Touch Me And Bleed

I was born with a peculiar condition. Whenever someone tries to make my life miserable, the universe settles the score before the sun goes down. Growing up, I came to think of myself as an instrument of divine spite. A walking, breathing curse. When I was seven, my cousin snatched my holiday savings from my coat pocket; that night, field mice chewed through the floorboards of his room and shredded three years’ worth of his hoarded allowance into confetti. In high school, my guidance counselor took an envelope stuffed with cash from the class president’s father and quietly transferred my Ivy League recommendation away. By sunrise, copies of the man’s offshore bank statements were taped to every locker in the hallway. At eighteen, blood tests and lawyers pulled me out of my small-town diner life and dropped me into the Whittaker family’s sprawling estate. On my very first afternoon, the girl who had spent the last eighteen years living my life—the girl they kept calling "our fragile little bird"—ripped my late grandmother’s jade bangle from my wrist, smashed it against the marble hearth, and wept, claiming I’d done it out of jealousy. My biological mother slapped me across the face. A second later, her brand-new acrylic nail split straight down the center, tearing through her real nail bed and soaking her sleeve in blood. My older brother shoved me toward the outdoor swimming pool, sneering, "Evangeline is the only sister this family will ever need. Pack your shit and get out." The words had barely cleared his mouth when his leather loafers hit a slick patch of flagstone. He pitched forward, face-first, into the shallow reflection pond, snapping both of his front teeth on a submerged rock. Evangeline, however, refused to believe in ghosts, karma, or me. Late that evening, while the house was quiet, she tracked me down to the pool deck, shoved me into the deep end, and pinned my fingers beneath the stiletto heel of her shoe. "Stupid, low-class stray," she hissed, grinding her heel into my skin. "You honestly think you can steal my inheritance?" She didn’t understand. Retribution doesn’t require lifting a finger. Seconds passed. Down under the surface, the water felt surprisingly warm. I wasn’t choking. I could see the moon, clear and sharp, and my lungs stayed calm, resting on pure oxygen. Up on the deck, Evangeline suddenly choked. She let go of my hand, fell to her knees, and began clawing desperately at her own throat, vomiting gallons of chlorinated water onto the stone like a dying fish on dry land. Floating comfortably beneath the ripples, watching her flail, a laugh bubbled in my throat. "God," I thought, looking up at the night sky. "It gets lonely at the top." … The day they sent for me, a town car arrived at the edge of my foster mother’s gravel driveway. When we finally pulled up to the Whittakers' iron gates, I reached into the trunk for my faded canvas duffel bag. The driver, an older man named Martin with cold, dismissive eyes, grabbed it first. For a second, I thought he was just doing his job. Then he tossed the bag onto the wet driveway. "Mrs. Whittaker’s orders," he said, adjusting his cap. "Trash from the boonies doesn’t cross the front threshold." The zipper split. My second-hand sweaters spilled across the gravel, along with eighteen handwritten envelopes—every letter my grandmother had mailed to me over the years, carefully preserved. Martin brought the heavy sole of his boot down onto the letters. "The Whittakers don't keep garbage around." I knelt in the dirt, keeping my voice level. "Take your foot off." He gave a dry, mocking laugh. "Already putting on airs, are we? You aren't royalty here, girl." He twisted his boot, grinding the paper into the wet mud. "Rip." The first envelope tore in half. Behind him, the Mercedes, firmly shifted into park, quietly slipped its transmission. Before Martin could blink, the heavy rear door swung shut on its own, catching him squarely across the hips. "Jesus Christ!" he howled, slamming his chest against the rear window. The door popped open. And slammed shut. Open. Slam. Eight times in rapid succession, like a mechanical jaw chewing on an overcooked steak. I counted silently as I gathered my papers. Exactly eight of my grandmother’s letters had been torn. Poetic justice. The estate manager came sprinting down the paved drive, two groundskeepers trailing behind him. They grabbed the door handle, pulling with all their weight, but the harder they yanked, the tighter the steel latch clamped into Martin’s backside. I dusted the damp gravel off the last envelope and stood up. The car door popped open with a gentle "click". Martin collapsed onto the