The 50-Cent Daughter

On my ninth birthday, unable to afford even a cheap cupcake, I willingly walked away with the traffickers.

In the interrogation room, the detective leaned across the metal table, the rims of her eyes flushed red. Why didn't you run? she asked, her voice tight. You had so many chances to call for help.

I just stared at her.

"Why would I run?" I asked. "The food here is free. And they don't charge me rent to sleep on the mattress."

The detective froze.

She had no idea. Back in the place I was supposed to call home, my biological parents ran a ruthless, strict pay-per-use system.

Fifty cents for a glass of warm water. Two dollars for a meal.

My brother, of course, got everything for freeand even got rewarded just for eating.

Chapter 1

The female cop sitting across from me was named Chen Xiao.

Detective Chen filled a paper cup with warm water from the cooler and slid it across the table toward me.

I yanked my hands behind my back. My fingers dug so hard into the frayed edges of my pockets that my knuckles ached.

"I'm not thirsty." I stared at the rim of the cup, swallowing hard. "I don't have any money to buy water."

Detective Chen's hand froze mid-air. Her gaze flicked from the paper cup to my face. "This is from the precinct. It's free. You don't have to pay for it."

I shook my head hard.

Nothing in this world was free.

My mother had drilled it into me: every drop of water, every crumb of food in that house had a price tag.

I lived in that house for nine years. Every single day, I scavenged for scrap just to exchange for coins. I had to hand over the cash on time. Only when I paid enough did I earn the right to a bite of food.

On days I didn't collect enough, I starved and slept on the bare floor.

Because even a spot to sleep required rent.

But it was different with the traffickers.

Every day, they handed out two hard rolls stuffed with cold cuts.

No matter how dry and hard the bread was, it was free.

At night, a dozen of us kids crammed onto moldy old mattresses to sleep.

No one ever came to collect a sleeping fee.

I fought to do the chores every single day. I swept the floors, I scrubbed the dishes. I did whatever it took, just so they wouldn't kick me out.

The other kids constantly cried, screaming for their parents. Every time they threw a fit, they earned a vicious beating.

I never cried.

I kept my head down, knowing that if I disobeyed, they'd deem me useless and ship me back to that house where every breath cost money.

That was until three days ago, when Detective Chen led a raid on the compound.

While the traffickers were being slammed facedown into the dirt, I was hiding behind a rusted radiator, gnawing on my unfinished hard bread.

Detective Chen marched over and scooped me up.

I thrashed wildly against her grip.

I didn't want to leave.

If I left, there wouldn't be any more free bread.

She dragged me back to the precinct.

For the past two days, I jumped at every sound.

Detective Chen let out a heavy sigh and continued her questioning. "Your name is Xiaoman, right? We've managed to contact your biological parents. They're on their way here right now."

A cold shudder ripped through my spine.

I was going back.

I was going back to the house where I had to pay just to drink water.

Watching my body convulse with tremors, Detective Chen softened her voice. "Don't be scared. The bad guys are locked up. You get to go home soon."

I stared at her shocked expression, failing to grasp what I had said wrong.

I patted my pockets.

They were empty.

I had no money to buy a bed for tonight.

Detective Chen set me up in a break room.

I perched on the very edge of the bed, too terrified to actually lie down.

I pressed my palm into the mattress.

It was soft.

Back in that so-called home, sleeping on a drafty old mattress cost one dollar a night. If I wanted to add a torn blanket, that was an extra fifty cents.

Every morning, the very first thing I did when I opened my eyes was calculate exactly where I needed to scavenge for scrap that day.

Empty cans were five cents each.

Chapter 2

Collecting empty cans earned me exactly five cents a piece.

My mother took a thick, black permanent marker and carved harsh tally marks into the peeling, yellowed wallpaper of the living room. That was my running tab. The debt I owed her.

"I racked up thousands of dollars in emergency room bills just giving birth to you. You're paying every single cent back."

She rubbed the frayed hem of her shirt, staring at me not like a daughter, but like a piece of garbage waiting to be pawned off.

Nothing in this house came free.

Except for my brother, Yaozu.

Every morning, Yaozu stuffed his face with thick pancakes practically drowning in maple syrup and plates of hot, greasy bacon.

I just stood on the sidelines. Swallowing the ache in my throat.

Once, the hunger hollowed me out so much I reached out to touch a tiny, charred scrap of bacon left on the edge of the table.

My mother slammed a heavy wooden spatula down hard across the back of my hand. "Keep your filthy hands off!

You want bacon? Buy it yourself. Two dollars a slice!"

I jerked my arm back. A fiery red welt bloomed across my skin.

