Little Lady

Prologue

Prologue

Alice Collins had her dirty blonde hair in a sloppy pony tail. She sat in the back of her Uncle Klaus's sleek new Mercedes, hugging her backpack to her chest, staring at the fog and grey clouds over the horizon. It was a dreary day in London. "So how was school today?" her uncle asked. His words had caught Alice off guard and interrupted her thoughts.

"Oh, it was fine," she said, slouching in her seat and staring at the window. She could really use some crumpets right about now. It had been a rough day. She had tons of homework to do.

"I'll dial up your mum later, hmm?" Uncle Klaus tapped a rhythm on the steering wheel and began to hum. Alice nodded.

That was how things used to be, until Alice's thirteenth birthday.

"Stop! No!" Alice screamed. Bruises began to form on her wrist, and tears were begging to come out of her eyes. She was trapped.

Her heart palpitations increased every second, and sweat beaded on her forehead. She was scared to death. This was not a birthday party and this was surely not a birthday present.

Surely, surely this was a nightmare. It had to be.

But it wasn't.

"You're hurting me...please stop," she croaked. The t-shirt her mum had sent her was ripped in half on the spotless linolium floor. Her jeans were pulled down and the contents of her backpack were strewn all over. Alice closed her eyes, she wanted her uncle and his friends to go away. She wanted them to all disappear and stop harrassing her and stop touching her with their cold raw hands.

"Why?" she whispered, as her uncle yanked her panties off. She said the word almost like a plea, like the final call before giving in, before giving up. She looked into her uncle's murky eyes, hoping to see a shred of guilt, something that showed his unconditional love for his niece. But there was none. All she saw was a dark and sadistic creature staring back at her.

"Ready boys?" her uncle said, and Alice winced, inching to get away, struggling to get out of the men's strong grasp. But she failed. She felt their hands constricting around her neck and their arms pinning her hands above her head. Alice gasped, she could barely breathe.

"No, no, no..." Alice mumbled, fumbling to claw off the men's grasp on her. She bit them and kicked them. Nothing worked. "Please stop! You don't want to do this! You're gro--" she began, but she got cut off by the cold, painful feeling inside of her. The blood running down her thigh was all that was proof that she had lost her innocence. She screamed, an anguished cry of regret and naivity that she trusted her uncle. The tears sprouted, her hip seemed to shatter into pieces as her body was pushed to the side and in all directions. She could feel the bruises forming, her petite trembling frame wouldn't stay intact. Five men and one tiny 13-year-old girl were unfair odds.

Her brown eyes shown with bravery as she tried to push them away again. She resembled a deer in the headlights, trying to crouch in a fetal position, wishing for all of the pain and horrible things to go away. Alice felt the crack of a whip across her back. She was lashed a few times. She winced and groaned every time. There was punch to her eye as she continued to resist...as she continued to struggle. They had no mercy.

There came a point where Alice let her body lie in a heap, where she closed her eyes and just pretended she was someplace else. She wanted to call her mum. She wanted to scream for help. She wanted to pray to God that she would be able to escape this hellhole. "Please let it end," she whispered, and the bang of a metal bar on her head sent her straight to oblivion. Straight to her unconscious world.