Lettie

Chapter 1

Collette - age 22- 5 years ago

"Are you aware of what you are asking Collette?" Marks voice would be soothing to anyone else, while it made my skin crawl and the familiar feeling of bile in my stomach threatened to rise with his softly spoken words. Mark might be my boss, and he might have saved me from foster care, but likeness craves likeness. I was just as useful for him as he was to me. He took one look at me when I was 13 with that blood-soaked baseball bat held over my head while I bashed my foster fathers face in and smiled when the blood splattered on his face. The memory of my beginning is seared into every part of me. The night everything changed, the night I became his, instead of my own.

"What are you doing little one?" Mark asked in his soft tone. "As you can see, there is no use for that bat anymore." He gestured to the mutilated body left on the floor, the only reason I could tell it was Paul was because of his disgusting red flannel he wore, it smelled of beer, cigarettes and fucking piss. It was nauseating. He was nauseating. And now he's dead. He would no longer be around to bother me, to nauseate me. I couldn't bring myself to fake caring, or fake that the blood upset me. It didn't.

I continued to glare at him, refusing to drop the bat. He reached either for me or the bat, I was unsure.

I growled at him, ready to pounce.

"I won't hurt you little one, I promise. I'm here to help." And he outstretched his hand, waiting for me to place the bat in it.

Lies.

"Lettie?" Mark sneered and whisked me out of my memory. His tone had gone from soothing to dripping in malice. "That is what you prefer to be called is it not?" he smirked.

He thought I didn't know he knew about Jackson, of course he knew, he knows everything. He seems to forget he made me; he forged me into what I am.

"It's what needs to be done." I replied barely able to conceal the tremor in my voice, I knew what was coming.

"Very well, and what is it that needs to be done?" His eyes were alight with bloodthirst.

"Blood in, Blood out." I raised my eyes to meet his, not shocked to find nothingness reflected in his. I did note a whisper of surprise in his when my eyes also reflected nothing and knowing how much pain I was in for.

"Repeat it again, Collette, again."

"Blood in, blood out." Marks fist hit first to the side of my temple, momentarily disorienting me. Just because I knew this was coming, didn't make it hurt any less. I wouldn't fight back, I wouldn't move, I knew what was at stake if I did. He'd go after Jackson, and I asked for this.

"REPEAT IT AGAIN COLLETTE, AGAIN." As he reached for the baseball bat next to his desk and smiled wickedly at me while wiping my blood from his knuckles.

"BLOOD IN, BLOOD OUT." I screamed in his face and the bat connected with my knees first, then my ribs, and I floated into nothing.