driveway, clutching his bruised rear and groaning like an abandoned dog. The estate manager turned on me, his eyes wide and suspicious. "What did you do to that car?" "You think I’m telekinetic?" I picked up my bag. "If I had that kind of power, why would I have sat in the back of your car for three hours?" He swallowed hard, unable to find an answer, but his pride held firm. "Miss Evangeline has severe allergies," he said, gesturing stiffly toward the rear of the mansion. "The florists just delivered fresh arrangements to the main gallery. You’ll use the service entrance." I glanced through the tall, arched windows. There were white hydrangeas everywhere. But the daughter he was referring to wasn't me. It was Evangeline. The girl who had inhabited my name, my lineage, and my parents' affection for eighteen years while I wiped grease off diner tables in a forgotten valley town. I carried my bag through the kitchen door. A head cook named Agnes was at the center island, slicing fruit for an afternoon spread. She looked me up and down with the practiced disdain of an inspector sorting through bruised produce. "So this is the real one," she muttered, tossing an apple peel aside. "Skin and bones. If people saw you walking through the front gate, they'd think the Whittakers were running a workhouse." I stayed silent. She shoved a small plastic container across the butcher block toward me. It held the kitchen discards: half a moldy strawberry, bruised apple cores browning in the air, and a hard, graying rind of melon. "Go on," she said. "Miss Evangeline won’t touch the trimmings. Perfect for you." I tilted my head. "Is this what you eat on your break, Agnes?" Her face darkened. "Beggars don't get to be choosers, girl. Eat it or starve." She picked up a crystal platter of imported figs, blackberries, and fresh brioche pastries, turning toward the dining room. Her left heel caught on nothing at all. Agnes plunged sideways, planting her entire head directly into the stainless-steel compost bin. A limp, slimy bundle of wilted romaine lettuce draped itself over her ear like a cheap fascinator. The crystal platter sailed through the air and landed with a loud "thud" directly inside the Great Dane’s ceramic food bowl outside the pantry. I reached out, pinched the bruised strawberry between two fingers, and dropped it into the sink. "You’re right, Agnes," I said softly. "The dog liked the artisan spread better anyway." She sputtered, hauling herself out of the trash, her face purple with fury. But the second she parted her lips to curse me out, a fat black housefly zipped straight into her open mouth. She gagged, turned white, and threw up into the sink. That was the exact moment my mother, Beatrice Whittaker, walked into the kitchen. She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t rush over. She didn’t reach out to touch my cheek or wipe a tear from her eye. Her first words to me were: "Now that you’re here, keep your head down. Evangeline has a delicate constitution. She cannot handle unnecessary stress." I held her gaze. "And I can?" Beatrice frowned, irritated by the friction. "You grew up rough in the country. You're sturdy. Don't compare yourself to her." She waved an indifferent hand toward the retching cook. "Take her to her room." Agnes, a dishcloth pressed over her mouth, led me up the back staircase. The house had three stories, vaulted ceilings, and a dozen guest suites. Yet Agnes stopped at the end of a dim hallway and shoved open a narrow door beneath an attic access panel. It was a utility closet. Mops, cardboard wardrobe boxes, and broken side tables were crammed against the walls. In the center sat an old canvas cot. She kicked my duffel inside. "Miss Evangeline mentioned you might carry... an odor," Agnes mumbled through the cloth. "Sleep here for now. We wouldn't want you upsetting the second floor." Before the last syllable left her mouth, the copper pipe above her head sheared clean at the joint. A dark, foul stream of stagnant radiator water drenched her from hair to apron. Agnes caught a whiff of herself, rolled her eyes back into her head, and dry-heaved on the spot. I pinched my nose. "You're right about the smell. Doesn't seem to be coming from me, though." Agnes took three scalding showers, but the stench of sulfur clung to her skin like cheap perfume. By four in the afternoon, she had packed her things and handed in her resignation. The estate manager scoffed at her cowardice. "Old plumbing," he declared to the remaining staff. "It has nothing to do with the new girl." He marched two junior footmen up to the utility closet to clear it out. Except they weren't cleaning. They were dragging my things out to the