Hey guys! Here is yet another chapter! I hope you guys enjoy it. In this chapter, we'll see more of Spencer's background and what she went through.

Trigger warnings: Mentions of severe child abuse and self-harm.

For all my wonderful Sparia shippers: There will be almost an entire chapter dedicated to Sparia, in Aria's point of view. ;) Wait until you guys see what happens. It's up next!

To my Spanna shippers: Guys, the roller coaster is going to take a nosedive in a few chapters. =/ Brace yourselves.

To my Emaria shippers: Where are you guys? I know you're out there!

;) Onto the chapter.

"Are you sure you're okay with telling me?"

"I-I'm sure," Spencer whispers. "I want you to know."

I gesture towards the couch in my room, where Emily's old kangaroo, Ziggy, is perched in the middle. "Would you like to hold Ziggy while you tell me?"

"No, Mr. Bandit is fine. Mr. Bandit keeps me safe, like you do."

I smile softly. "Does Ziggy do anything to help you?"

Spencer shakes her head and combs her finger through her hair. "No, he's just Mr. Bandit's friend."

I nod. "Are you ready to tell me?"

Spencer takes a deep breath and scoots closer to me. "I'm ready."

"Girl, get your ass out here! Now!"

Her father's demanding tone bounced off the miraculously white walls of the Hastings's kitchen. There wasn't a spot of grime to be found inside the two stainless steel stoves or a flicker of dust on the spotless, granite countertop. Eleven-year-old Spencer had been up since the crack of dawn, working her hands and fingers to the bone. She hadn't had a break yet and although it was three o'clock in the afternoon, she still had three floors to go.

"Spencer!" Peter's booming voice cut through her skin and she shuddered.

"All right!" she hollered back. She tossed her rag into the mop bucket at her feet and stood up. There was a popping sound in her back and she winced.

As Spencer walked out of one of the kitchen doors and into the narrow hallway that spilled out into a state-of-the-art-living room, her stomach twisted in painful, anxious knots. Her mouth was dry and it felt stuffed with cotton. Her limbs ached, her head throbbed and she couldn't remember the last time she'd eaten. Maybe two days ago? She wasn't sure.

"SPENCER!"

"I'M RIGHT HERE!" Spencer shouted, stepping out in the living room. Leather couches that if Spencer pressed her nose into its cushions and breathed in hard enough, she could smell the faintest hint of her blood from two weeks ago. She hadn't been able to get it completely were bearskin rugs, under which Spencer would try to sleep under to try to stay warm whenever she was deprived of clothes.

Before her, near one of the armchairs, her parents stood. They were dressed in matching gray suits and black socks. Her mother's shiny hair was held back in a tight bun, not a strand out of place and Spencer wished she could pull her father's steam-pressed tie around his neck until she choked.

"What?" she finally asked. She stood up straight, with her arms at her sides and her head lowered just slightly. 'Don't look them in the eyes, Spencer. Maybe you'll get to eat tonight if you behave. Be a good girl.'

"Spencer..." Peter took a tiny step forward, smirking as spencer tensed.

Spencer tightened her stomach and her muscles. It hurt less if she braced herself.

"Yes, Father?"

"Spencer, are you aware of what today is?"

She shook her head. "No.."

"It's April 11th, Spencer."

Spencer's heart plummeted into her stomach and she took a few steps back. The carpet felt warm under the skin of her cracked, blistered feet. "P-Please don't," she whispered. Her eyes instantly darted to the black bag in her mother's hands.

"Why we must! It is your birthday, after all."

"Please..."

"Get over here," Peter commanded. "You know what to do."

Spencer bit the inside of her cheek and shuffled forward. She lowered herself to the carpet and laid flat on her stomach. 'Please be quick, please be quick.'

"Are you ready for your present, Spencer?" Her mother cooed mockingly. She unzipped the bag, removed a cloth and stuffed it in her daughter's mouth before handing the bag to her husband.

Peter got down on his knees and rifled through the bag and pulled out a small needle used for tattooing. The whir of it caused Spencer to flinch.

"Happy Birthday, Spencer."

The needle met with the back of Spencer's knee. Her cries of pain were muffled by the cloth and she squeezed her eyes shut. 'Breathe, breathe. You can handle this. Just relax.' She could feel her father drawing on her knee - a number. Her skin burned. It was already raw, red and purple. The added pain of the needle was almost too much, but she held her breath and ground her teeth against the cloth. She could feel blood on the back of her knee and she let out a choked sob.

The whirring stopped but Spencer knew it wasn't over. She spit the rag out of her mouth and gasped for air, taking deep, shuddering breaths.

"There, see? Doesn't it get easier with each passing year?"

"Y-yes, Father."

Peter put the needle back in the bag without bothering to clean the blood off it and removed a bottle of lemon juice. He uncapped it and carelessly poured it over the blistering tattoo.

Spencer screamed and started to beat her fists into the carpet. Tears flowed down her cheeks and she bit down on her tongue so hard she tasted blood.

"Now, now, you know it has to heal."

Peter padded Spencer's blistering, bloody knee and hauled her to her feet. Her cheeks were stained with tears and her face flushed. "Go on now, back to your duties."

"Y-yes, Father."

Spencer had just stepped into the hallway when her mother's voice rang out.

