Prologue

Prologue

"So can you tell me a bit about yourself and how you came to be here?" Detective Sanchez was a dark Hispanic man with salt and pepper hair, sagging green eyes and hard frown lines around his mouth. He was a bit intimidating to look at but his tone of voice was calm and collected. Dare I say he was comforting and a godsend sent to save me from the horrors of a life that was forced upon me.

"Where do you want me to start?" I ask. I've been in this kind of situation before more time then I'd like to admit to anyone. He pulls out a laptop from his bag on the side of the interrogation table and opens it up clicking on a few things before resting his hands on the table.

"The beginning." He stared into me and I recoiled internally I wanted to puke up all the things I didn't eat. Then it hits me things that I wanted to forget. Things I pushed into the back of my mind that I kept locked in the darkest deepest.

"Can I have something to drink first and maybe something to eat?" I ask I was almost expecting for him to say no. I wasn't sure if he would do it. I didn't eat in three days everything happened too fast. I had too much going on I neglected to eat. But at the time food was the last thing on my mind anyways all I wanted to do was escape and get away.

He got up and walked over to the door behind me talking to someone whom I could only guess was an officer who worked at the station. He sat down a small plastic cup of water on my left and went back to his seat typing something up on his laptop. I drunk the water hungrily it was the best tasting water I've ever had. It was sweet and quenched my dry throat. The hunger pains grew more and more as I drunk the last drop of water I looked into the cup as if more water was going to appear. Detective Sanchez cleared his throat causing me to look up at him his eyebrows which was raised expectantly.

"Your food will be here in thirty minutes or so." My stomach growled at the mention of it getting something to eat. "In the meantime..." he clears his throat again tugging on his black and blue tie-loosening the knot. Right... He wanted me to tell my story. The only way the Detective was going to understand how I got into the situation was if I told it from the beginning. All the way back to my unforgiving childhood something I tried to not think about.

"It's going to be a long story." I tell him looking in his direction but not at him. I couldn't look him in the eyes. Was it fear or was it the thought of being judged I couldn't say.

"I like long stories." He says dully. I feel like he was trying to make a joke because he chuckled darkly at the comment. Whatever the joke was it flew right over my head.

"Ok."

I guess I'll start off with the basics of any normal start up conversation. My name is Katori Catherine Duclair 21 years of age, raised in Sweet Amoris Georgia. I have two, Kevin Octavio Jacobson and Karissa Weston Muller. My mother's name is Kimberly Maxine Erickson.

We lived in the poorest part of town in a dirty little two-bedroom apartment that Kimberly could barely even afford. Me, Karissa, and Kevin all shared a tiny little twin sized mattress. But I would sleep on the dirty carpet and give them the bed.

As you can see already my family is a jumbled fucked up mess. None of us looked alike since we all had different dads. Kevin was the only lucky sibling to have his dad in his life. But I would use that term 'lucky' very loosely since Brian Hernández is a shitty parent. He was that guy on the block who had multiple kids and never paid his child support.

Instead of taking care of his kid he would rather go and snort cocaine and drink. Any money he would get his hands on you can bet that's where it went. Brian was a tall afro Latina man with that curly good hair and hazel green eyes. So as you can see that alone is what attracted Kimberly and many of his other women. That and he was hung like a horse. Kimberly's words, not mine.

I would rather for Kevin to grow up without a dad than to have a coke headed drunky for a father. He and Kimberly were one in the same both hungering for the good white powder they desperately needed. They couldn't function without it they depended on it. And we the kids suffered for it. I think I suffered more than the other two because I could take more ass whooping's since I was older.

When she didn't have her vice we all could tell. She would be irritable and cranky going on tangents and complaining about anything she could. If there was a fork in the sink I or Karissa would get a good punch to the gut for it. If the house had even a speck of dirt or anything out of place, there was a five finger backhand coming our way.

But never Kevin, Brian wasn't going for that shit, not one bit. She tried it and Brian beat the shit out of her like a dog on the street. I watched in silence that day in victory that she could see how we mostly myself felt. She even got mad at me for not coming to her defense saying "You should have protected me I'm your mother!" She liked to play that Mother card whenever she could. But only when she needed something. When I didn't give her the answer she wanted she would beat me.

Force me to get in the shower until my skin was nice and wet and go to town and beat me like Brian beat her. Good ol Mr. Extension cord was my best friend and even though it left whelps that stung they always faded. Do you know how bad it hurts getting a cord slashed across your wet skin? It fucking hurts more than anything and I would never wish that shit on anyone, not even my worst enemy.

I think it made her wet beating the shit out of me the way she did. I could see it in her eyes while she beat me it made her feel strong. It made her feel like she had some kind of control in her miserable space she called a life. I didn't have any scars from them but the memory of them was there and would always be with me

I got the brunt of the abuse while Karissa was left unscathed most of the time. I even still to this day feel like my mother hated me more because of my dad. But I wouldn't really know though since he was never around growing up. Kimberly tried to tell me that he died when I was young but really he was a deadbeat and didn't care. I know she regrets having me... She told me so that she wishes she got an abortion and that she hated everything about me.

