Prologue

Darkness, enveloping darkness, surrounded her, filling her with the coldness she oh-so-greatly adored. She despised the light and everything to do with it. In the light you had to feel, but in darkness you could be numb and alone and…free. She hated feeling and all of the emotions that came along with it.

A violent shiver rippled through the girl’s body, and she hugged her arms to her chest. The vague ghost of calloused hands running over her skin made her clench her eyes shut in terror, a small whimper escaping from her pursed lips. No! She wouldn’t think about him, not now. Not when he had finally left her chambers.

Tears that she fought desperately to hold back made their way down the girl’s cheeks and she cursed at herself, cursed at her weaknesses, cursed at him. How could someone be so cruel to her? How could her mother be so blind as to not realize where he went at night? How could her mother be so stupid?
The wind outside whipped at her windows and rattled the glass in their frames. She jumped as something in the corridor outside her bedchamber fell from its stand and shattered across the cold, marble floor. Lightning flashed across the sky, alighting the entire house…and the dark shadow that lingered below her door.

The girl gasped and crawled to her feet, racing across the room. She tried the door’s handle with no avail so pounded on the door as hard as she possibly could, screamed as loud as she possibly could, but there was no answer. She began to pound harder, ignoring the splinters that shot into her palms and the blood that splattered and stained the painted white crimson.

“Help me, please!” she screamed. “Let me out!”

There was still no answer. The girl broke down into sobs and slid to her knees, resting her forehead on the door in front of her. Who had that been? Had she just been imagining things? No! She had seen something beneath that door and that something had been cruel enough to leave her locked in here.

Her eyes turned cold and a scowl marred the girl’s beautiful face as she stood up from her position and crossed the room to gaze out her floor-to-ceiling windows. This would be the last night; she wouldn’t let herself be used and tossed aside like a plaything any longer.

The rattle of the door’s handle turning drew the girl out of her dark thoughts. She stared straight ahead with cold, green eyes as a man entered her bedchamber. He flashed her a smile that was just as heartless as her gaze and closed and locked the door behind him. In a flash, he crossed the room and grasped her frail face in his calloused hands, forcing her lips to his.

“Hello, my Elizabeth,” he whispered when he finally pulled away, smiling at her frown.

“That’s not my name,” she growled. The answer she received was an echoing smack across the face.

“That is your name and you will answer to it, my daughter!” the man yelled.

Instead of answering, she lapsed into silence, allowing him to have his way with her for the last time.

While her dress was torn away from her body and the man’s hands violated her, the girl cast herself out of her body and into happier memories. Memories of life before her mother had ever met him, when she and her younger sister would stand outside on her balcony and blow bubbles into the night. Memories of warm summer days and cool nights.

A sharp pain seared across her nerves like wildfire and rudely pulled the girl back into her painful reality. He had entered her harshly and ripped something in the process.

“Bastard,” she muttered under her breath. He just smiled.

She tried to fall back into a better place, but the pain that shocked her every time he thrust wouldn’t let her do that. She clenched her eyes closed in agony, tears that the man licked away leaking out of their corners. But she refused scream for anything, pain or pleasure. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—give him that kind of sadist satisfaction.

‘No more after this. You promised yourself. You promised yourself!’

After what felt like an eternity, the man finally reached his climax, his breathing catching for a moment, and he pulled away, kissing her with a bruising force. He stood up from her crippled position on the floor and gazed down upon her possessively.

“You’ve had your fun, now be gone away from me,” she hissed, glaring at him coldly.

The man just smiled at her and quickly made himself presentable before leaving her room in silence.

The door clicked shut, and the sobs that the girl had struggled to hold back during the rape racked her body, leaving her a broken mess on her bedroom floor. She’d had enough of the treatments that her stepfather had given her since his marriage to her mother. She’d had enough of everyone not noticing the bruises on her arms or the hickeys on her neck for five years. She’d had enough of everything.

The sobs slowly died down to tears and the girl stood up from her position, cringing as pain from the tear somewhere inside of her ripped through her body. As carefully as she could, she made her way across the room and stopped in front of the standing mirror beside her bed. She stared at her naked reflection in cold disgust, hating herself for being so perfect. Her porcelain skin glowed from the moonlight and long, raven curls hung down to cover her breasts. Even after five years she could still see the twelve-year-old girl in her eyes, and she hated it.

With a scream, the girl lashed out at the mirror and shattered her reflection, smiling at the small slivers of glass that cut into her palm and the blood that ran down her arm to the floor. The pain was forgotten, he was gone. It would all be gone soon enough.

The girl slowly dropped to her knees and pulled the largest shard of glass out of the mirror. A sob shook her body as she ran her fingers over the makeshift blade, smiling heartlessly at the blood that trickled from the tiny cuts. Still smiling, the girl took the blade to her body and slashed over and over again, drowning her emotional torment in the physical pain she received. The blood ran down her figure and joined the coppery substance already drying on the ground.

She looked up at her crouching form in the mirror and frowned, not satisfied with the results. She wanted to maim her body, make it so that no one would want to do anything to her ever again. Sighing, she put the blade down to her left wrist and slashed, making a deep gouge that poured crimson. She chuckled and ignored the throbbing pain, putting the blade to her other wrist and repeating the process. The girl stared at the gushing blood and tried not to laugh, happy but wanting more; the pain from the two wounds was great, but it wasn’t enough.

Closing her eyes, she raised the blade to her neck and pressed down, drawing it quickly.

A small squeal slipped past the girl’s lips and the blade fell to the ground. She clenched her bleeding hands to her neck and held it tightly, already beginning to gag on the blood that was pouring out. She became faint and fell to her side, hands slick with the blood that they tried—but failed—to hold back.

Resigning to her death, she released her hands and let them fall to the floor beside her, resting softly on the carpet.

As hard as she tried to keep her eyes open, she couldn’t, and she let them slowly flutter shut. She succumbed to the welcoming, enveloping darkness and let the hands of unconsciousness draw her into their deadly embrace…