PROLOGUE

Los Angeles, California -1985

Jessica Washington gritted her teeth in pain as she pushed as hard as she could until she heard small cries fill the air. She cried herself and stretched out her arms wanting to hold her child.

"It's a girl."

"Please, let me hold her. Just once." She begged with short breaths.

Her step-father looked down at his child then back up at Jessica.

"Just once." He said then handed his daughter over to her.

Jessica nodded and smiled when her child was in her arms.

"You're so beautiful." She kissed her little girl's nose.

"Get up, we have to drop her off at the orphanage."

She looked up at him. "I want to keep her."

"You will not! Do you know what your mother would do if she ever found out?"

"As far as I'm concerned, that's not my problem. You're the one who raped me!"

"You had your chance to runaway, Jess, but you didn't. I think you wanted it. And you want me to do it again." Adriel smiled wickedly running his finger along her jawline.

Jessica moved her head back and spat in his face. Adriel drew his hand back slapping her in the face then yanked his child from her hands. She was hurting but she stood up chasing after him and by the time she felt like she was going to make it, Adriel got in the car and sped off down the road. Jessica fell to her knees screaming his name saying that she was sorry hoping that he would turn the car around but he didn't.

After few days when she regained some of her strength, Jessica went out to the orphanage that they planned to drop their child off at and told them about her situation but shortly after learned that they received no new children meaning that he had taken her somewhere else. She left with tears quickly filling her eyes and hit the steering wheel with her hands shouting.

"That bastard." She spoke calmly with a shaking voice. "I'm going to get my baby back."

She drove back home with a plan in her mind and was relieved when she didn't see her mother's car parked in the garage but even if she was there, Jessica still would've done what she's about to do.

One thing about Adriel is that he's a lazy bastard and she doesn't even know why her mother married him in the first place. She knew that her mother was hurting after her father had died but still, Jessica wouldn't have married this man, depressed or not. He's worthless. Scum. She warned her mother about him before the proposal, but she never listened. Jessica summed it all up to her mother not wanting to be alone anymore.

She was going to leave off for college soon leaving her mother behind, but as she got to see more and more of Adriel's personality, she was starting to rethink going away.

Her father, Jackson, was the greatest man that she's ever known. He would treat her well, tell her that he loves her and always made sure that she and her mother ate every night. He was the breadwinner in the family and they have endured tough times, but Jessica knew that everything would be okay. As long as they stayed together, and prayed, everything will be okay.

She remembers the night like it was yesterday. Her mother's cries rang through the house one late night and she ran downstairs asking what was wrong. Jessica has never seen her mother that broken before so she automatically knew that something had gone terribly wrong. By the looks of it, it had something to do with her father since he should be home by now and she knew that he wasn't home because if he was, her mother would've been secured in his arms. Instead, she took the place of her father and held her mother tightly.

"Your father is dead. He's gone, baby." Her mother cried.

Jessica's eyes widened and soon her mother wasn't the only one spilling tears. "What? How could this happen?"

"Your father got into some stuff long ago. He needed the extra money. I was talking him out of it for awhile and he went to go ask out and they beat him to death. It's all my fault—"

"No, no, ma, it's not your fault."

"Yes it is. He would be alive if it wasn't for me."

Jessica's heart was torn even more hearing her mother cry and blame herself for her father's death.

She remembers them staying up all night calling the family letting them know the tragic news. They had to deal with police questioning as well, but Jessica couldn't be any help for she had no idea of the stuff that her father was in. She was completely clueless up until a couple of hours ago. Knowing what she knows now, she knew that if she had found out she would've looked at her dad with different eyes. Yes, he was only trying to for them, but she knew that she wouldn't completely understand why he would ever be involved with a gang.

Just a year later, her mother came to her telling her that she's found a new man. Jessica only acted happy seeing that her mother was but in truth, she thought that it was a little too soon especially since the way everything happened and she heard her mother just the other day in her room cry herself to sleep.

Her mother told her about how happy he made her feel and after everything all she wanted was her mother to be happy so she supported her relationship.

Adriel turned out to be not the best person in the world. Jessica tried her hardest to like him but almost every time she was around he would say or do something that made her skin crawl. She remembers when he yanked her mother into his arms, grabbed her ass, and stuck his tongue down her throat right in front of her. It was disturbing more than anything especially since she noticed that her mother didn't enjoy the PDA and also in the kiss, Adriel opened his eyes and looked right at her like he was trying to make her jealous. Jessica got up grabbing her homework and locked herself upstairs in her room. She couldn't get the look that he gave her out of her mind no matter how many times she's asked God to remove his stare, she found herself mentally seeing it every now and again.

