Cursed with Bad Luck

My biological parents, the Vaughns, came to take me home.

Neighbors warned them it was a terrible idea, calling me a walking jinx who brought trouble to anyone near. They ignored it and took me to replace their fake daughter, who had bullied the daughter of the richest tycoon and needed a scapegoat.

On day one, the fake heiress tried to frame me for pushing her. She tripped and got a concussion.

On day two, my biological brother forced me to livestream and take the blame. He got tangled in wires and nearly choked.

On day three, the tycoon sent men to attack me, thinking I was the bully. A sudden hailstorm from a clear sky beat them badly before they reached me.

Unable to get to me, the tycoon took revenge on my parents. Their failing company pushed them to beg my adoptive parents to take me back.

"Please, well give you anything, just take this cursed creature off our hands."

When the Vaughns first arrived, my neighbors and my adoptive parents tried to warn them, over and over.

"Our Hannah... she's got a bit of a dark cloud over her head. Things tend to go wrong around her."

"You really need to think this through before you take her."

The wealthy couple waved it all away, their annoyance growing. "Can you stop with the superstitious nonsense? We're her biological parents. We're taking her home, not leading her to slaughter."

I let out a cold, quiet laugh. They clearly didn't recognize me.

I had seen them when they first pulled into our small town. I was on my way home and saw them hiding by their car, talking on the phone.

"Serena, darling, you know the only reason we're bringing this biological daughter home is to take the fall for you."

"The girl you cyberbullied is the daughter of Mr. Croft. This is the only way to protect you."

"Don't you worry. As soon as his anger has cooled, we'll kick her right back out."

"By then, she'll probably be too broken to even know what happened."

The girl on the other end finally seemed to calm down. "Fine. But when she's there, you can't be nice to her. I'm your only daughter."

The couple promised fervently before hanging up.

Hearing all that, I actually felt a pang of pity for the poor girl they were about to drag into their mess. What kind of cosmic bad luck did you have to have to be born to parents like that?

Turns out, the joke was on me.

"Alright," I said, stepping forward. "Let's go. I probably won't be staying long anyway."

The moment our car was clear of the town, their faces changed. My biological mother looked me up and down like I was something she'd scraped off her shoe.

"Your name is Hannah, is that right?"

"We are a respected family in Crestfall City. If you're going to live with us, you will follow our rules."

"You will be treated as an adopted daughter. Serena is, and always will be, our true daughter. You will defer to her in everything. If you make Serena unhappy, you will face the consequences."

I met her gaze calmly. "My adoptive parents might not have explained it clearly enough."

"I have a strange sort of... condition. People who are unkind to me, who wrong me, tend to have very bad luck."

My biological father scoffed. "Save the spooky stories and superstitious garbage for your simple-minded adoptive parents. Try that nonsense on us, and you'll regret it."

The words had barely left his mouth when the car began to swerve violently. It fishtailed across the highway, spinning in a nauseating drift. The couple screamed, clutching their seatbelts for dear life. The driver wrestled with the wheel, but it was useless. The car flipped.

As if summoned from the sky, a huge chunk of rock smashed through the roof on their side of the car, tearing a massive piece of flesh from both of their arms and legs.

The scent of blood filled the cabin.

Their screams turned to shrieks of agony.

I shook my head, which was spinning a little, and looked over at them. "I told you bad things would happen. Why didn't you believe me?"

I clicked my tongue, shaking my head. "That looks painful. A real pound of flesh."

They stared at me, their faces a mask of terror, fear, and impotent rage.

"This was an accident! Just an accident! Don't you dare look so smug!"

I just shrugged. The rescue team arrived quickly. As they were being loaded onto stretchers, the canvas tore. Twice. Then, as they were being lifted into the ambulance, the automatic door slammed shut without warning, nearly crushing their feet.

By the time they were finally secured, their injuries were significantly worse.

As the ambulance prepared to pull away, they were still screaming at the rescue team driver.

"Make sure you take her to our house! I refuse to believe she's this much of a jinx!"

I rode back to Crestfall City with one of the rescue workers. Since neither of us was seriously hurt, they just had me wait for observation for half an hour before the driver was cleared to take me to the Vaughn estate. He handed me over to the butler, Stewart, and even let him listen to the voicemail from my biological father. Even from a distance, I could hear the man's bellowing rage.

"Stewart, I want you to teach this ungrateful brat a lesson! Because of her, your mistress and I are stuck in the hospital! Teach her some damn respect!"

The butlers eyes glinted with malice. He dragged me into the grand foyer and threw me to the floor. "You're the reason the master and mistress are hurt. It's time you learned about our house rules."

I got to my feet, rubbing my bruised arm. "I'm just giving you a friendly warning," I said. "Hurting me brings bad luck."

"Is that so? Then I can't wait to see what kind of bad luck I'll have."

He came at me with a whip made of braided wire.

You just can't reason with a fool.

Somehow, as he swung, the wire whip got tangled in the power cord of a large decorative lamp. The cord was live. In an instant, the circuit shorted.

I could have sworn I saw a blue arc of electricity dance across the butler's body.

"Aaaaaahhh!"

The servants heard the screams and rushed in, some yanking plugs from the wall, others trying to help the twitching man. Stewarts hand was still pointing at me, his eyes overflowing with a venomous hatred.

The next second, a phone flew out of the hands of a maid who was dialing for an ambulance, soaring through the air and landing squarely on his nose.

There was a sickening crunch as the bone shattered.

"Aaargh!"

Another scream.

The driver was still standing at the door, his jaw hanging open. "Is this for real?"

