Requiem

As I sliced the knife across his throat, neat and clean, it suddenly reminded me of my Gran, and how she would expertly carve the ham at Christmas dinner. Always so neat, so clean, so pristine. What didn't remind me of my Gran at Christmas however, was the blood, the seemingly never ending pool of blood that spewed from his neck, and my perfect slice. I watched, fascinated as he flopped around on the floor of his office, like a fish that had just been taken out of its tank, unable to breathe, unable to live. And that it had been at my hand that this had came to be. I knew I should have felt guilt, or pain, or regret or possibly even fear. But, in truth I'd felt none of those things, instead all I felt was relief, relief for me and all the girls and boys like me that he had used up, abused, and cast aside. It was men like him that made me do what I did, in fact it was one man in particular that made me do what I did…

Depending on who you ask, I have a lot of names, I have a lot of stories, and I have an answer for every question, so no one would suspect anything. To the outside world I'm just a woman, like any other. Not very tall, but not too short, not very thin but not fat. I have long soft, thick blond hair, worn in a ponytail most of the time, and I have sky blue eyes just like my Gran - at least that's how she'd describe them to me when I was little.

My real name is Susannah Stackhouse, born and raised in BonTemps Louisiana, raised by my Gran and her brother once my parents died when I was just a little kid. I stayed with them until I was nine, and that's when it all changed. You see, my great uncle Bartlett was someone very important in our small little town. He was smart, he was respected; he was practically worshipped by some of the people there. A lawyer that climbed the ranks of the system quickly, he was on the fast track, considered one of the best in the state and wanting to hold court - literally with Judgeship in his sights... Ambitious to a fault, and he wasn't going to let any one or anything stand in his way. Let alone a crying little girl and her truth.

When I moved in with him and my Gran I was seven, and it started almost right away. He would baby-sit me while my Gran ran her errands, or went to church meetings, or bake sales or visiting the neighbours. To anyone else he was just being a loving uncle. To me, he was my living nightmare.

The touching started when I was eight, and by the time I'd turned nine … well, I was no longer a little girl. Forced to grow up in ways that no one should ever be, I had been raped, abused and broken too many times to count. Of course I didn't know it then, I didn't know what 'it' was that he was doing to me, all I knew was that it hurt, and he liked it. I hated it, I hated him, and soon that boisterous little girl that I once was ceased to exist.

The day after my tenth birthday, I somehow summoned all the courage I had left in me, and I told my Gran, I told her what I knew to be true. That Bartlett was a man, who had done things he shouldn't have to me for a very long time. And that's when my life changed again, so many changes - too many for such a young soul. I know that now, but then, back then I had no clue. In church they always preached on about how we should tell the truth, right? So when I told the truth I thought I was doing the right thing. According to God I was, but not according to my uncle, and it seemed that in our household my uncle had more sway than God. He had somehow managed to convince my Gran that I was broken, that I was 'evil' for making up such lies. And that's when they sent me away. To the hospital with the white walls and the smell of bleach that never seemed to fade. Where they asked me questions, and wrote my answers down, where they fed me medications for my 'disease' like it was candy. I thought I was wrong, all those years, they had me convinced of it. That I had imagined it, in my head, and that I really hadn't been raped repeatedly by the man I was meant to trust. I was schooled and lived my life in that facility and it felt like that's where my life was meant to be, forever. But, it wasn't, and suddenly a meeting with my matron, and my main psychologist, told me that my Gran had died and that they really had no reason to hold me there any further. They had been holding me under his, and her word, that I was sick in the head, but as doctors they knew I wasn't and over time I proved it. I shut out the anger and the pain, I shut off the fear and I became what they needed me to be, I became a girl just like any other, one that would blend in on the street that you lived on.

I became my own lie.

The day I turned eighteen, was the day I was set free from that place, and in many ways I had been set free of my mind where I'd locked that other girl away for all those years. She was pissed and wanted her revenge. But the other girl, Sookie, the girl that I had become for the outside world, she knew I had to wait because what he deserved would take time, careful planning and a flawless execution.

In the mean time I would need practice, and there were plenty of others out there - just like him- and plenty of other girls out there - just like me - who couldn't stand up for themselves and get their entitled revenge, and for those girls I would do it and it would be practice to make myself perfect for the time when I was ready to face him again. And I would, and for what he did, for the life he stole in that bedroom, for the innocence of that little girl, I would get my revenge, and he would meet his death.

To the outside world I'm just a girl, like any other, but dig a little deeper and you'll find something else…

You might just find a serial killer, in training.

A/N: Chapter1 to follow shortly!