Loving Leanne - chapter one

A/N: okay so first I would like to thank you guys for all the amazing supportive comments I have received on my previous story Hand in hand to hell! I would also like to apologise for how long it took me to update each chapter!

However, I have recently got a new laptop and will be updating loving Leanne every week.

I would also like to clarify that this is in fact the same story as my first fan fiction – Loving Leanne. I said I would finish it however after looking back on the chapters I felt it would be better just to start the entire story again. I feel I am much more developed in my writing now and the potential quality of the story is much higher than what I have previously written.

So, long A/N over, enjoy the first chapter of the new loving Leanne.

Leanne's POV

When I was a child, I had an obsession over butterflies. I would sit on the grass calmly, away from all the other children and wait. It didn't matter if I didn't see a butterfly that day; because the anticipation was part of the thrill.

Because when I did see a butterfly I was mesmerised, even if it was just for a second. I was taken to another world, where there is no pain and evil. Where everything was free.

That was the one thing I longed for you see, freedom. It's quite ironic really, as freedom is everything I don't I have.

I take in the harsh surroundings I have survived in for the last five years and sigh. Sometimes I wonder what I must have done in my past life to deserve this. But I can't think of a crime terrible enough to deserve this treatment.

Sometimes I wonder if life is a big game, what if all the big people up there, are playing a board game? What if we are simply the trivial tacky counters that you move along with every roll of the dice?

If that is the case, then whoever had drawn the short straw with me, certainly sucked at this game.

Standing up, I cross the small room, my body screaming out with every step. I refused to look at the bruises and scars though, because that made them real.

That makes the memories real.

Shaking of the morbid thoughts I hum quietly to myself as I run the grotty tap. I only have cold water, and sometimes it comes out a little dirty at first so you have to wait minute and let it run.

I watched the water roll down the filthy sink, leaving white tracks as it travelled towards the plug. Even the waters more free than I am.

When I deem the water clean enough I place my hands under it using them to splash my face, the shock of the cold water fully waking me up.

I wash my face and hands using the small stub of soap and then dry them off with the once white towel.

Sighing to myself I move back to my bed, it never used to be like this. I used to have a nice life – not a perfect one, but then again who does?

I used to have a father that doted on me and a dog named cheese. My mother had died when I was young, but I had always kept a positive outlook on life. When it as my time, I would see my mum again – until then I just had to be patient, and make her proud!

So that's what I had intended on doing, and at 16 I had my whole life ahead of me! I had a bright future and was eve sending of college applications to places like Princeton… then James came about.

It was unexpected and completely out of the blue. Me and my father where eating dinner one day, when up turns James with bottle of whiskey in one hand and a suitcase in the other!

I hadn't been very keen on trusting him at first but my father had welcomed him with open arms, due to the being childhood best friends. Over time James grew on me, and before we knew it he was one of the family. Little did we know that a mere few months down the line he would be family's downfall.

'It was my seventeenth birthday and boy was I excited I had a feeling dad had brought me a car, I couldn't wait to see if my suspicions were right…

I skipped down the stairs eagerly and came to a stop when I reached the kitchen, hearing my father's voice a smile crept across my face and I walked in.

I will never forget what saw.

"Get next to him" James boomed as soon as I walked in. He held a large black gun and every time he moved the sun caught it, drawing you attention to the shiny warning of death.

My dad pulled me back and took a step in front of me protectively.

"Just let her go James, you have me… that's enough. She hasn't done anything, just let her go" I wanted to fight back, to scream for James to let us both go but the look in my father's eyes stopped me.

It scared me more than anything else I had seen today. My father's eyes held nothing – no hope, no fight, he had nothing left.

I knew at that moment we were not going to make it out alive.

"Why are you doing this to us?" I whisper, a tear making its way down my cheek.

James face twisted into a smirk that sent shivers down my spine. James had always had so many secrets when he came. That was one of the things that had made me dislike him so much when he first had arrived. At 38 years old he looked around 45. The things he had been through reflected in his appearance with his thinning brown hair that was flickered with grey and the scar that started on his neck and stopped where his chin curved up to his face. I never thought James would share his past, but I was always curious. The look in his eyes now however, I decided I didn't want to know.

"Your father had something I wanted" he began, the smirk now dropping of his face "but he ruined it" his face contorted into pain and he started to raise his arm up to point the gun at my father. "And now he has to pay."

My father took a step to the side so that he was completely shielding me now. "I love you lea-bear" he whispered.

Then he was gone.

It was awful. The bullet flashed across the room and went directly into his chest. It was quick, almost too fast for my eyes. Death however was not as kind, my father didn't fall to the floor immediately. He stayed standing, suspended for a few seconds. He let out a strangled groan and fell to his knees before falling to the floor.

Through all the pain I was feeling I didn't notice James laughter. Fury ripped through me, creating a whole new side of me I had never experienced before.

"You did this!" I screamed jumping to my feet and running at him. "You killed my father" I began to hit his chest wildly "You're a monster"

James looked down at me completely unaffected by meltdown. Seizing both of my wrists he began to laugh. "Oh it's too much of a waste to dispose of you too, besides you didn't kill your mother did you?" He chuckled. "No, I have other plans for you Leanne"

I haven't been out of the basement since. I think I have forgotten what it feel like to be a real person, and that has haunted me from the day I realised forgot.

James's words still float around my head. "You didn't kill your mother did you?"

My mother was killed by a drink driver when I was little. I never really knew her growing up but I did know her and my father were soulfinder. My father had struggled so much in the first couple of years and I respect him so much for pushing his own feelings aside to care for me, at the time a screaming baby with a constant dirty nappy.

Once I was curious about my mum, so I used my gift to look into her background through my father's head. She was beautiful, kind and she had loved me! From that day on I knew I didn't need my mother to be live to love her, I loved her just as much as my father and continued to live through her memories using my gift. I hoped that one day I would find a love as strong as my parents, but locked down here – I had no hope.