corridor. "Mrs. Whittaker has booked you a room at a budget motel downtown," the manager told me, not bothering to look me in the eye. "Miss Evangeline gets palpitations whenever she thinks about you being under the same roof." I remained seated on the canvas cot. "I haven't even met her yet." "She knows your name," he said smoothly. "That is enough." A small, wry smile pulled at my lips. "Then tell her to change hers." The manager’s mouth set into a hard line. He snatched my duffel and hurled it toward the hallway. "This is the Whittaker residence. You don’t make the rules." The moment the bag hit the floorboards, the heavy closet door slammed shut with the force of a gunshot. "Crack." The solid oak edge caught the manager’s fingers flat against the jamb. He let out a bloodcurdling shriek. The two footmen grabbed the brass knob, heaving with all their might, but the door refused to budge an inch. "You witch!" the manager roared, his face pressed against the crack. "What kind of trick is this?" Right on cue, a heavy wooden floor-mop leaning in the corner tipped over, swinging like a pendulum. "Smack." The thick handle caught him directly across the mouth. He spat out a bloody molar onto the floorboards. The two footmen froze, completely paralyzed with fear. I stood up, walked to the door, and gathered my clothes. As soon as I touched the canvas strap, the latch clicked, and the door swung open effortlessly. The manager cradled his broken hand against his chest and bolted down the hall, his shoes skidding on the parquet. The two footmen scrambled after him—one tripping over his own loafers, the other running shoulder-first into the wall before stumbling toward the stairs. Thirty minutes later, all three walked out the front gates for good. Beatrice stormed up the stairs shortly after, trembling with rage. She slammed three envelopes of formal resignations into my chest. "What did you say to them?" The sharp edge of the thick paper caught the corner of my cheekbone, leaving a stinging red scratch. I looked at her, entirely calm. "I didn't say anything. Their own consciences did the work." Beatrice let out a harsh, incredulous laugh. "Four staff members gone before your first dinner. You didn't come back to find your family. You came back to collect a debt." "Do you owe me one?" She caught her breath, momentarily stranded for words, before her aristocratic coldness settled back over her features. "Giving you a roof over your head is already more than enough compensation. Don't be greedy." A bitter laugh nearly escaped my throat. Eighteen years. Eighteen years of washing dishes in a drafty roadside kitchen until my knuckles cracked and bled in the winter freeze. Eighteen years of carrying heavy cast-iron skillets with a hundred-and-two fever because my foster mother couldn't afford to close the diner for the day. Meanwhile, Evangeline lived in an airy suite with French balconies, bought designer dresses with Whittaker money, and wore the jewelry my biological grandmother had set aside for her true grandchild. Now, standing in my own rightful home, I was being told not to be greedy. Seeing my silence, Beatrice assumed she had won. Her tone softened into that patronizing, dismissive register people reserve for stray animals. "Evangeline has a gentle heart," she murmured. "As long as you don't fight her for attention, she won't make things difficult for you." Footsteps rustled against the carpet just outside the open door. "Mother?" Evangeline stood in the hall. A white linen sundress. Long, shimmering dark waves over her shoulders. Big, wounded eyes rimmed with red. When she caught sight of me, she took a delicate step backward, trembling as if I were a feral dog ready to tear out her throat. "Please don't misunderstand, sister," she whispered, her voice like honeyed glass. "I never wanted to take what was yours." She spoke of modesty, yet her slender wrist was adorned with a pale, luminous jade bangle—the heirloom my grandmother had specifically entrusted to the family for me before she passed away. I stared at the green stone for two seconds. "Take it off." Her fingers flew to cover the bangle. "What?" "The bracelet. Grandmother left it for me." Evangeline’s lower lip trembled, tears welling instantly in the corners of her eyes. "But... I’ve worn it for ten years. It’s a part of me." Beatrice immediately stepped between us, shielding her. "It’s a piece of jewelry! You just arrived, and you’re already trying to strip the clothes off her back?" I met my mother's gaze evenly. "Whose is it, really?" "Possession is nine-tenths of the law," Beatrice snapped, turning to guide Evangeline down the hall. "Whoever wears it, owns it." I couldn't help