was, sitting on the desk like it was nothing. The screen was open to Twitter. Direct messages. A user was pinned to the top of the conversation list.

Professor Plum

The username sat there innocuously enough, but something about it made Sophie’s pulse quicken. She glanced toward the hallway, empty, then leaned closer to the screen. The message thread was already open.

Professor Plum: Charlene, are you there? My cock is so hard right now. I’d love to see your tits right now. Do it for Daddy, there’s $50 in it for you.

Sophie’s breath caught in her throat. She read the words once. Then again. Then a third time, each pass making them feel more real, more surreal. Her lips parted slightly. Her stomach tightened, not from hunger this time, but from something else. Something she didn’t have a name for.

Her sister was selling her body online. The pieces clicked into place. The clothes. The MacBook. The “adult responsibilities.” Charlene wasn’t at some internship or studying late at the library. She was, what? Taking photos? Sending them to strangers? For money?

Sophie’s eyes stayed locked on the screen. Another message appeared in real time, the banner sliding into view:

Professor Plum: I saw you opened my message, Charlene. Come on, be a good girl for Daddy.

Her stomach dropped. The read receipts were on. He knew someone had seen it. And if Charlene came home and checked ... Sophie’s hands trembled as she sat down on the edge of her sister’s unmade bed, the laptop directly in front of her on the desk. The cursor blinked in the message field. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She could close the laptop. She could walk away. She could pretend she was never here. But her fingers were already moving.

CoedSlut24: this is actually her little sister. sorry, Charlene isn’t home right now

i just wanted to see something on her laptop

She hit send before she could think twice. The message appeared in the chat bubble, small, plain, and utterly inadequate. She stared at it, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths, the milkshake sweating in her grip and dripping onto her sister’s sheets. The “seen” indicator appeared almost immediately.

Professor Plum: What are you doing little girl?

Sophie rolled her eyes. The condescension in those words was immediate and palpable. Little girl. She was eighteen. She was small, sure, but she wasn’t a child. Still, something about the way he’d phrased it made her fingers hover over the keyboard for a moment before she typed back.

CoedSlut24: like I said I was looking for something on her laptop.

Professor Plum: Why?

She stared at the screen, the cursor blinking in the message field like a heartbeat. Why was she here? The real answer, curiosity, boredom, hunger-fueled spite, didn’t feel like something she should admit to a stranger who had just been asking her sister to show him her breasts. She needed something plausible. Something boring. Something that would make him lose interest and leave her alone.

CoedSlut24: because my laptop is locked by my school, I can only go to approved pages and I wanted to check my Instagram.

She hit send and exhaled. There. Boring. Harmless. He’d move on. He’d wait for Charlene. She’d close the laptop and go back to her room and pretend none of this ever happened. The typing indicator appeared almost immediately. Three dots pulsing on the screen.