Spoken softly as she leans back in the chair. And she stares, weighing...measuring everything in times and places. Her voice softening as she continues.

"I don't know where I was born, my mother gave me up pretty early on in life. She left me with a hefty trust account though, not to be touched until I was 18, however. Good amount of money, actually...kept me in the green for over a year now. Anyway...I lived in an orphanage, or a girl's home if you will, most of my life. I had a few perspective buyers, as I like to call them, but...no real advances in my parental needs."

Raising her brows, she cants her head to the side. The end of a cigarette lit easily enough as she takes a deep pull from the curve of her lips, inhaling the smoke easily into her lungs before blowing it out.

"Don't feel sorry for me, there are a thousand kids in those places who were worse off than I was. The Foster homes though...they were the worst. Four girls to a room, no privacy...and I was alwasy uncomfortable in a new places. You stayed just long enough to find out if you hated the "parents" or if you loved them. But most of them were just barely passable as human beings, to be honest. Some...less than even that. So that was my life until I hit 16 years old and then everything changed drastically. I went to a party, well, more of a rave actually. There was this guy there...way older, but he had this thing. You know what I'm talking about...where they just draw you in with a look?"

A quiet, bitter laugh falls from her lips as she closes her eyes....

"I was pretty impulsive, and in all of my ignorance...I thought sex must mean more than pleasure, right? I mean, doesn't every 16 year old think that? His name was Eric. He spent the whole night with me. The.Whole.Night. I didn't see him again for a few weeks, but it was one hell of a ride. My appetite had changed, and I was so restless. I had no idea what was going on...and one day, on my way home from school, I saw him again. He told me he had something important to tell me. I walked into that warehouse, and I didn't leave again for 3 years."

A slow breath is taken in...and another long pull from the cigarette....

"He fashioned a collar inlayed with silver around my throat and chained me to the wall next to his "throne" as he liked to call it. It was all quite medieval. And for the first few months, I fought it. But everytime I stepped out of line, every time I tried to talk my way out of it, I was beat. I can't count how many times I've had my ribs broken, arms...fingers. They espcially liked to break my fingers. Kept me mobile, but in constant pain. And so...I learned not to do anything to deserve it, and when punishment was given for the sake of punishment. I took it, and told myself that I deserved it. Because...I was nothing."

The last word whispered from her lips....before that flash of anger flickers across her face and she just...chuckles.

"Three long...fucking years. They took pictures of me, dressed me up like a pretty little doll, and drugged me. It was easier when they drugged me. I made money for the Shadow. You know, underground fetish shows are huge in Seattle. After a show one night, he put me back in my collar, and I was used. Again...and again...rented out, so to speak to visiting members of other Shadows, to strangers...beaten and used. And something clicked."

Something had clicked indeed....

"He fell asleep. And not only did I find the key in his pocket, but I found what little courage I had left. I unlocked the collar, went into the bathroom and grabbed the amonia from under the sink. I soaked three large towels in it...cradeled the open container in the middle of them, and lit it on fire. Then..I ran. I ran fast, and I ran hard. I can't remember my heart ever beating so fast. And when I walked out of that door, I felt the world for the first time in a staggering way that I never even knew I could. I bolted the door and ran across the street and hid behind a car."

There's a delicate shrug of her shoulder offered as she half laughs...

"No...there was no way out. The door locked from the inside with one bolt, and the outside with the other, and the windows were barred from the outside. There are a lot of windows barred on Union Street. It didn't take long for the fire trucks to show up, and the police and the ambulances."

Shaking her head....her voice softening....

"I watched them paw at the windows...I watched the flames lick up their bodies, I heard them scream in terror and pain...and the last thing I saw was Eric's eyes before he was pulled from the window by the Shadow...No one ever knew, no one ever suspected. A nameless face in a crowd of onlookers that melted away into the darkness...that's all I had become."