Unknown L (Book 1) [Editing]

~ Every Story Has ~

It was dark out, the kind of dark where nothing could be seen if it weren't for the streetlights. The moon and stars were hidden by black clouds, and people were shut up in their homes before nine o'clock. This was the very time that L loved to be out.

There was nobody around to stare at her or pretend not to be talking about her; she could move around the town of Mullfield freely without being disturbed. She never felt scared because she'd always been good at taking care of herself. She'd been in enough fights as a kid to know how to do varying degrees of damage.

Any wandering strangers that occasionally passed through the town were always wary of a sixteen year old girl walking around at night. They usually steered clear of her, just as most people did, and L didn't care in the slightest. She loved the peace it gave her. She didn't have to deal with the drama other people seemed to thrive on.

She walked down the empty streets almost on a nightly basis, but during the day, she had to go to school. Luckily, it was her last year. She couldn't wait to be rid of that place; it was a daily torture just going to the classes. She was done putting up with kids who only cared about the latest piece of technology or their appearances.

L didn't care about the way she looked. She'd always been slim and average height for her age. She cut her hair herself into a short cropped style so it didn't get in her way, and there was no reason to mess with it; something the other girls couldn't understand.

Her hair was dark brown, and her eyes were electric blue. That combination always seemed to cause unwanted attention. She also had a noticeable birthmark in the white of her right eye. People tried not to stare, but they always failed. They always stared.

Sometimes, L thought her birthmark looked a bit like a rolled up newspaper. Other times, it looked like it had changed into a tiny book. She wasn't sure if she was seeing things or if birthmarks could actually change shape, not that she'd ever ask anyone. They already thought she was odd. She didn't need to add crazy to their opinions.

Ever since she could remember, she'd never acted 'normal', not like the other kids around her. If she'd had some family growing up, she might have been able to compare her quirks to them. But as far as she knew, L had nobody, not even a distant uncle that nobody liked, she was alone and she'd never known why.

Everyone's story generally has a beginning, but L didn't know anything about hers. She had been in and out of foster homes for as long as she could remember, never staying too long in one place for one reason or another. Usually, it was the families. They didn't like the way L did things, and a few seemed almost afraid of her.

L just tried to stay out of their way, and she made it a mission never to get attached to them. They weren't her real family. She knew they were out there somewhere. She didn't know how or why, but a feeling deep inside told her that someone was out there who cared about her. She couldn't do anything about it until she was old enough to live alone, though. People always came looking for her whenever she'd tried running away in the past.

She'd often pondered whether there was some kind of tracking device implanted in her body that she didn't know about. She sighed at her silly thoughts and absentmindedly rubbed the letter in her pocket. The words on it were etched vividly into her mind, though that didn't stop her from carrying it everywhere. This letter and a blanket she had been covered in as a baby were all she had of her parents.

She used to try to imagine things about them when she was younger; like who had written the letter. How her mum was probably in floods of tears because she had to leave her baby on the doorstep of a random orphanage. How her dad would have been saying strong words to her as he tucked her into the basket and placed her down. How he'd probably knocked loudly on the door and then pulled his reluctant wife away, who sobbed into the night.