CHAPTER 1: SOLD MY VIRGIN HOLES

EVE’S POVMy little brother coughs like gravel churning in a blender. The sound is wet and rough before it suddenly stops. He is eight years old, with nothing but skinny arms and fever-bright eyes.

The village healer shook her head after she saw him yesterday. Mom kneels on the floorboards every day, and her rosary beads click between her fingers like dry bones.

I am the big sister. I am nineteen and still in my nightshift, with my heart hammering so hard that my tits shake.

I never believed the stories. The old women whisper about him around winter fires—the devil in the pines....