It was her seventeenth birthday when it all happened. She's noticed before the way that Adriel would look at her sometimes and she would've told her mother but she didn't want to break her heart again.

Weeks leading up to her birthday he would "accidentally" touch her in certain places, place his hand at the small of her back when he passes by and call her beautiful when her mother was in the other room. She would catch him staring at her and it frightened her all to the point where she stopped wearing makeup hoping that her natural face didn't please him. Jessica would only smile and avoid his eyes for the rest of the day but she still felt his eyes on her.

It was on her birthday when she knew that something bad was going to happen. Usually his touching and staring would happen twice a day minimum, but on this day she felt his eyes and hands on her body four times already. She made it up in her mind that she was going to tell her mother and she was on her way to do so when he grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her.

Jessica pushed him off of her and stormed away walking up to her room wanting to get as far away from him as possible. If only she knew that her going up there was part of his plan all along, she just would've went in the kitchen with her mother and did as she planned.

Throughout her party, Jessica was holding back all the tears and pain she felt after experiencing what she had. She was a virgin and was told that her first time should be gentle and with someone that she loved and cared deeply for, preferably her husband, but it was anything but that.

She tried to scream for her mother but his hand was pushing down on her mouth close to the point of suffocation and he would hit her thighs telling her to be quiet. After some time she stopped her fighting and just cried listening to his satisfied moans and groans.

When he was finished, he left her there pant-less on the bed, tears still spilling from her eyes. He didn't need to tell her to not tell her mother because he knew that she wouldn't.

That night she cried herself to sleep and she cried even more when she found out that she was pregnant just a month later. Jessica knew something was wrong when her stomach was hurting and found herself bent over a toilet on multiple occasions. She hoped and prayed that she wasn't but when she bought a test one day after school what she had hoped wasn't true, was.

Adriel was in a battle with himself. He told her to abort it but she refused for a reason he doesn't know but then he sent her off to "boarding school" telling his wife that Jessica had gotten in a few fights over the past weeks and he didn't tell her because he didn't want her to stress. Yancy couldn't believe what her husband was telling her, she just didn't see Jessica doing such a thing.

He told her about this nice boarding school and convinced her to let him send Jessica there only for a year figuring that she would learn how to act properly by then. Jessica was shocked to find out that her mother had agreed and the next day she was thrown into a moldy hotel room just three towns over. He only allowed her to spend a hundred dollars every two months on food and fifty on other items. He refused to take her to the hospital for anything baby related hoping that she would just have miscarriage. That didn't happen though, Jessica did her research and did everything she could to keep the baby growing inside her alive. Raped or not, the baby was hers and she made a promise to herself to keep him or her as long as she could.

When she reached nine months without any complications, Adriel knocked on her door telling her about the plan that he had came up with.

He told her about the orphanage and convinced her that it wasn't right of her to raise a child when she has absolutely nothing to offer, that she should give the baby up and let a family who actually wants a child take good care of him or her. He even agreed to show her the place and just as they walked out of the hotel doors, her water broke.

She begged him to take her to the hospital but he dragged her a block down to an alley thankful that night was falling so no one would really see them. The town is vacant as it is but at night he knew no one would be around.

God spared her with a labor of thirty minutes but unfortunately, when she asked to keep her daughter, Adriel slapped her and sped off in his car leaving her alone on the cold street.

When she went to get her baby back by explaining her situation, she found out that he took her little girl to a completely different place. She figured that he knew she would go up there and for the first time since she's met him, she wished that he was stupid. Stupid enough to not think and stick with the plan.

Shaking all those memories away, Jessica kicked Adriel waking him up from his sleep. He groaned then stilled as he heard the sound of the hammer being pulled back on a gun.

"Where. Is. My. Child."

Adriel looked back and got off the bed with his hands up. He stopped himself from laughing, she looked like a five year old with that gun, he knew that she had no idea what she was doing. He would give her props on actually getting a gun in the first place, maybe she had more of her dad in her than he thought.

"At the orphanage where I-"

"Don't fucking lie to me! I went there, they said they had no new born babies. Where is my child."

"Put the gun down, Jess."

"Where is she?!"

"Jessica, put the-"

Adriel ducked when she shot the gun and he looked back at her wide eyed. He could tell that she was just as stunned as he was so he ran up to her knocking the gun from her hand before she had the chance to pull the hammer back again.

She screamed and he punched her twice then dragged her down the stairs. He covered her mouth and arms with duck tape before throwing her in the back seat of his car.

