Little Lady

Chapter 1

The birds chirped outside. The sun still shone with the prospect of a good new day. The TV still blared the news and the radio sang the same old hits. Nothing had changed.

Nothing except Alice's life.

Her eyes were filled with terror. She looked in the mirror, her blonde hair dirty with soot and bruises running down her entire body. A hickey decorated her throat and a long scrape was on her knee. Lashes from the awful whip were across her back. They burned when she washed them carefully in the shower.

Despite all of this Alice was still getting ready for school. She was still going to try. She was still going to make her mother proud. She gasped when she looked in the mirror again, her lips bruised and chapped. Alice wanted to cry. But she put on her jeans and a sweater, tying a scarf around her neck to hide the hickey. Alice patted on layers of make-up, hoping to erase the scars on her face. But the scars on her heart weren't going anywhere.

"Where do you think you're going?" a voice boomed. Uncle Klaus. Alice's heart started racing.

"School," she replied timidly.

"You're not going to school. You're going to work," he spat. Alice shuddered in fear and backed away slowly.

"What do you mean?" she questioned, putting her make-up brush down and pushing it aside. She wanted to throw the powder in his face, but afraid of getting hurt, afraid of not running away in time.

"Listen Alice," her uncle began, sitting on her bed. Alice bit her lip, wincing in pain, causing it to bleed. She dabbed at the blood, hugging herself, wishing against all odds that her uncle would leave. "You work for me now, understood? You'll get paid, but 70% of the funds go to me. Now change into different clothes. That outift won't get you anywhere."

Her uncle left the room, telling her that he expected to see her downstairs in ten minutes.

Alice began to sob quietly, resting her head against the wall. What had she gotten herself into? What had her mother gotten her into?

No. She didn't want to blame this on her mother.

Alice stepped downstairs ashamed, wearing a skirt and the most revealing shirt she had. She hid it under a trenchcoat, the scarf still wrapped around her neck carefully. "Wear the boots and lose the trench coat...you're inside, not outside just yet," her uncle instructed. It sickened Alice to think of him as her uncle. An uncle was supposed to be kind to you and give you a place to stay and love you. Alice decided to not call him uncle. Klaus. Klaus was fine. Alice nodded obediently. "Wait-- before you do, put the fishnet stockings on," he said.

Alice froze. "What?" she inquired, like she didn't hear him. Not all prostitutes dressed like this.

"You heard me," Klaus growled, and he held out a pair of fishnet stockings. Brand new. It was sick and twisted, like he had all of this planned from the beginning. She took them, snatched them, even. She laughed almost hysterically because she wanted to cry. Alice was about to head upstairs to put them on. "No, put them on right here and right now."

Alice wanted to turn around and punch him in the face and run. He gave her a devilish look, as if he dared her to. Alice didn't have the guts to. She pulled up her skirt in shame, fitting into the fishnet stockings almost perfectly. When she turned to look at her uncle's -- Klaus's face, she almost puked. He was practically salviating.

"Be back soon, darling," Klaus crowed. Alice realized that Klaus was letting her go out of the house, she could run. She could escape and never come back. "And don't think about running away, or your poor little mummy gets it. I have lots of friends in that little town where you're from, dearie." That was enough to stop Alice's heart. Her mum. The reason why she was here. All the money she made her, all the studying she did here was for her mum. She couldn't run. She couldn't.

Alice slammed the door behind her, stepping out into the bitter cold of a November in London. She wrapped the trench coat around her, making sure her scarf was secure. Alice wondered what would happen if she came home with no money. What would Klaus do to her? She trembled thinking about it. Being a prositute was demeaning. There was nothing to be proud of. One shouldn't be selling their body.

She wondered for a moment if she could catch a flight and get back to her mother in time...

No. Klaus would get to her mother and dispatch her before she could catch up and go back home, where she belonged.

"I'm sorry mummy," Alice whispered, and she kissed her mum's locket, which she wore around her neck. It was a brassy gold, and was an ancient heirloom. She wasn't losing it any time soon. Klaus would never take that away from her. Sunlight flowed through the trees and the breeze rustled the leaves. On a regular day in London, Alice would have enjoyed the break from her studies, but this wasn't a break.

This was work.

Alice rolled back her shoulders and let the soft breeze ruffle her dirty blonde hair, clutching the coat close to her barely clothed body. She looked towards the ground, keeping her head down, hoping nobody recognized her. She honestly didn't want anybody to recognize her. The only place where bastards would pay for a female would be the seedy side of London, and that's where poor Alice was headed.

"I forgot to bring my purse today," Alice muttered under her breath. "Well shit, I dunno how I can buy lunch with no euros." Alice supposed it was a motivation to get this thing over with. Prostitution.

Prostitute.

That's what she was now.

A whore, a slut, a hoe, a dirty tramp that men cheated on their wives with.

But she was forced to do this. She didn't choose this life. Alice sat on the edge of a fountain, burying her face into her hands. "What am I gonna do?" Alice moaned. The scars from yesterday still burned, and the word prostitute rested on her lips, stinging her entire mentality whenever she thought about it.

This was too soon. This wasn't supposed to be her life. Alice cursed Klaus in her brain.

Merely 13.

Not even an adult.

"Skipping school?" a voice chimed. Alice's heart lurched in her chest. She looked up, her blonde hair flipping around. Warm blue eyes looked back at her. They pierced her skin, like they could see right through her. "Relax, I'm not gonna report you or anythin'," the boy said. He was a ginger, with a mass of curly red hair and salty sweet blue eyes. He looked a little older than she was. "What's your name?"

"Alice...but I should go," Alice said, proceeding to stand up. She couldn't stay around an attractive boy around her age. She didn't live the normal life of a teenager anymore.

"Why? Sit. We'll talk. I'm rather bored. There's nobody to talk to on a school day," he said gently. He smiled charmingly at her. "I'm skipping school too. Too much going on to focus on that." The guy got a far-off look in his eyes as he said those words. "I'm Xander," he added.

"I'm sorry, I can't. I have somewhere I need to be. I'll see you around! Oh, and you dropped this," Alice noted, picking up a fancy black pen with initials engraved into it. She handed it to him before scurrying off, her cheeks aflame.

Perhaps this was what a first crush felt like.

Sad how she experienced this sensation after she had lost her virginity.

As Alice ran, tears spilled down her cheeks as she realized that she could've spent all that time associating to someone normal. The one link to a normal in her new and crazy hectic life. Too late now.

Time to work. Time to work. Time to keep mum alive.