A child of the state for most of her life, Bella knows all too well the horrors that life can hold. Will her past destroy whatever future she could possibly have? Extremely dark sometimes, rated NC-17 for mature themes, and lemons.

Don't own Twilight and its characters. Anyone you don't know are mine and most of the plot, some things borrowed from SM, like back stories somewhat…Don't sue; I ain't got a thing but a passion for the written word.

Broken

Prologue - Devastated

"It is always darkest, before the dawn."

Bella POV

Giving the only thing I felt I had left, I allowed the men that came to me and the men I found, to soil my body, and abuse it. They used me for their own intense pleasure, and sometimes that intense pleasure turned to anger and thus to pain. They never really noticed the expression on my face, the vacant, devoid look that seemed to seep in and if they did, well, that was when things started to go down hill…

They could do almost anything to my body, but one thing, and that was not something I was consciously saving; saving for someone special, for the right person, but simply because it was the only thing that was still untainted, something that no one had managed to touch. I was not naive enough to believe that it wouldn't happen, but so far, it had worked.

My life was a circus freak's worst nightmare, but it wasn't my nightmare, it was my waking life. Every moment I spent on the streets, tore another little piece from my heart, my soul. But there was nothing I could do about it. Besides, I promised, this was the last time, no more walking the lone, desolate streets in the early hours of the morning, the streets that the vagrants, the vagabonds traversed, I was hoping for oblivion, and praying for a chance to ease the darkness that always threatened me, encroaching closer no matter how hard I tried to keep it at bay.

I didn't actually believe that this was the last time I would be out on the streets, but I wanted it to be, and then in a sick sort of way, I didn't…

But it made no here nor there, because, while I was not going to be on these streets anytime soon, there are streets where I was going, there is always streets, there is always the depraved and the deprived, searching, sometimes for the same thing I was.

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"There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory"

He came quietly from the bar across the street, I saw him when he went in earlier and obviously, he saw me as well.

Few words were exchanged, few words were really needed. I knew what he wanted, and I countered with what I was willing to do. It was his choice whether he took me up on it or not.

With a slight nod, he led me across the street and into one of the hotel rooms that I was familiar with. It had a rent hourly option, which worked just fine for me.

However, the familiarity of it all fell away shortly after that. I had a little more than two days before I would be leaving, yet, this moment, would prove to be a small lesson in life. Nothing is as it seems.

Within moments of entering the room, he pulled my clothes haphazardly from my body and with a speed I couldn't fathom, he was buried deeply within me. The pain was unbearable; I could feel the blood running sporadically down my ass cheeks and thighs.

Normally, when I did this, I was granted a reprieve, I was able to mostly check out, but the pain and his ruthlessness denied me that simple escape. Normally their words, spoken in the height of pleasure were cruel, but I rarely paid them any heed, tonight, I couldn't find a safe haven from his words, from his actions.

They pierced my broken heart and mind, leaving me a useless body. No way to fight out of this hell. He hit, pinched, punched, slapped, bit and fucked his aggressions out on me, in me.

His condemning voice berating me, hitting me where it really hurt, slurring my mostly forgotten parents, I tried to harden my heart to his words, but even I couldn't protect myself from everything.

When he finished, I couldn't remember, the only thing that broke through my distraught emotions was the door slamming shut as he left.

I tried to move, tried to pick myself up, but I couldn't find the will nor the energy. It wasn't until the maid walked in, snarling about needing to pay more if I was going to continue to wallow.

I don't remember it, but I somehow managed to get back in my clothes and made it out of there. I didn't even bother grabbing the money that was left for me, I didn't care, although, honestly, I didn't even think about it, my world was slowly crashing and I needed to get out of there before the oblivion I didn't want to reach me, did.

I vaguely remembered tumbling into my bed, but other than that, it was my last thought for quite sometime. I was now and would be until I woke a prisoner of my past…and then I would start all over again.

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