the dry grin that formed on my lips. "Fine. Let's see if the stone agrees with you." They hadn't made it three paces when a sharp "snap" echoed through the corridor. The pale jade on Evangeline’s wrist split cleanly into four distinct pieces, clattering against the hardwood floor. Evangeline froze, staring down at the scattered fragments. A wail tore from her throat. "Grandmother's bracelet..." Beatrice gasped and dropped to her knees to gather the shards. But the fractured jade had sheared into razor-sharp points; the moment her fingers touched them, a jagged edge sliced deep into her palm. Evangeline seized the moment, whipping around to point an accusing finger at me. "It was her! She did something to it!" I leaned casually against the closet frame. "I'm ten feet away. What did I do, curse it with my mind?" Beatrice scrambled up, pressing a tissue to her bleeding hand, her eyes burning. "Stop playing dumb! You just said you hoped the stone would reject her!" "And it did," I said. "Take it up with the jade." Evangeline sobbed harder, burying her face in her hands. "Do you hate me that much? If you wanted it back, I would have given it to you..." She said the words, but her foot subtly shifted backward. Beneath the thin sole of her designer shoe lay the largest remaining curved shard of the bangle. She pressed down with her heel. "Crunch." The translucent stone disintegrated into pale, useless powder. My chest went cold. That was the only thing my grandmother had left for me in this world. I had never even touched it. And Evangeline had just ground it into the floorboards out of sheer malice. I walked over. "Move your foot." Feigning terror, Evangeline shrank behind Beatrice. "I didn't mean to, I swear—" I bent down to salvage the remaining fragments. As I did, Evangeline subtly leaned forward, her shoulder nudging hard into mine. I lost my balance, my open palm coming down hard across the jagged shards. The sharp stone bit deep into my skin, and warmth welled between my fingers. A split second later, a loud, violent "crack" echoed beneath her feet. Not the jade. The thin, three-inch heel of her designer pump snapped cleanly off. Her balance gave out. She plummeted forward, her chin slamming hard against the corner of a heavy antique console table. The two porcelain veneers on her front teeth shattered instantly, falling onto the floor with a pathetic little click. Evangeline let out a muffled, bloody scream. Beatrice completely ignored the blood dripping from my palm. She threw her arms around Evangeline, frantically shouting for a doctor, for the manager, for the driver. The manager had already resigned. No one answered. Martin the driver was at the urgent care clinic having his bruised hips evaluated. In the end, only two terrified junior maids appeared at the top of the stairs—two girls named Tess and Hallie. Tess looked at my bloody hand, then at Evangeline’s ruined mouth. Her voice trembled. "Mrs. Whittaker... should we... should we bandage the other young lady too?" Beatrice glared at her with lethal venom. "Did anyone ask for your opinion? Shut up and help!" Tess hurried forward, but as she reached out to steady Evangeline, Evangeline viciously pinched the soft underside of the girl's arm. "Useless bitch," Evangeline slurred through her bloody teeth. "Call an ambulance!" Tess's eyes filled with tears from the pinch, but she bit her lip and kept quiet. Evangeline reached into her pocket for her own phone. The moment she swiped the screen, the battery hissed, and a thick plume of gray smoke poured from the charging port. She shrieked, tossing the burning phone aside. It landed squarely in a tall ceramic vase filled with water. The vase tipped, crashing to the floor and spilling murky water and floral fertilizer all over the skirt of her pristine white dress. Evangeline was practically vibrating with hysteria. "What is happening today?!" I pulled a dry paper towel from my pocket and wrapped my bleeding hand. "When you build up too much bad karma," I murmured, "the universe gets backlogged. Sometimes it has to process everything in a single afternoon." Tess let out a sudden, involuntary snort of laughter. Evangeline whipped around, raising a hand to strike the maid across the face. Before her arm reached its peak, a framed oil painting hanging on the corridor wall slipped its wire. "Crash." The heavy gilded frame fell squarely over Evangeline’s head, pinning her arms to her sides while her smeared, bloody face peered through the canvas cutout like a demented Victorian portrait. Tess and Hallie lost all control. They dropped to their knees, burying their faces in their aprons, shaking with hysterical, silent laughter. Evangeline