My Sister’s Secret System Picked the Wrong Victim Chapter 01

My Sister’s Secret System Picked the Wrong Victim Chapter 01

A few weeks before college started, Mom and Dad handed Chelsea and me each a debit card loaded with thirty thousand dollars.

Comments flew across my vision out of nowhere.

[Oh no. College hasn’t even started, and she’s already about to have the worst semester of her life. That thirty grand’s going straight into Chelsea’s pocket.]

[She still doesn’t know. The second she eats something Chelsea intentionally gives her, the money in that account transfers straight to Chelsea’s.]

[Living expenses, textbook money, even her Christmas cash. She’s lost so much and she still hasn’t caught on?]

The comments scrolled by so fast my fingers froze on the card.

They weren’t wrong.

For eighteen years, money Mom and Dad gave me had a habit of vanishing into thin air.

I always said it just disappeared. Nobody ever believed me.

Chelsea smiled and pressed a box of chocolates into my hands.

“You finally get some cash and you’re still moping? Here, have something sweet.”

I stared down at the chocolates in her hand.

If I ate her food, she could take my money.

So what would happen if everyone ate it?

…

Chelsea held the box out, gift-wrapped and perfect.

When I didn’t move, she snapped off a piece and went to push it straight into my mouth.

“I don’t want it.”

I threw my hand up to block her.

The chocolate hit the floor.

Her smile froze.

Overhead, the comments kept flashing by in bright, garish colors.

[Wait, does she suspect something?]

[This whole time, her money’s been going straight to her sister. She has no idea her entire life has been fuel for Chelsea.]

My hand curled into a fist.

All those years of money disappearing for no reason suddenly made sense.

The first time my money vanished, I was ten.

Relatives had given me eight hundred dollars total in birthday and holiday cash.

Mom and Dad said most of it needed to go into our college savings accounts, so they only let Chelsea and me keep one hundred dollars each to spend.

I agreed.

By the next morning, my hundred dollars had disappeared.

Mom and Dad assumed I’d lost it and chewed me out at the dinner table.

Chelsea just watched me, her eyes round and innocent, saying nothing.

Later, I noticed she had spending money for snacks the entire semester.

In eighth grade, my dance studio’s competition fee came due: twelve hundred dollars.

Mom transferred the money into my account so I could pay the studio online.

On the way home, Chelsea bought me an iced coffee.

By the time I opened the studio’s payment portal, the twelve hundred dollars was gone.

Mom yelled at me for that one too.

I spent six hours calling the bank, checking every receipt, and retracing every stop I had made that day.

I came home sobbing.

Later, Chelsea went out with friends and bought herself a designer dress she’d been eyeing.

She told Mom and Dad it only cost a little over one hundred dollars.

I knew for a fact that dress cost fifteen hundred.

Junior year, right in the middle of AP exam season, three thousand dollars, six months of my allowance, evaporated from my account overnight.

I went to the bank to check the transaction history.

The teller said I’d withdrawn it myself.

I said I hadn’t.

They pulled up the security footage.

The person on screen really was me.

I told them I’d been at an evening SAT prep session at the public library.

The program didn’t keep formal attendance, and none of the other students could clearly remember when I had arrived.

When Mom and Dad found out, they tore into me.

“Spending money like it grows on trees, and now you’re lying too?”

Meanwhile, Chelsea posted photos from a concert on social media.

She said she’d paid for the tickets herself, from her part-time job.

After that, my parents stopped trusting me completely.

They controlled every dollar I touched, buying my necessities directly instead of giving me cash.

I wasn’t allowed to go out with friends.

I couldn’t save up for anything I wanted.

I had no privacy left at all.

The day of the SAT, Mom and Dad transferred one hundred dollars into my debit account for a cab to the testing center.

That hundred dollars disappeared before the cab even arrived.

In the end, I begged the driver.

He took one look at me, realized I had a test to get to, cursed under his breath, and drove me anyway, telling me I could settle the fare later.

The memories crashed over me like a wave, then Chelsea’s voice cut through them.

“I had these shipped in specially, you know. You don’t have to throw one on the floor!”

I snapped back to the present.

Mom and Dad were both glaring at me.

I forced my hands to stop shaking and gave her a smile.

“I’m cutting back on sugar. I’ll pass, but thanks.”