Which was funny because I looked exactly like her all the way down to the three beauty marks that formed a triangle under my right eye. I think that she just hated herself because she never accomplished her dreams and she was stuck to raise three kids partially alone. Then she was strung out on drugs always looking for her next fix and how she was going to get it. She did have a job its nothing to boast about though. She worked in a Strip club most nights scraping up any money she could.

Sometimes on lucky nights, she would meet a few high-rolling men who sometimes swung by with presents in big fancy whips and took her out riding. She always came home happy, and she always came home with cash.

Most nights though she wasn't so lucky she came in with the landlord. Or the butcher who cut meat at the shop down on Alvin Avenue. Other times it was Freaky Fred who ran numbers on Kings Street. Every now and then it was Mr. Watson, who lived across the hall from us with his wife and four kids.

I think he was really Karissa's daddy because they looked almost identical. Same pudgy face, deep sunken eyes thick lips, dark auburn hair, and chocolate complexion. I think his wife knew it too but just never said anything because he paid the bills and she didn't have to work.

Kimberly wasn't a perfect parent and yeah she beat our asses to get her anger out and there were nights where we didn't eat. There were days where me, Kevin and Karissa had to mix cornflakes with cold water or beg Freaky Fred to give us his scraps.

She did have one good boyfriend that I could say actually gave a danm about us. Bartholomew Jenkins. But she couldn't keep her cunt to just him. She was a bitch in heat and that's why she got dumped. He was a drug dealer who worked out of the projects around our projects. Bartholomew was into weed and had a field of them in the woods near the projects.

That didn't matter to us. He was rich in our book, and he really liked Kimberly for whatever reason. When they were together he treated me, Kevin and Karissa like royalty and gave Kimberly everything she asked for. Our lights never got cut off and we never went hungry. The fridge was always full and the rent was always paid so she wouldn't have to fuck the landlord or the neighbor or freaky Fred. But not even Bartholomew could keep a hold of her.

He carried six, pistols on him, and he told us he had bodies on every last one of them. His favorite piece was a .44 caliber Magnum. He said he liked it because it had a hair trigger, and when he drew on asap with a piece like that he was guaranteed to get a good hit.

I was with him and Kimberly one night when two young heads from Carver Street tried to stick him up for his product. Bartholomew pulled out that long-barreled .44 Magnum and fired, leaving a hole in one of them that was so big I would have been able to stick my entire head through his back. She tried to hide my eyes, but it was too late. I got so scared I pissed down my leg.

Bartholomew was damn proud of himself though, and to this day I can still hear him laughing. Bartholomew was a killer, but he wasn't all that large in the drug game. Kimberly messed around with other men when Bartholomew wasn't watching her. When Bartholomew found out she was cheating he cut her loose, but before he dropped her he knocked her two front teeth clean out her mouth

When she tried to cut him with a kitchen knife, he knocked her in her face again and pulled out that long .44. He told her that if he didn't love me, Kevin and Karissa so much he would put a bullet in her head right then and there. After he left those where some dark days and Kimberly was right back to square one fucking the landlord, Mr. Watson, Fred, and the butcher and we were back begging for scraps. She could turn a dollar but she couldn't hold on to two, and I remember a lot of nights when she didn't come home at all.

On those nights there wasn't even cornflakes for me, Kevin and Karissa to mix with our cold water. When she finally did show up she was usually worn and coked out of her mind. Sometimes I wondered how she even made it home. I would help her get undressed and lay her down on the couch while she told me how much she hated me and wished I didn't exist but I would just ignore it.

I learned early on from the age of seven that I needed to ignore her and her sickening comments. Not for myself but for Kevin and Karissa who needed me more than anything because to them I was their momma. I took care of them. Bathed them, sometimes fed them, talk to them when they needed someone to talk to, held them when they needed someone to hold them.

Karissa was only nine and I was eleven and Kevin was in diapers. Kimberly would take me out on the streets of downtown Lenox. I didn't know at the time why she was even bringing me with her to the rich part of town where the white people lived. Places hood rats like me would never dare to step foot in for fear of being gunned down.

It was because she no longer had the frame and her titties were saggy and old. She would press out my curly hair to make it straight and put a little makeup on my face. She would force me to wear some of Karissa's too tight skirts and one of her low cut tops to make my titties stand out.

"You're a big girl now Katori and I killed my titties breastfeeding you, Karissa and Kevin." An old white car pulled up to the side of the road. An old white man rolled down the window his blue eyes were scary and bugged out like he was on heroin. I didn't like the way he was looking at my prepubescent body. Even to this day, it makes me sick the way he stared.

But I did what I needed to do it's not like we had sex or anything. All he wanted to do was suck on them and he did. Kimberly was in the back seat watching it all unfold in front of her. But Kimberly had other plans she pulled out a cigarette lighter and pressed to the man's neck. It was a regular old black Bic, and it looked harmless as hell. He must have thought it was a gun because he was pleading with her not to kill him.