looked ready to kill someone. She demanded Beatrice fire them on the spot. She didn't need to. By nightfall, both maids had packed their bags. Before she left through the service gate, Tess pulled me aside by the pantry. "Miss," she whispered, her eyes wide with something close to reverence. "It’s not that we don't feel bad for you. It’s that we’re terrified of what happens if they keep crossing you." She gestured toward the ruined house. "Every time they try to hurt you, the whole place falls apart." The burst pipe. The shattered teeth. The blown-up phone. The blood. Martin's pulverized backside. Agnes's sewer-smelling skin. In less than twenty-four hours, nine out of the Whittakers' thirteen staff members had quit. The remaining four were temps. Whenever they saw me walking down a hall, they flattened themselves against the wallpaper like frightened mice. Nobody rolled their eyes at me. Nobody dared touch my things. Only the Whittakers remained in denial. Beatrice claimed it was all freak coincidences. My father, Richard Whittaker, blamed poor estate maintenance and old foundations. My biological brother, Nathaniel, returned late from the corporate offices. When he heard the story, he found the whole thing preposterous. "Karma?" he sneered, stepping into my utility closet with an air of arrogant authority. "She's just a walking jinx." He shoved me hard against the wooden framing of the wall. The impact rattled my spine, sending a dull ache through my lower back. Nathaniel raised a finger, about to deliver another lecture, when the antique leather armchair behind him gave out. The brass coil beneath the cushion broke free, snapping upward like a steel trap. Right between his legs. Nathaniel’s face turned an immediate, terrifying shade of plum. I rubbed my sore hip and offered him a calm piece of advice. "I wouldn't pull on that. The more you yank, the deeper it goes." Nathaniel left the house on a stretcher, lying flat on his stomach. Even as the paramedics lifted him, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. "You're dead, you hear me? You're—" The stretcher hit a snag at the top of the porch steps. It tipped sideways, sending Nathaniel tumbling down the brick stairs into the shrubbery. The emergency room doctor later confirmed that there was no permanent structural damage, but he wouldn't be sitting down for a month. Richard Whittaker arrived home that night on a red-eye flight. He didn't bother asking how I was doing. The moment he laid eyes on me in the foyer, his arm whipped out and his palm cracked across my jaw. "You've been under this roof for one day," he roared, "and you've turned my home into a circus!" My head jerked to the side. My ears rang with a high, sharp whine, and the metallic taste of copper filled my mouth. A heartbeat later, Richard grabbed his own jaw. His left cheek swelled at an unnatural, visible speed, puffing out until it looked as though he were hoarding an entire orange inside his mouth. He stared at me, his eyes wide with unvarnished shock. Beatrice gasped, backing up a step. I used the back of my thumb to wipe the blood from my lip. "Hurts, doesn't it? Mine does too." Richard refused to concede. He insisted it was an acute allergic reaction to the pollen from the foyer's new lilies. He demanded an on-call physician administer an emergency steroid shot. The doctor arrived, prepped the syringe, and plunged the needle into Richard’s hip. "Snap." The needle broke off clean at the base, leaving the metal shaft lodged deep inside the muscle tissue. The doctor broke out into a cold sweat. Richard howled in agony, cursing every deity known to man. I leaned against the banister, watching the chaos unfold without saying a single word. After that, none of them dared to lay a finger on me. Yet Richard still refused to acknowledge reality. "Freak occurrences," he insisted through swollen lips. "We live in the twenty-first century. Only idiots believe in curses." Evangeline stood at the landing of the grand staircase, sporting two ill-fitting temporary veneers that gave her a slight, comical lisp. "Father is right," she hissed. "She's just trying to psychologically terrorize us." She didn't believe it. Or rather, she couldn't accept a reality where she wasn't the center of the universe. The following morning, she ordered the new kitchen staff to throw my breakfast tray—a warm stack of buttermilk pancakes and fresh berries—straight into the garbage disposal. The cook was too terrified to touch it. So Evangeline grabbed the plate herself. The moment she tipped the sticky maple syrup and butter over the stainless-steel bin, the bottom of the plastic receptacle gave out completely. Sour, fermenting