I didn't dare shed a tear. If my crying interrupted Yaozu's breakfast, she'd dock my food allowance for the day.

Dinner was a commodity, too.

Two dollars bought me an expired sandwich and a bowl of mushy, tasteless oatmeal.

I rarely scraped together those two dollars.

Most nights, I just lay there with my stomach gnawing at my ribs, waiting until midnight to sneak into the grimy bathroom and gulp tap water straight from the sink.

Tap water was free.

But the tap water always made my stomach cramp. Once, the pain twisted my guts so hard I rolled on the floor, biting down on my own lip until I tasted copper. I couldn't make a single sound.

Because if I woke my mother up, she'd slap a five-dollar "disturbance fee" onto my tab.

To earn my daily rent and food money, I did whatever it took.

I dug through industrial dumpsters, hunting for scrap metal. A jagged piece of glass sliced a deep gash right across my finger. Blood splattered onto the concrete.

I didn't go to the free clinic. A single Band-Aid cost fifty cents in our house.

I just ripped a frayed strip of cloth from the hem of my shirt, wrapped it tight around the wound, and kept digging through the trash.

Then came my ninth birthday.

I had hoarded empty cans for a solid month. I finally traded them in for two dollars and fifty cents.

I folded the two crumpled singles and the two quarters, stuffing them directly against my skin, deep inside my undershirt.

That day, I planned to walk down to the fast-food joint on the corner and buy the cheapest cheeseburger on the menu. Usually, I only dared to watch the place from a distance.

That cheeseburger had been my sole wish for an entire year.

But the second I stepped into the front yard, my mother blocked the gate.

Her fist knotted in my hair. Her other hand lunged straight into my shirt.

I scrambled backward, clutching my chest desperately. "Mom, no, that's my money! It's my birthday today."

Smack.

Her palm cracked across my jaw.

My knees hit the dirt. The quarters slipped out of my shirt and pinged against the pavement.

She snatched the money off the ground in a heartbeat. "Birthday? Bullshit!

Your brother is exactly two dollars short for his new Xbox game. Hand it over."

She clutched my cash and pivoted toward the house.

I scrambled to my feet, throwing myself at her legs, my fingernails digging into the denim of her jeans. "Mom, please, just leave me two dollars! I just want one cheeseburger. I'll pick up double the cans tomorrow, I swear!"

She kicked her leg out, planting her boot right into my ribs. "You think a worthless drain like you deserves a burger? Get out of my face."

I lay crumpled in the dirt, gasping for air as I watched her walk inside.

The front door slammed shut.

I walked out to the street alone.

I stood on the cracked sidewalk right across from the fast-food joint. Through the grease-smudged window, I could see the line cook pressing down on sizzling beef patties on the flat-top grill.

I swallowed hard.

I couldn't afford that burger anymore.

Just then, a shadow fell over me. A man stepped up to my side.

He held out a piece of bright, fruit-flavored hard candy.

I flinched, taking a massive step back. My hands instinctively shot up to cover my empty pockets.

"Sir" I stared at him, my muscles coiled tight. "How many cents does this cost?"

He blinked, caught off guard. "It doesn't cost anything, kid. It's free."

I locked my eyes onto that colorful wrapper.

I was nine years old, and that was the very first time in my entire life I had ever heard the word free.

Chapter 3

I slowly reached out and took the candy.

I popped it into my mouth.

"I can take you to a place where they hand out free hard bread every day. You want to go?" he asked.

I didn't hesitate.

I reached out and grabbed his hand.

The man who gave me the candy went by Wang.

He shoved me into the back of a beat-up van.

It was pitch black inside. Five other kids were huddled in the back.

Every single one of them was bawling.

I was the only one sitting motionless in the corner.

I sucked on that free piece of candy.

As the hard candy slowly dissolved, I couldn't bear to swallow it. I used my tongue to push it into the pocket of my cheek, gently biting down to hold it in place.

A girl in a frilly pink dress sitting next to me kept screaming for her mom.

She was crying so hard that thick trails of snot dripped down the front of her dress.

Wang turned around from the driver's seat and snapped at her to shut up.

The girl hitched a ragged breath, let out a loud hiccup, and started wailing even louder.

Wang reached back and slapped her hard across the face.

The girl clutched her red cheek, her sobs choking off into silent whimpers.

Wang's eyes shifted to me.

I immediately snapped my spine perfectly straight. I placed both hands flat against my kneecaps. "Mister, how many cents does a ride in this van cost?" I asked.

Wang froze.

He stared at me for a few long seconds before bursting into a harsh bark of laughter. "It's free. You stick with me, kid, and everything is free."

