My adoptive father is a supervillain. My adoptive mother is the evil queen bee. To ensure I never got bullied, they taught me every dirty trick in the book. I took the best of their teachings, discarded the rest, and smoothly villain-ed my way through life until college. Then, my biological parents showed up to claim me. They found me with rainbow-dyed hair, pinning a delinquent to the ground and slapping him silly. "Do you want to be a eunuch or my boyfriend?" I demanded. My biological mother almost fainted. "Where is my sweet, soft, fragrant daughter?!" 1 My parents raised me with one core belief: There are two people in this world I must destroy. So, while other kids were being cuddled and watching Peppa Pig, I was in the basement learning how to snap a neck. My childhood had no Barbie dolls. Only Krav Maga, Muay Thai, archery, and tactical espionage. "Mercy to the enemy," my dad would say, "is cruelty to yourself." I was three years old when my mom found me in the trunk of a car. That day, her Maserati got rear-ended. The other driver was a thug. Even though he caused the accident, he jumped out and started screaming, demanding ten grand in cash. My mom laughed. She called my dad. He arrived and dismantled the man's joints like he was taking apart a Lego set. The thug collapsed like a sack of mud, passing out from the pain. Dad wiped the blood off his hands and turned to leave, but then he heard a whimper from the trunk. Inside, curled up in a ball, was a chubby little girl. That was me. Dad stared at me, his brow furrowed in annoyance. He wanted to leave me there. But Mom scooped me up. "My friends on Instagram post their daughters every day," she mused. "If I had a daughter, she'd be prettier than all of theirs." So, she took me home. She was right. Her socialite friends fawned over me. Until one day, a blind rich lady brought her bratty son over. The kid sneaked up and kissed me on the cheek. Mom's smile vanished. That night, she taught me my first lesson. "Next time someone touches you without permission, use a fork to stab their eye." Dad added, "Go for the throat, too." The next day, that family disappeared from our social circle. Mom blocked every "momfluencer" on her feed. I was a difficult child. Picky eater, cried a lot, got sick easily. A total princess. Mom would yell, "Eat or starve!" and "Stop crying or I'll throw you out!" Then she'd immediately call five-star chefs. "Candied apples? What is that? Will it kill a child? No? Fine, get me one too." "Cotton candy? Ugh, childish... wait, actually, buy a machine." Dad was even more ridiculous. If I cried, he'd pull out a knife and growl, "Stop or I'll chop you up!" But if I didn't stop, he'd panic and throw the knife out the window. Eventually, all sharp objects were banned from the house. Every corner was padded with foam. One day, he discovered that riding on his shoulders made me stop crying. So, every night, this cold-faced CEO would come home, change, and gallop around the living room with a three-year-old on his neck, shouting, "Giddy up! Giddy up!" Mom rolled her eyes from the sofa. "Psychos." Two weeks later, she joined in. 2 When I was five, I had a fever of 104. I was delirious, too weak to cry, just whimpering in Mom's arms. The doctor pulled out a needle. Mom exploded. "That needle is huge! Are you trying to kill her?! Will it leave a scar?! She has to wear a bikini someday!" Dad grabbed the doctor by the collar, his voice like liquid nitrogen. "If she dies, you die." The doctor's hand shook so hard he almost missed my vein. That night, I woke up to see Dad sitting by my bed, eyes red. He held my tiny hand and whispered, "If you die, Mom and I... we don't want to live either." I later learned he almost demolished the hospital. On my sixth birthday, I was kidnapped. The ransom was ten million. Dad listened to the call in silence, then went to the bank and withdrew ten million in cash. The kidnappers kept their word and released me. But during the exchange, a man in a skull mask slapped me. My cheek burned. Tears streamed down my face. In a split second, Dad's hand was around the man's throat. "Which hand?" he asked, his tone conversational. Before the kidnapper could answer, Dad pulled out a dagger and started filleting his palm like sashimi. Mom stood nearby applying lipstick. "Too loud," she complained, glancing at the screaming man. She snapped her fingers. Four men in suits emerged from the shadows. A week later, that kidnapper was found in a pink tutu, dumped in a slum in Mumbai. After that, my bedtime stories changed. Peppa Pig was replaced by Gray's Anatomy. Sailor Moon became The Anarchist Cookbook. Dad would sit by my bed and coo, "Annie, do you know where to hit someone so it hurts the most but leaves no mark?" He guided my finger to his ribs. "Here. The liver. A sharp punch causes shock, but only leaves a tiny red dot." Mom was more direct. She gave me a chemistry set. "Red is cyanide, blue causes paralysis, white causes amnesia..." She pinched my cheek. "Girls need to know how to protect themselves." When I started elementary school, they remembered their old nemesis. They decided to poison his prize-winning bonsai tree and steal his pets. Before I arrived, they lost every battle against this rival. Their win rate was zero. But after I came along, they became undefeated. Mom called me their lucky charm. Their nemesis was a couple named Henry and Sarah. They were Mom's ex-fiancé and