She told me to run his pockets and take anything that looked valuable and so I did. I'd only been this scared when Bartholomew shot the guy in the back. Then all hell broke loose when he started to go fucking crazy and turned around so fast like a possessed entity.

Grabbing Kimberly's wrist twisting it until the bone snapped. When he realizes that we weren't a real threat that he tried to pull her into the front seat. She shrieked, but she didn't lose control. She bit down on his fingers until he yelped and let go. Then she was all over his ass. She kicked off her shoe and started wailing him with it and flicking that Bic at his stringy hair. Little silver sparks were exploding all around his head. I rolled onto my knees and jumped in, but then he locked his hands around her throat.

She kept right on swinging home runs with her shoe. I punched his old ass all in the back of his head and threw a few quick roundhouses at his face. I scratched the shit out of him too. Clawing my nails down his skin and raking them all over his wrinkled red-ass neck as deep as I could. But he was trying to kill us both. She was gurgling and barely swinging her shoe at all. I knew I had to do something quickly, but nothing seemed to be affecting him because he was in another zone. So I climbed on his back. I grabbed a handful of his face and felt for his eyeballs and proceeded to dig them out.

He bucked and screamed and tried to shake me off, but I dug my pointer fingers so deep into his sockets that I probably poked him in his brain. I guess it worked because the next thing I knew he let go of Kimberly and swung around to knock the shit out of me. I felt my head crack against the dashboard and then he was on me. Choking me the same way he had just choked her.

I fought that old white fucker with a strength I didn't even know I had, because all I could think about was dying. Dying and then leaving Karissa and Kevin all alone in the dingy two-bedroom apartment.

I was in an awkward position with my head jammed between the dashboard and the front windshield. He was laying on top of me, his full weight pressing me down. We were close enough to tongue-kiss and I went for his eyeballs again. He was smarter this time and pushed himself back to avoid my clawing hands. He choked me with a fury, and I felt myself blacking out and got really scared. If Kimberly was already dead in the back seat and I didn't make it out either, who was going to take care of Karissa and Kevin?

I fought even harder. I tried to throw him off me and suck in a tiny bit of air, but my eyes felt like they were bulging and he was squeezing my breath away. There was nothing I could do and my struggling got weaker and weaker. Then somebody snatched open the car door and there was a whole lot of noise. Cursing voices. A tall white man was punching the shit out of him, hitting him so hard the old trick let me go and fell halfway out the car.

"Thank you," I croaked as I grabbed my throat and sucked in sweet, cool air. My savior had dragged the trick all the way out of the car, and I struggled to sit up and look over the back seat. Kimberly was still positioned out, but at least she was moving.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," I whispered in gratitude, holding my throat with both hands. Tears ran from my eyes and my neck felt like it was crushed and on fire. And that's when I heard the sirens coming down the block.

"You two whores picked the wrong street to work tonight. Don't thank me because both of you bitches are going to jail." And we did we both got arrested flexicuffs on my wrists, and the next thing I knew I had been taken to central booking where I was fingerprinted, photographed, and on my way to jail.

My savior's name was Chris Kegan a young white man with chocolate brown eyes and a small nose and inky black hair that was slicked to the back like a young Leonardo DiCaprio. He was a financing agent that just so happened to be walking down the street when he spotted the car and heard the screaming. He'd looked at Kimberly with disgust and called her a couple of dirty bitches for trying to prostitute her own daughter out in the streets, but he stared at me with pity. I knew what it looked like.

Chris had no way of knowing it was all just a con, but there was no way I was gonna open my mouth and say some shit that might get me and her hit with even more charges. Still, Chris felt sorry for me. Kim's shit was done. She'd been arrested for prostitution so many times that there was no way she was walking after a charge of endangering a minor

Chris did his best to talk the cops out of locking me up along with her. They weren't having it.

I didn't sleep for two days out of fear that a big manly bitch would want to shove a broken mop handle up my coochie and make me wash her dirty thongs. The third night I couldn't stay awake and fell asleep jumping out of my sleep every ten to twenty minutes.

A few days later I was sitting in an office with a social worker who asked me all kinds of questions about my life. She told me Karissa and Kevin were in the custody of Child Protective Services, and since I was only eleven, I'd probably end up in their custody as well. She wanted to know how long I had been prostituting on the streets with my mother. I kept quiet and didn't tell that bitch shit. I was trained better than that.

I was in constant fear waiting for a big bitch to come get me and worrying if Karissa and Kevin were okay. It was the next day they put me into CPS and I jumped with joy internally.

A year later Kimberly got her act together and Karissa, Kevin and I were released from state custody. She has a real job something to do with computers and worked the night shift. We had a nicer two-bedroom apartment in the ghetto.

Everything in my childhood taught me an important lesson that when I got older I would never live the way Kimberly lived. Not ever; not for nobody. Years later I ran into Chris Kegan again by accident. How he noticed me I have no idea but he did. And that's where the story begins.