coffee grounds and greasy sludge splattered all over her bare feet. At noon, she tried to lock me inside my room from the outside. She turned the brass key once. The internal cylinder seized violently. The lock jammed, sealing "her" inside the narrow service vestibule for three sweltering hours before anyone heard her hoarse screams. By four in the afternoon, she had snatched my cheap smartphone off the hall table and hurled it into the saltwater aquarium. A second later, her brand-new high-end laptop let out a high-pitched beep and went pitch-black. When the system rebooted on its own, every single heavily edited, filtered vanity photograph on her cloud storage reverted to its raw, unretouched original state. She ripped the power cord from the wall in a panic. I paused outside her open doorway. "You know, your nose is actually much wider in natural lighting." Evangeline grabbed a heavy decorative throw pillow and hurled it at my head. It missed me entirely. It ricocheted off the doorframe, flew backward with double the velocity, and struck her squarely in the mouth. Her temporary veneers popped right out, skittering across the rug. She held her bloody mouth, her eyes wild with tears of sheer, helpless rage. She wasn't stupid. She knew something was wrong. But her narcissism couldn't tolerate the idea of losing to someone like me. That evening, Richard and Beatrice had to attend a high-profile charity gala. Nathaniel was still lying on his stomach in a private clinic. The massive estate was left entirely empty, save for Evangeline, two terrified temp maids who hid in the laundry room, and me. I took a walk through the landscaped gardens behind the house. When I reached the edge of the deep pool, I heard the click of heels behind me. Evangeline stood there under the amber patio lights. In her open palm were the remaining jagged shards of my grandmother’s jade bangle. "Looking for these?" she asked, her voice dripping with venom. I stopped. "Give them to me." She stepped backward, smiling like a predator. "Come and take them." As I took two steps forward, she suddenly raised her arm and hurled the jade into the deep end of the pool. "Evangeline," I warned. "You think having a few freaky coincidences on your side makes you the rightful daughter?" she sneered, stepping closer. "Richard and Beatrice are "my" parents. Nathaniel is "my" brother. Everyone in society knows Evangeline Whittaker. No one gives a damn about a country stray." I ignored her, kneeling by the concrete lip of the pool, reaching down toward the water. The pool was deep—ten feet in the center. The pale green fragments were drifting slowly toward the main drain. Evangeline moved behind me, her voice dropping into a quiet, chilling whisper. "You say whoever hurts you suffers for it. Let's see if that little curse of yours still works once your heart stops beating." She drew her leg back and kicked me squarely between the shoulder blades. "Splash." The icy water swallowed me whole. I sank several feet before righting myself and kicking back toward the surface. The moment my fingers touched the rough concrete coping of the pool, Evangeline brought her high heel down with brutal force across my knuckles. The sharp point dug into my previous wound. Blood curled into the water like dark smoke. She leaned down, her face twisted in a breathless, euphoric grin. "Stupid bitch. You really thought you could take what's mine?" I looked up through the rippling surface. I didn't thrash. I didn't beg. Evangeline thought my silence meant I was drowning. She pressed down harder, putting her full body weight into the heel. Then, the smile froze on her face. Her eyes dilated in pure, primitive horror. She abruptly ripped her foot away from my hand. Her fingers flew to her own throat, digging into her flesh until her nails drew blood. "Water..." she wheezed, her vocal cords choking on invisible fluid. "So much... water..." She collapsed to her knees on the dry stone pavers. Her mouth opened wide, and she began to violently convulse, vomiting gallons of chlorinated water onto the deck. She was standing on dry land, under the open night air, yet her lungs were filling with water as if she were chained to the bottom of the ocean. Meanwhile, I remained submerged. My eyes didn't sting. My lungs felt clear. The water felt like a warm bath. Evangeline looked down through the pool surface, her face blue, her expression paralyzed by the terrifying realization of what she had challenged. She believed it now. Too bad it was too late. Looking at her gasping for air on the poolside flagstones, I couldn't resist breaking into a quiet, muffled hum beneath the surface. "Oh, it’s tough to be a god..."