"You know Jessica, if you weren't so damn stubborn you would be alive tomorrow. You would be alive, breathing in this California air growing up to be an actress like you wanted, but you just had to be stubborn. You had to have your little baby and for what? You can't raise a child, you know your mother would kick you out of the house in five seconds and maybe me as well, but the difference about me and you, Jessica, is that I'm a grown man. I have money, I can afford a place to stay, but what do you got? You got nothin', that's what you got! You're a child, foolish."

During his speech Jessica searched around for anything that could help her. She found a screwdriver in the pouch of the back of his seat and turned to her side to reach it. Once she succeeded, she used it carefully to cut her arms free by stabbing the tape with it as forcefully and quietly as she could. The car stopped just as she was done and looking out the window she saw a swamp that she didn't even know existed.

Adriel got out and opened the back door only to scream out in pain once the screwdriver was plunged in his shoulder. Jessica quickly made her way to the front seat ready to make her escape, but Adriel grabbed a hold of the handle pulling the door open. Jessica pulled it closed just as hard but screamed out in horror when he pulled the screwdriver out of his shoulder and plunged it into the front tire. She tells herself that she could still make it but her shaking hands didn't move fast enough to turn the key before he stabbed the other front tire.

Jessica quickly got out of the car and started running but before she had the chance to scream, she was hit on the back of her head with a hard force.

Her face made contact with the muddy ground and moments later, she was turned around and watched as Adriel loosened his belt and pulled down his pants.

He grew mad when she asked him to fuck her harder as she moaned and she laughed when he punched her asking him if that was all that he's got. Her moans and laughter soon subsided when Adriel stabbed her in the heart with the screwdriver and it was his turn to laugh.

"See you in hell, bitch." He chuckled then spat on her face.

He didn't stop his attack until he was satisfied and spat on her face again as he walked back to the car grabbing his shovel out of the trunk. He doesn't know how long or deep he dug until he threw her in the filled the hole back up again. He stood above her makeshift grave with his hands on his hips looking around for the off-chance that someone was actually out here.

When he got back home, he had time to dump his clothes, take a shower, and assist his wound before Yancy pulled in the driveway. He forced himself to cry as he heard her walk in the door and when she asked what was wrong, he told her that Jessica had runaway. He explained to her how he tried to stop her from leaving but she wouldn't listen and hopped in a taxi. He told her that he tried to follow after her but it had made several turns that he couldn't follow eventually losing it so he had no other choice but to come back.

He convinced her to not call the police telling his wife that she couldn't stay out there by herself forever and that she'll come back home in no later than two months. She was hesitant but forced herself to believe in his words.

If she could do it all over again, she would've picked up the phone anyway because Yancy never saw her little girl again.

Mystic Falls, Virginia

Sal let out a breath of relief when he passed the sign that welcomed him to Mystic Falls. He was shocked when Adriel knocked on his door asking him of such a favor but he owed him one and agreed to take the child as far as he wanted. He just never expected that he'd make him to go to Virginia.

Adriel gave him cash so he could pick up things for the baby like bottles, formula and pacifiers for the trip then left without saying another word, Sal didn't even know whose kid it was.

He pulled up to Eden Garden Orphanage, placed the baby on its back wrapped in a blanket, rang the doorbell then sprinted to his car driving off just as the door opened.

Alanna shook her head hearing the tires screech and seeing yet another baby on the doorstep. She took the child in her hand closing the door and smiled as the baby opened its eyes.

"You're so beautiful. I think I'll name you… Bonnie." Alanna said after checking the gender.

"Another?" Her boss, Tamara asked.

"Yep. Meet Bonnie."

Tamara smiled and wrote the child's name down on her list making this her unofficial birth date.

Eighteen years later

She couldn't believe that she was still stuck in this place. She saw her baby pictures and thought that she was the cutest one by far but as the years passed, Bonnie was left without a home. A real home that is. Three words: Foster. Homes. Suck.

She had a few bites but none of them stuck and she wonders if it was because of her skin. She was in Virginia of all places and being a brown-skinned child lowered her chances.

Their loss, she would always say. She was a hot, street smart eighteen year old woman and she'd be damned if she let not having a family to hold her back.

She wanted to be an actress. Bonnie loved the television and the idea of portraying someone else was always appealing. Her life sucked so far and getting to experience the life of another, made up for it and sent tingles down her spine.

She's been pretending to be little Miss Sunshine every time someone would come in looking for a little girl minding her P's and Q's showing off her drawings, which she got insanely good at over the years, and showing off any skill that she could pull out. The adults were always amused but not enough to take her home with them.

Now there she stood outside of the only thing she knew for the past eighteen years. With 63 dollars in her pocket, Bonnie set out to face the real world.

She had no idea what to expect but she knew that however it was, it couldn't be worse than what she's already experienced.