The Kindest Parents Locked Me in a Gas ChamberChapter 1

The moment carbon monoxide poisoning made me convulse and cough up blood, my mother was on the other side of the door, gently coaxing me to sleep.

My parents were the town's most celebrated philanthropists. They'd adopted Harrison Chavez—the orphaned son of a fellow patient who'd died of a terminal illness. To help heal his trauma, they didn't even dare raise their voices around him.

Then came the day the blizzard sealed the mountain roads, and I—a severe asthmatic—spiked a high fever.

Harrison said he wanted to see what I'd look like smoked black as charcoal. He smashed the oxygen concentrator I depended on to survive, dragged a burning coal stove filled with cheap briquettes into my tiny, windowless bedroom, and locked the door from the outside.

The thick smoke choked me until I was vomiting blood. All I could do was pound on the door and beg for help.

My mother's voice floated through from the other side, soft as a lullaby. "Be good, Libby Chavez. Your brother just wants to keep you warm. He means well. You mustn't lose your temper and hurt his feelings."

My father sighed through the door. "This girl gets more ungrateful the older she gets. Let her stay in there and think about what she's done."

I stopped pounding.

I let the carbon monoxide strip my consciousness away, piece by piece.

In the moment my eyes fell shut, I thought: Tomorrow, at least, I won't have to watch the three of them play happy family without me.

……

In the last second before everything dissolved, I heard Harrison laughing outside the door.

"Big sister's warming herself by the fire in her ice castle! She's about to turn into Cinderella!"

Then everything went quiet.

My body felt weightless, drifting above the spare bedroom that reeked of scorched coal. Smoke no longer seeped through the crack under the door. Inside the sealed room, the fumes had settled, coating the walls in a layer of black grime.

I looked down at the body curled on the floor.

It was me—shriveled into a tight ball from the heat.

The cotton blanket over me had burned through in several places, exposing skin blackened with soot. Shattered pieces of the oxygen concentrator lay scattered everywhere, its plastic casing melted into a hardened puddle.

I tried to move but realized I couldn't feel any pain. That was fine, too.