SOOO. I've finally gotten back, after a brief end-of-the-school-year hiatus. And though I promised to get out those sequels to I'd Rather Be Different and Opposites Attract, my attention span was not long enough to finish either Chapter One of IRBD or Chapter Two of OA. (Instead, I finished a one shot I had on the back burner for quite a while; it's a Narnia fic, and if you'd like to read it, it's here: )
[FanFiction url] /s/6953147/1/The_Warding_Tree
Therefore, you get this. Warning: lately I've been on a bit of a Batman binge, so there's going to be quite a lot of stuff inspired by that. And I'll put out there that I was wrong, and DC is actually as cool as Marvel. There. Happy, Bridgett? (A friend of mine who's obsessed with Batman. Though I always took the Batman side in her Batman vs. Spider-Man debate with our friend Kim, because Spider-Man is a whiny little emo kid, and Batman is a certified badass.) ANYWAYS, I digress. Here you go.

Prologue: A Death in the Family

As the last patron stumbled out of the bar, the two owners of the bar sighed with relief at the end of another busy night. One, a woman, was cleaning several glasses; the other, her husband, was sweeping up the leftovers from a brief fight that had broken out at the end of the night– not an entirely uncommon occurrence.

All these familiar noises could be heard by their young daughter, who was busy shading in pictures in her coloring book. She had been young enough when her parents bought the bar that life there was all she remembered. Of course, she should have been asleep hours before, but she had a bad habit of staying up far past her bedtime. Besides, she didn't go to school, so it wasn't as much of a problem if she didn't wake up early.

The young girl's exceptionally honed ears detected it when the familiar sounds of clean-up stopped. Surprised, she decided to risk her parents' wrath to find out what was happening.

She tiptoed out of her room and peeked around the corner to behold a frightening scene. Her mother was seated at a table in a corner, with a large man pointing a gun at her. Her father was backed up against the bar, with another man standing menacingly in front of him. Two more men, equally large and scary-looking, stood by the door.

"You didn't honestly think that you could just leave and no one would notice?" the man in front of her father was saying. "That's not the way we work."

"We wanted a better life for her!" her mother protested; she was silenced by her guard pressing the muzzle of the gun against her cheek.

"The boss won't be accepting excuses," the first man continued. "You made your choice, and now you'll have to pay for it."

The young girl squeaked as the sounds of two successive gunshots sounded. She whirled back around the corner and ran into her room, collapsing next to the bed. She curled up, pulling her knees into her chest and began to cry, rocking back and forth as she sobbed.

And right off the bat, you can tell that this story is going to be darker than any of my other fanfics. Truth to tell, this is going to be the darkest story that I've written. But hey, you can't do cute and fluffy all the time, I suppose.

Oh, another warning: the chapter length will probably vary, but the chapters are more likely to be shorter than my usual (which is about 1700-2300 words per chapter).

As is usual, REVIEW. I love reviews. I'll try to keep the desperate pleading on a minimum this time, though.

(Side note: I've just realized that in my author's notes, I talk to my readers kind of as if you've read all of my stories. Just know that I shamelessly beg for reviews in every story, pretty much.)

Anyways! Hallelujah for summer break. :D

Cheers, loves.

~RAH