I nodded sharply.

As long as I didn't have to pay, I was fine.

I didn't even have the two bucks for a bus fare. If he had charged me, I would have had to jump out of the moving van.

We drove for a long time.

The van finally parked outside a compound. The concrete walls were built incredibly high.

The heavy metal gates groaned open, and we were herded into a windowless concrete room.

The only things in the room were two moldy old mattresses.

Wang walked in carrying a heavy plastic bucket.

The bucket was piled high with yellowing, stale hard bread.

He tossed two rolls to each of us.

The girl in the pink dress chucked her bread onto the filthy floor. "I'm not eating this garbage!

I want fried chicken! I want to go home!" she shrieked.

Wang didn't hit her this time.

He just stepped out and slammed the heavy door shut, locking it from the outside.

I stared at the bread she had thrown on the floor.

It was coated in dirt.

But back in my house, the second any food touched the ground, my mother would snatch it up and jam it into my mouth. Then, she'd dock a fifty-cent "food waste fee" from my tab.

I crawled across the concrete and picked up the discarded roll.

I slapped the dirt off with my palm.

I took a bite.

It was rock hard. But it wasn't spoiled.

Most importantly, it cost nothing.

I inhaled my own two pieces of bread in a matter of seconds. Then, I ate the one the girl had thrown away.

My stomach felt painfully stretched.

It was the very first time in my nine years of existence that I was actually full.

I slumped against the corner of the wall, pressing my hands against my bloated stomach.

I started calculating the math in my head.

If I were back at that house, a meal this filling would have cost me three dollars.

I had just made a three-dollar profit.

The door groaned open the next morning.

A heavy-set woman stomped in. The others called her Hua.

Hua was carrying a massive pot of overcooked, mushy pasta mixed with cheap, sour-smelling tomato sauce.

None of the kids touched it.

They just kept sobbing and throwing tantrums.

Hua whipped out a thick leather belt with a heavy metal buckle. Whoever cried got lashed.

The windowless room echoed with agonizing screams.

I didn't shed a single tear.

I calmly walked over to the massive pot, picked up a heavily chipped ceramic bowl, and scooped a mountain of the mushy pasta for myself.

I squatted by the wall and began shoveling it into my mouth.

Hua's hand, gripping the leather belt, stopped dead in mid-air.

She stared down at me. "You're not scared of me?" Hua asked.

I swallowed the thick glob of pasta in my mouth. "Ma'am, how much does a bowl of this cost?"

Hua's thick eyebrows scrunched together. "Is this kid right in the head?" she muttered under her breath.

I still wasn't reassured.

Chapter 4

I set down my chipped bowl and scrambled to the corner to grab a broom. "Ma'am, I don't have any money to give you. If I sweep the floors for you, can you not charge me for the food?"

I started sweeping frantically. I shoved all the loose trash into a pile in the corner, then grabbed a dry rag to aggressively scrub the grimy windowsills.

Hua stood there, staring at me for a long time.

She lowered the thick leather belt.

From that day on, I became the odd one out in that compound.

Every other kid had their wrists and ankles bound tight with zip ties every single day.

Not me.

Because I never tried to run.

Not only did I stay put, but I worked my fingers to the bone for Hua.

Before the sun even came up, I'd grab the broom and sweep the entire concrete yard.

After sweeping, I headed to the backyard to clear out the massive piles of garbage. The main drain pipe was choked with thick, rotting grease, reeking of decay. I got down on my hands and knees and forcefully dug the foul sludge out with my bare fingers.

The stench made my eyes water, but I didn't dare stop.

Back in that house, if I didn't scrub the grime perfectly, my mother would use it as an excuse to whip the back of my legs. And for every single lash, she'd demand I compensate her for the "energy" she wasted hitting me. Twenty cents a strike.

Nobody hit me here.

I refused to lose this unpaid job.

After clawing the foul-smelling drain clean, I dragged the freezing garden hose across the backyard to wash the laundry.

Clothes from over a dozen kids, plus Wang and Hua's heavy loads. The pile towered like a small mountain.

The winter water was like liquid ice.

The second I plunged my hands in, my fingers went numb. The severe cold gave me brutal frostbite. My knuckles swelled up tight, the cracked skin weeping thick yellow pus.

Hua walked by and spotted my hands. She planted her boot into my side with pure disgust. "Don't get your gross blood on my clothes."

I frantically wiped my raw hands dry on my jeans. "Don't worry, ma'am, I won't stain them. I'll scrub them perfectly clean."

Hua ignored me and stalked off.

I plunged my bleeding hands back into the freezing water. The cold sliced straight to the bone.

