𝐁𝐚𝐝 𝐁𝐨𝐲𝐬 𝐃𝐨𝐧'𝐭 𝐇𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐬 | 𝐁𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐎𝐧𝐞 | ✓

| 𝐂 𝐇 𝐀 𝐏 𝐓 𝐄 𝐑 | 17

𝘓𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘯𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵...

At an apartment complex, room number fifteen, a young girl stealthily crept down the stairs. She spotted a sleeping figure on the sofa near the window and eyed them for several minutes before slipping into the kitchen where she opened the utensil drawer and pulled a shiny silver knife. The pale moonlight feeding in from the window above the sink illuminated her reflection in the blade. Her hair was bundled inside a leopard print bonnet, mascara ran down her cheeks, one of her eyes were purple-black and almost swollen shut. Staring at her reflection, a whimper escaped her chappy, busted lips–she slapped her mouth shut and looked over her shoulder at the sleeping man. She prayed for him to not have heard her and wake up, luckily he didn't–he only turned in his sleepy state.

Katniss sneaked over to the fridge and opened it as quietly as possible. She removed an ice packet and put in on her swollen eye to reduce the swelling. Her injuries wouldn't allow her to attend school tomorrow, no amount of makeup could cover them up. She snuck back up the stairs and slid into her room, shutting the door quietly behind her so as to not wake up the twins. She left them huddled together, sleeping soundly to enter the bathroom and lock herself inside.

She felt around in the dark before flipping the switch so the white light would come on. Katniss saw her reflection and wished the ground would swallow her. Bruises tainted her skin, two fingers on her right hand were broken and wrapped with white bandages. She was wearing nothing but a short pink, silk nightdress.

Katniss's father was once a rich man who went bankrupt and left her with the responsibility of paying off the debts he wound up–simply because he had a gambling addiction. She had to take care of not only herself, but Danika and Dylan as well. Her mother left immediately after Kent lost all the millions he used to spend on her, last Kat's heard she'd remarried to a billionaire tycoon and had a baby with him too. Ever since then, Kent had been violently abusive. The slightest mistake she made he'd punish her, he sometimes even harmed the younger children.

She walked over to the shower and drew the floral curtains, she stepped inside the white ceramic bathtub then laid down inside it. After spending some seconds staring at the ceiling, she suddenly slit her left wrist with the knife. She looked at the injury, her brown skin parted, revealing a white underlayer. Blood was pouring from under the brown layer of skin onto it, then off her hand, and onto her dress–soiling it in the red liquid. It burned. Her hand trembling, but once more she raised the knife and sliced herself. She continued to do it until she no longer had the energy to raise the knife. Blood soaked her dress and ran into the tub, tainting the white bathtub red.

“I can't do it anymore. I can't,” tears gathered in her eyes before sliding down her cheeks.

Katniss had been working since ten years old, she worked very hard in order to afford a place for her family to live in. Working at retail stores didn't bring in enough money, so once she became eighteen she started stripping to survive. The Toyota she had–which was something gifted to her by a friend–had to be sold so she could pay the debts off. The loansharks would be coming tomorrow for their money, Kent had found her fifty thousand dollars in the bag and took it. If she couldn't pay the debts off...they'd sell her and her siblings in the Human Trafficking. What was she going to do? She had not the slightest idea.

She was tired.

Tired of being abused, staying up late doing assignments, working for long hours, living on mere bubblegum, and having to pay for her father's sins. She was fed up. And worse, the people of her community and school do nothing but say the worst about her–everything they say are pure lies. They know nothing about her. No one knows anything about her, she keeps her life a secret because she knows humans are terrible.