the woman he left her for. Before they got married, Henry fell for Sarah, a bartender. Mom, scorned, pushed them together out of spite. "Why do you hate them, Dad?" I asked. He sighed. "Sarah spilled a drink on me once. Henry thought I was trying to steal his girl and tried to bankrupt me." I nodded, sharpening my knife. Sworn enemies it is. In school, a fat kid sat behind me and pulled my braids. Mom spent thirty minutes every morning braiding my hair with pearls, and he ruined it. I warned him three times. The fourth time, I grabbed my stainless steel thermos. WHACK. His front tooth flew across the room. He wailed, blood leaking through his fingers. I stood over him, clutching a handful of his hair. The teacher's voice trembled when she called my parents. "Annie... she knocked his tooth out... and slammed his head..." Thirty minutes later, Dad's helicopter landed on the playground. He jumped out in a suit, ignoring his assistant chasing him with contracts. "Scram! My daughter committed murder! I need to bury the body!" Mom burst into the office with a sheet mask still on her face. "Who bullied my baby?!" The teacher cowered. "Actually, it was your daughter who..." Dad inspected my knuckles. "Does your hand hurt?" Mom checked my palm. "Ugh, his hair is so greasy. It made your hand red!" The fat kid's parents tried to yell, but Dad threw a Black Card on the desk. "Dentist, hair plugs, therapy. Put it on the card." Then he narrowed his eyes. "But if I hear your son touched a single hair on her head again... next time he loses more than a tooth." The next day, my desk was an island. The fat kid transferred. Mom hummed as she braided my hair. "If anyone messes this up again, we'll use their bones as hairpins, okay?" I sipped my strawberry milk and nodded vigorously. In high school, I suddenly became a genius. I got first place in every subject. My parents stared at the report card like it was a bomb. Dad: "Is this a misprint?" Mom: "Did she cheat? Should we hire a hacker to check?" 3 That night, a Taoist priest danced around my bed with a wooden sword for an hour. "Strange! Her soul is intact! She hasn't been possessed!" I ate a popsicle and listened to them argue in the study. Dad: "I failed every subject!" Mom: "I bought my degree!" Dad: "The teacher says she can get into Ivy League!" Mom: "Ivy League? Sounds like a gardening club." To stop me from "going astray," they tried to distract me. Mom: "Annie, have you seen that idol show? You're way prettier than them..." Dad left a book on my desk: How to Use Paparazzi for Fame. They offered to fund a movie for me to star in. I responded by showing them my Gold Medal from the Physics Olympiad. Mom dropped her fork. When my acceptance letter from Stanford arrived, Dad's hand shook. "My daughter... a scientist?" They threw a banquet at a five-star hotel. Mom toasted everyone, "Oh, we just let her play around, who knew she was smart..." then hid in the bathroom to kiss my acceptance letter until it was covered in lipstick marks. Near the end of the party, Dad pulled me aside. "Bad news. Henry's adopted son... also got into Stanford." Mom snapped a nail. "That brat Liam? The math prodigy?" I spun the butterfly knife Dad gave me as a graduation gift. "So?" Dad sighed. "Annie, stay away from him." Mom agreed. "Yeah, that family is bad luck." I smiled sweetly. "Okay." Psych. Sins of the father, punishment of the son. I was going to make Liam kneel and apologize for his dad's existence. 4 First day of college. My parents were supposed to drop me off. But at dawn, Dad's phone exploded. "Boss! Henry intercepted our arms shipment in Southeast Asia!" Dad smashed a vase. "That dog!" Mom wasn't doing better. She was buying my shoes when Sarah walked in and said, "I'll take these." Then she smiled at Mom. "Sorry, if you like them, I can buy them for you?" Mom sent me a voice note, screaming. "I need her charity?! That bitch! Annie, go to school yourself! Mama needs to go rip her mouth off!" I sighed. "Don't break a nail." I dragged my suitcase to the dorms alone. On a tree-lined path, I bumped into a tall, lean guy. White shirt, black pants, cold profile. Handsome as a painting. I narrowed my eyes. Liam. He looked up. Our eyes met. He nodded politely and walked away. Liam became the campus god on day one. The confession wall was flooded with his photos. Reading in the library, playing basketball, drinking water. Comments: [Three minutes, I need his info!] [Back off, he's mine!] I scoffed and checked the basketball schedule. The next day, I showed up at the court with a bottle of ice water. The girls screamed as Liam scored a three-pointer. I walked up to him, smiling like an angel. "Water?" The water was spiked with double-dose laxatives. Liam wiped sweat from his forehead, revealing abs. He looked at the water, then at me, and smiled. "Thanks." Then, he unscrewed the cap... And poured it over his head. The water cascaded down his face, neck, and chest, soaking his white shirt. The crowd gasped. The girls went wild. "Scheming bitch! Trying to seduce him!" I turned to them, smiling. "Yeah, I am. Are you here for charity?" I grabbed a Gatorade from a random girl and dumped it in the trash. "We're all foxes here, stop acting like bunnies." I winked at Liam, and while he stared, I poured a second bottle of laxative water onto his limited-edition sneakers. "Oops. Slippery hands." I walked away.
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