But internally, a wave of relief washed over me.

Because Hua didn't demand I pay medical fees to treat my frostbite.

Back home, if I so much as sneezed, my mother forced me to hand over a dollar for an "infectious disease prevention fee."

Here, being sick was absolutely free.

Three months later, they dragged the girl in the pink dress away.

Hua bragged that she sold for a premium price.

That very night, a fresh batch of kids was dumped into the compound.

One little boy spiked a massive fever. He lay on the moldy mattress, shivering hard and mumbling nonsense.

Hua refused to get him a doctor.

To Hua, doctors cost money. If he could survive the fever for free, great. If not, he'd just be thrown out like trash.

By the third day of the fever, the boy stopped moving.

He just lay crumpled in the corner, his chest barely rising.

Every day, I went to the spigot outside and brought him handfuls of tap water.

He couldn't swallow it. The water just dribbled down the side of his mouth and soaked into the moldy old mattress.

I scrubbed the spot frantically, afraid that if Hua saw it, she'd slap him with a cleaning fee.

That night, Wang walked in carrying a heavy-duty black contractor trash bag.

He shoved the little boy inside.

The boy didn't even twitch.

I just sat on the floor, watching. I recognized that thick plastic; it was the kind used for hauling heavy yard waste.

Wang hauled the black bag over his shoulder and carried it out the door.

Hua trailed behind him, cursing under her breath. "Worthless little rat. Wasted days of my food. Should've just dumped him under an overpass to begin with."

I listened to Hua's furious muttering, carving those words permanently into my brain.

Wasting food meant getting stuffed into a black trash bag.

I could absolutely never waste food.

The next morning, I crawled over and picked up the half-eaten piece of hard bread the boy had left behind.

A thick layer of fuzzy green mold had already grown over the crust.

I used my dirty fingernails to scrape the green fuzz off, piece by piece. Then, I shoved the stale bread into my mouth and chewed hard.

It tasted like ash and bitter rot. But I swallowed every last crumb.

Adults hated spending money, so I had to prove I was incredibly usefuland free of charge.

Chapter 5

By the end of my first year, Hua and Wang got into a vicious screaming match.

Wang wanted to sell me.

He claimed he had contacted a creepy old drunk down on the border who was willing to shell out twenty thousand dollars to buy me and lock me in his basement.

Hua wasn't having it.

"You sell her, and who's gonna wash all these clothes? Who's gonna cook? You hire a real maid, it'll cost you two grand a month!"

Hua jabbed her thick finger right at my face, glaring at Wang. "This little rat just needs a bite of food. We'll save that twenty grand in a matter of months."

I stood off to the side, listening.

I understood perfectly.

Hua thought I was cheap.

The tight knot in my chest loosened. As long as I was a bargain, they wouldn't kick me out.

Wang caved.

I stayed. I became the permanent, unpaid janitor for a human trafficking ring.

Year three.

I was twelve years old.

I dragged myself up at five every morning to boil two massive pots of mushy oatmeal. At six, I handed out the stale hard bread to the fresh batches of kids.

I didn't hit them.

I just stared at them and stated the facts. "Eat it. It's free. If you don't eat, you get stuffed into the black contractor bags."

Some kids didn't understand. They just kept wailing.

So I snatched their bread away and hoarded it for myself.

I didn't feel a shred of guilt. I was just following the rules of this place.

The rule of zero cost.

I had even secretly hoarded six one-dollar coins.

Wang had dropped them in the dirt yard during a blackout drunk stumble. I had snatched them up in a heartbeat, vigorously scrubbing the grime off against my shirt.

That night, lying in the pitch black, I ripped up the insoles of my beat-up sneakers. I used my bare fingernails to aggressively gouge out a shallow crater in the rubber sole. I lined the coins up perfectly inside, then slammed the insole back down.

I slept with my sneakers laced tight.

Those six dollars were my only insurance policy in the entire world.

If the day ever came when Hua actually decided to pawn me off, I would hand her that cash and prove I could buy my own hard bread.

Then came three days ago.

The heavy steel gates crashed open.

A swarm of tactical gear and uniforms flooded the compound.

Wang bolted for the back exit, but they tackled him face-first into the concrete. Hua thrashed as the heavy metal cuffs ratcheted shut around her wrists.

Total chaos erupted. Uniforms tore the place apart.

I had no idea what was happening.

My first, instantaneous thought was that they were here to collect money.

My mother always said that whenever people in uniform showed up at the door, it meant paying a massive fine.

My throat constricted.

I didn't have money for fines.

I scrambled into the kitchen and wedged myself tight behind the rusted radiator. Both arms locked in a death grip around the chipped ceramic bowl I had used for three years.