I gave him a small smile. "The butler seems to be out of commission. Who are you supposed to hand me over to now? Maybe I'll just find my own way around."

The driver nodded vigorously. "Miss Vaughn, I think finding your own way around is an excellent idea."

Just then, Serena emerged from her room at the top of the stairs. Our eyes met. Hers were filled with pure disgust.

"So you're the one. Mom and Dad's real daughter." She smirked. "Perfect timing. I'm on my way to a party."

I beamed. "Oh, that's just wonderful."

Serenas expression tightened, her breathing growing heavier. She was clearly infuriated by my cheerfulness.

I thought shed be taking me to some fancy restaurant or club. I was wrong. She led me to a seedy, rundown bar. The moment we entered a private room, I was hit with a wall of smoke and the sight of a dozen greasy-looking thugs.

Serena shoved me inside, a cruel smile plastered on her face. "Boys, this is the 'real daughter' my parents dug up. If she's confirmed as the true heiress, I won't have any more money to treat you all to the good life. What are we going to do about that?"

The leader, a guy with bleached-blond hair, smashed a beer bottle on the floor. "Trying to steal our little sister's spot, is she? Don't worry, we've got ways of dealing with girls like her. A few naked photos will have her begging like a dog."

Serena crossed her arms, settling in to watch the show.

Blondie gestured to his crew. "She's not bad looking, boys. Looks like we're in for a treat today."

He yanked a girl with a numb, vacant expression up from the floor and gave me a sinister grin. "She's a little preview of what's in store for you. Honey, why don't you have a chat with our new friend?"

The girl nodded, her empty eyes fixed on me. "Be a good girl like me and do what they say. It'll hurt less. Otherwise, the boys can turn you into a dirty rag." She pointed to a door at the far end of the room. "If they take you in there, there won't be much of you left."

I looked at the half-open door and could almost smell a foul odor wafting from it. I sighed and turned to Blondie. "I'm sincerely advising you all not to touch me."

"I have this... weird thing about me. Back in high school, some punks tried to mug me. Before I could even hand over my money, they were struck by lightning."

"In college, a classmate who hated me tried to set me up to be assaulted. The place she sent me to got hit by a vice raid, and she was arrested for pimping."

I looked at the thugs, my voice patient. "I'm a bit of a jinx. But here's the thing: anyone who tries to harm me ends up ten times unluckier than I am."

Blondie heard me and burst out laughing. "Oh, I've just got to see this. Let's see how unlucky I can get."

He grabbed me by the hair and started dragging me toward the back room. The vacant-eyed girl squeezed her eyes shut in fear. Serena watched, her arms crossed, waiting for the entertainment to begin.

The next second, the glass door of the private room exploded inward.

Shards of glass flew everywhere, embedding themselves in Blondie's skin.

"Aaaaaahhh!"

His screams filled the room. The thugs around him weren't spared either. One of them caught a piece of glass right in the eye.

As for me, I had a tiny scratch on my hand.

Serena's eyes went wide. "How is that possible?"

The main door was kicked open, and a squad of police officers stormed in. "We received a tip about illegal activities happening in this room! Nobody move! Hands on your head and get on the ground!"

In the end, Serena and I were cleared of any involvement and picked up by my biological brother, Alexander.

The moment Serena saw him, she burst into tears. "Alex! I was just taking my sister out, and I don't know what happened, we ended up in that horrible place! I swear I didn't do anything bad to her!"

Alexander, who had doted on this girl his entire life, was immediately convinced. He wrapped his arms around her. "Of course it wasn't you." He then looked at me. "Find her a room to stay in."

Serena nodded eagerly, the malice in her eyes never wavering. She led me up to the third floor, vaguely pointing to a room she said would be mine. Before I could even see where she was pointing, I felt a hard shove from behind.

I stumbled forward, crashing into the railing.

But Serena, the one who pushed me, had twisted her ankle in the process and fell backward.

"Aaaah"

She tumbled all the way down the grand staircase, landing in a heap at the bottom.

Alexander heard the noise and came running, only to find Serena unconscious on the floor. His hair practically stood on end with rage.

"You! How dare you do this to Serena! Call the police! Someone like you belongs in a cell!"

I held up my hands, feigning helplessness. "Look, big brother, you're not going to believe this, but I really didn't do it. She tried to hurt me, and that's why she fell."

"You think I'm going to believe that?" he roared. "You're just jealous that Serena had the life that should have been yours!"

I couldn't be bothered to explain myself to a stranger.

The police arrived quickly. By a stroke of cosmic irony, it was the same officer from the bar raid. The first thing he did was ask to see the security footage.

Serena was clever enough to have a maid disable the cameras before she made her move. But, unfortunately for her, the butler's electrocution earlier that day had caused a short circuit. And by pure chance, the one camera on the third-floor landing had rebooted itself and was fully operational.

"Looks like her plan backfired," the officer said dryly. "Mr. Vaughn, this is clearly a domestic dispute. Are you sure you want to press charges?"

Alexander's glare could have set me on fire, but he was powerless. He forced a smile for the officer. "It seems it was all a misunderstanding. Sorry to have wasted your time."

From the look on his face, I knew he now hated me with a passion.

Serena was taken to the hospital. The diagnosis was a concussion. There, Alexander ran into his parents and learned the real reason I'd been brought home. Remembering the string of disasters that had followed me, he decided to change tactics.

"Brute force isn't working," he strategized with them. "We need to be smarter. We can't let Mr. Croft get to Serena. Why don't we have Hannah do a live stream and publicly confess to the cyberbullying? That way, no matter what happens, Croft will target her, not Serena."

His parents agreed it was a brilliant plan.