Disclaimer: I do not own any of Tamora pierce's characters, only the storyline and the original characters.

Chapter 1: Lost

A girl staggered across the floor, one hand holding a rag to her side as she walked. She collapsed on the thin mattress placed beside a full-length window and gasped with pain that shot through her side. Her thin frame was riddled with bruises and cuts and her long black hair was mattered with bits of cigarette dust. Dried blood crusted on the inside of her golden-brown thighs and her face, under all the bruises, was contorted with pain. She turned her face up to the moonlight and gazed up at the moon.

"It's the full moon tonight," she whispered, her lovely voice hoarse and broken, a voice that had been screaming for some time. She closes her eyes and wished fiercely for a something to happen. In the books she read, magical things happen during a full moon. Maybe if she wished hard enough a fairy might come for her and make everything better like in Cinderella. Maybe something might happen and take her away from the horror that was her stepfather, Jim. He was always beating her, blaming her for her mother's illness and the fact that he had to use his earnings for something else than booze money.

Tonight was the last straw. He had reached a new level of torture: rape. Yes, he had raped her tonight, in her house on the sofa where she had spent many afternoons before he came, chatting with her mother and watching TV. The shame and the pain were too much to bear. Her mother was staying with her aunt because that was the only way she'd get some relief from Jim.

To get away….away from it all, that was what she wanted most…and she could do it. She grabbed a certain pillow with a stained blue cover and thrust her hand inside. She hesitated for a moment then pulled out a kitchen knife whose blade was wrapped in another rag. She had wanted to use it on jim but her mother made her swear not to.

"Honey, do not use that knife on Jim. I know he can be difficult and he may swear at you but that's as far as he will go. I do not want my daughter to grow up like that. That may provoke him to be harsher than he is," her mother said to a furious 12 year old girl.

That was two years ago and it did not take a knife to make Jim cruel. She placed the kitchen knife next to her heart and took a deep breath. I'm sorry mother…but I cannot live any longer…