Detective Chen breached the kitchen.

The blinding beam of her flashlight pinned me against the wall. "Hey there, don't be scared. We're the police. We're taking you home."

I shrank back into the scalding metal. "I don't have any money!"

I screamed at the top of my lungs. "I can't pay the fine! Don't arrest me!"

Detective Chen froze.

She lowered the blinding light and reached out to grab me.

I lunged forward and sank my teeth straight into her wrist.

She didn't flinch.

She just let me bite down until a deep, bleeding ring of indentations broke her skin.

Then, she forcefully scooped me up and hauled me outside.

The day they shoved me into the back of that cruiser, I was still clutching that broken ceramic bowl like a lifeline.

For the three hours I'd been trapped in this precinct, I squatted defensively in the corner of the room.

Detective Chen brought in a stack of clean clothes.

It was a bright pink tracksuit.

The cardboard price tag was still dangling from the zipper.

My eyes instantly locked onto the printed number.

Sixty-eight dollars.

I whipped my hands behind my back, pressing my spine flush against the drywall. "I'm not wearing that." I shook my head frantically.

Detective Chen stepped closer, trying to press the soft fabric into my chest. "Your clothes smell like rot.

Put this on. I bought it for you. It's free."

Free.

Chapter 6

Those words felt impossible to believe.

If I put those clothes on, and my mother saw them, she would force me to pay her back that sixty-eight dollars.

Sixty-eight dollars.

I'd have to collect over two thousand empty cans.

Or take one hundred and thirty-six beatings.

I could never pay that off.

Detective Chen sighed and set the clothes down on the plastic chair beside her.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway outside.

Heavy.

Mixed with the shrill, complaining voice of a woman. "Just to pick up this worthless rat, giving the beat-up truck gas cost eighty, and the toll booths cost another twenty. A hundred bucks right down the drain. This trip is a massive loss."

I knew that voice entirely too well.

For nine years, that voice had hounded me every single day for money.

A cold tremor rippled through my body.

My hands instinctively clamped down over the pocket holding my coins.

The door swung open.

My mother walked in.

She wore an old, faded tank top with pilling around the collar, her greasy hair tied back in a messy bun.

Behind her followed my father, and a chubby teenage boy.

My brother, Yaozu.

I hadn't seen him in three years. Yaozu was taller and fatter now. He was currently shoving handfuls of potato chips into his mouth from a crinkling foil bag.

Detective Chen stood up to meet them. "You must be Xiaoman's parents. We found her. She's right over there."

My mother followed Detective Chen's gaze.

I was curled into a tight ball in the corner of the room. I had my arms wrapped tight around that chipped ceramic bowl.

I thought she might rush over and hug me, sobbing like the parents did on TV.

She didn't.

Her brow furrowed into a deep scowl as she marched over, staring down at me.

Her nose wrinkled as if smelling something rotten. "Why are you still so scrawny?

You've been gone three years and haven't put on an ounce of meat. Useless little thing. Just wasting food."

As she spoke, her hand shot out, grabbing my ear tight and hauling me up off the floor.

I sucked in a sharp breath against the spike of pain.

But I didn't make a sound.

Because crying out in pain cost money.

My mother charged five dollars for a "disturbance fee."

I forced myself to stand up straight, following the violent tug of her hand.

I kept my head bowed low. "Mom, I didn't waste food," I whispered. "I worked every day. They didn't charge me for my meals."

My mother let out a cold snort.

She released my ear and turned back to Detective Chen. A greasy, eager smile plastered itself across her face.

She rubbed her thumbs against the frayed hem of her tank top. "Officer, thank you so much for the trouble.

But look, we drove a really long way to get here. It even messed up my shift at the motel. Will the precinct reimburse us for the gas and the lost wages?"

Detective Chen froze.

She had probably never been asked a question like that in her life. "You're here to pick up your biological daughter.

She was trafficked for three whole years. She's been through hell. And your first priority is asking us for lost wages?"

My mother's expression hardened. "You can't look at it like that. We're victims too.

She got taken, and for three years we were down a pair of hands. Nobody washed Yaozu's clothes. My back is completely shot from doing it all myself, and doctors cost money."

My father nodded vigorously beside her. "Yeah, exactly, officer. Now that the girl's back, did you guys make the traffickers pay up? We're not leaving if we don't get a payout."

Detective Chen's chest heaved with rage.

She pointed a finger straight at me. "Look at her! She's twelve years old!

Her body is covered in frostbite and scars. Don't you have a single word of comfort for her?"

My mother cast a completely indifferent glance my way.

Chapter 7