Chapter 1

I was the real heiress of the family, and by the time my brother, William Foster, tracked me down, I had been picking trash for eight years.

I had my head down over some spoiled leftovers from a dumpster when the richest man in the city set his expensive leather shoe on my precious stack of cardboard.

He frowned and fought to keep the disgust out of his eyes.

"Emily has cancer. Once she's gone, I'll bring you home."

I kept chewing, grinned, and nodded at him.

Then came his birthday, and I spent the last of my money on a gift for him and a bouquet for Emily Foster.

Instead, I overheard him saying to her in a soft voice.

"Don't worry, Sophia will never find out your cancer isn't real. Stretching this out another three or four years won't be a problem.

"She'll do fine without me. You won't."

He blew out the candles and made his wish. "I want Emily at my side for the rest of her life."

I never pushed the door open. I turned around and walked away without a sound.

His wish was going to come true, because I didn't have three or four years left.

Three days after I died, a blogger's video about me went viral online.

"This is eighteen years in the life of a cancer patient, and it is her whole life."

*****

William had given Emily a bracelet worth 1.7 million dollars, and she laughed and couldn't stop.

I didn't have the heart to break into their happiness.

The moment I got out through the gates of Foster Manor, I couldn't hold it, and a mouthful of blood went across the gift.

It was a cheap watch, and losing it hurt more than I could say.

Three months of picking cardboard had bought that watch.

I scrubbed at the blood with everything I had, and then I spotted cardboard by the trash can and the habit took over again.

I had just bent down to grab it when a guy with a camera suddenly blocked my path, shoving the lens right up in my face.

"Life at the Bottom, episode three. Everybody, how about we film this girl who picks trash today?"

The man was clean-cut and good-looking, and something in his eyes made me uncomfortable.

I waved both hands fast. "No, no, no."

He pulled out his phone and sent me the money on the spot. "Two hundred dollars for a day of filming, paid same day."

Picking trash could wait. Money came first.

I took it before he could blink, in case he said he'd been kidding.

The man stepped out of the shot and snorted, "Money-hungry."

I grinned back at him.

The truth was that money did nothing for someone about to die. It only mattered to the living.

And I didn't have many days left.

He continued, "I'm Jack Rivers. I run a channel about people at the bottom.

"Look how thin you are. You must be starving. Let me feed you first."

His voice had excitement in it and calculation under that, and he pulled me toward the most expensive restaurant around.

Only a place that gilded could show off how out of place a poor person looked, and that meant clicks and arguments.

So I gave him what he wanted and pinched at the washed-out hem of my shirt.

I said, "That's for rich people. I've never been in one."

Jack's mouth curved with satisfaction, as though he could already see the video going viral.

I was lying to him.

I was a regular here.

Filthy and streaked with dirt, I would be going through the garbage while I watched William walk in with Emily dressed like a princess.

Every night, the restaurant dumped its leftovers into the trash.

I would be crouched by the door on schedule, waiting on my "lucky dinner."

One time my luck was unbelievable, and I found a necklace in the leftovers.

William had given it to Emily, and her name was engraved on it.

She had decided it was out of style and quietly thrown it out.

I picked it up without any shame, put it on, and looked at myself in the public restroom mirror over and over.

I let myself pretend William had given it to me.

I was still enjoying it when Jack half pushed, and half hauled me inside.

The second I sat down, the lens was in my face again.

"You look very young. Why are you picking trash? Don't you have a family?"

I held up two fingers and heard myself sound proud. "I used to have two families."

Then I stopped, thought about William, and put up a third.

"No. Three."

Jack raised an eyebrow, teasing. "That doesn't add up. Shouldn't you be a happy girl?"

Something started to sting behind my nose, and I told him about the first one.

"When I was five, I was taken and sold to an old couple out in the mountains who couldn't have children."

Girls were cheap, so I was easy to sell.

The daughter of the richest man in the city went for 330 dollars.

But out in those hollows, where sons counted, and daughters didn't, being a girl was the crime.