Her parents had died when she was thirteen. It had been pretty horrible, a murder.

The police had come into the house after an alert call from the house after a break in, but they had come too late.

In the kitchen was a dead woman, stabbed several times.

In the living room was a dead man, his throat cut.

In the bedroom closet was a small thirteen year old girl, alive, shaking with sobs.

She’d stayed with family: an aunt, uncle, and two cousins.

But they didn’t know what to deal with her. The cousins, two boys, teased her all the time about her nightmares.

The aunt and uncle felt pity for her, maybe, but no real sympathy. They were extremely strict, kept her locked away at home with the cousins.

Finally one day she had enough, and punched one of them.

Her cousin, twice her size and two years older, had a huge black eye.

And she was sent off to a School for Orphaned Young Woman. Fancy name. It was really just another orphanage.