(Two-and-a-half months prior)

Two weeks after the blood saga, my mother & stepfather told me that we were going out again. My heart squirmed. This couldn't be good. I hadn't been able to hunt down every item I required for my disappearance yet so I put running away on hold & today I wished I hadn't.

Maybe I should just kill myself instead. But then my mom & Manny would have my entire corpse at their disposal & I didn't want them to think they had won. Still, ever since I was thirteen & my father was killed, the offer was alluring.

I decided to walk outside right then since neither were looking & just go where the wind takes me. I tentatively stepped out of the front door & waited for the commotion. I had barely been allowed out of the house these days. I guess they were paranoid that I would run away & leave them without any body parts to auction off on the black market.

I sprang into a sprint as soon as I got to the road. Fuck yes! Let freedom ring! I was letting my stride extend into comfortable leaps & was too preoccupied with looking over my shoulder to see if anyone was on my tail that I did not realize my fatal error; drifting into the road. I felt the car before I heard it. Coming at me full-pelt, causing my knees to buckle underneath me & my upper body to be thrown whiplash-inducingly forward. I slammed heavily into the windscreen, shattering it before flying off to the side & landing in a bloodied heap upon the ground. I was out cold before I'd even processed what had happened.

∞

The scent was there, filling my nostrils without my permission before I was fully conscious. Glorious, just glorious! I'm back in the House of Horrors. Just my luck. I instinctively checked my body for signs of organ removal & nearly convulsed when I realized how much pain I was in. I remembered my accident then. How I'd been hit by a car & rendered unconscious. My mom & Manny probably went looking for me & found me lying hopelessly on the asphalt. Fuck me.

I had the bloody IV in my arm again & was about to rip it out when Manny gripped my wrists in his podgy hands which were surprisingly strong. "You don't want to do that," he said, his voice coloured with an undeniable undertone of threat.

I struggled against him & tried to rub the IV needle against something to get it dislodged but it was pointless. I was hardly in prime physical condition.

By the time the larger-than-average bag was filled I was already feeling light-headed. I didn't even fight when they exchanged the full contribution for a new bag. I probably passed out at one point because the next thing I knew I was back in my own room. Never have I been so relieved to be back home than now. I still felt like absolute shit but I was just glad that the ordeal was over. For now. I quivered as I realized that I needed to be much smarter when attempting to run away. I would gather my provisions as soon as possible & leave even sooner.

I reached for my computer & connected it to the Wi-Fi. Getting onto Chrome, I searched organ harvesting & similar things. I discovered that it isn't just kidneys, pancreas & livers that are sold through the black market, but just about any & every body part available. Like hair, bone marrow & in my case, blood. The official term for harvesting & smuggling blood is blood farming. Going out to casually yield the crops of erythrocytes, leucocytes, plasma & platelets. This is sickening. The amount of money one can receive from a pint of blood is hardly a patch on how much one could earn from selling a kidney or portion of bone marrow. But I figured the parentals decided to give my blood for a price because new blood would be constantly generated by my marrow. It occurred to me that they planned on subjecting me to this for quite a while. Probably for life. I had to leave. Now.