"Spencer, what do we say?"

Spencer exhaled and leaned tiredly against the wall. "Thank you for my present."

The silence is so thick between us I can slice it with a knife. I have to shut my eyes so Spencer won't see the tears. "H-He tattooed the back of your knee on your eleventh birthday?" I open my eyes in time to see Spencer shake her head.

"N-Not just that year." She rolls up her pants and stretches both legs up, leaning back on her elbows so I can see the back of her legs. Her legs are burnt, scarred, bruised and blackened, but her knees have received the worst.

I never noticed it before, but there are small, jagged numbers tattooed into the fleshiest part of her skin: 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 are on her right knee and 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 are on her left. One for every year. On my birthdays, I bitched like a spoiled brat if I didn't get what I wanted, and on her birthdays, Spencer was fucking branded like an animal. "Oh, S-Spencer, I'm so sorry. I - I can't imagine.."

Spencer shrugs silently and tucks her legs underneath her. "It wasn't all bad sometimes. One year he forgot the lemon juice, so that was a blessing."

I swallow thickly scrape my nails over my bed sheets. "W-what else did they do?"

Spencer looks down at her lap. "Sometimes they made me drink hot sauce until I threw up. One time I had to drink an entire bottle."

"W-Why?" I croak.

Spencer rubs her arm uncomfortably. Sorrow fills her eyes and she raises a shoulder in a tiny shrug. "I did something I wasn't supposed to do."

"What, like watch TV?"

Spencer snorts. "Yeah, right. No, they did that to me because I fell asleep. They told me to stay awake for two days and I couldn't do it.."

"O-Oh..." Jesus Christ. This poor girl.

"T-They also made me kneel on rocks if I misbehaved. Sometimes they used a funnel and poured boiling water down my throat, if I tried to eat."

That must be why her throat is scarred. "Spencer, y-you don't have to keep talking." I can't handle this. I can't.

Spencer sniffs. "No, I want to tell you something else. Let me tell you."

"O-Okay. Tell me." God.

Spencer's eyes flicker around my room and she crawls into my lap and I automatically run my fingers through her locks.

"Hanna, am I very misbehaved?"

"No, honey. No, you're not."

"My parents didn't love me, so I had to be a horrible daughter, right? Why else would they do everything they did to me?"

My stomach churns over. "Spencer, you aren't horrible. Your parents are the horrible ones. They are the ones who need to be punished."

Spencer plays with my leg, dancing her fingers down it and I try to ignore how my skin prickles. She can't know what she's doing to me.

"Are they going to be in jail for a very long time?"

"For the rest of their lives, Spencer." I hope somebody kills them.

"Can I still tell you what I want to tell you?"

"Only if you really want to." Don't.

"Did you ever notice my ear? It's burnt!"

"Y-Yes. I - what did they do to your ear?"

Spencer stops playing with my leg and moves her fingers up to tangle in hair. "Mother burned my ear."

Spencer's entire body had gone numb. The ice beneath her feet felt like it was on fire and she didn't know how her body could be hot and cold at the same time. She wrapped her arms around herself. She was dizzy. She felt sick. Spencer felt tired and she was having a hard time breathing.

This wasn't the first time she'd been in the walk-in. During the past week, Spencer counted a total of twelve times she was forced to spend hours in her family's industrial-sized freezer.

The door creaked open and light swarmed in. Spencer raised her hands to shield her eyes from the harsh light and she's grabbed roughly by her arm and forced out of the freezer.

"Walk faster!" Her mother spat venomously.

"I-I'm t-tr-trying," Spencer stammered. "My-my legs are s-stiff and c-cold."

A hard smack to the back of her head made her flinch and she knew she'd crossed the line. Spencer mentally scolded herself. 'You're not supposed to talk back. Bad Spencer! You're very bad! See, this is why you deserve everything that happens to you!'

They reached the first-floor bathroom and Veronica jerked Spencer inside and shoved her to the floor. Her hand wrapped around a curling iron and she grinned maliciously down at her daughter.

"Your ears are too big, Spencer. Something must be done."

"M-m-my e-ears are too big. Something must be done," Spencer repeated robotically.

"You deserve this, don't you?"

"Yes, Mother. I deserve this."

Veronica knelt down and yanked Spencer's head up by her hair. She opened the curling iron and encased the lobe of Spencer's left ear between the white-hot metal rods.

The scream that sliced through the air would have brought the neighbors running, had her husband not installed soundproof walls inside of their home.

"STOP, STOP!" Spencer screeched. Her ear was on fire. It felt like her mother had dumped boiling acid onto it. She started to thrash on the floor and when the blow came to her stomach that took her breath away and made her gasp for air, she knew to stop. 'Stop or it will be worse.'

Veronica released Spencer's ear and forced her to her feet. The smell of burnt skin hung in the air and Veronica unplugged her curling iron and dropped it on the bathroom counter.

Spencer breathed heavily, soft whimpers escaping the back of her throat. Her eyes threatened to fill with tears and she blinked hard.

"Spencer, what do you say?"

"T-Thank you for my punishment. Now I know to be a good girl."

"You may go."

Spencer obediently shuffled away and only when she was alone, did she allow her tears to fall.

I'm so shocked I can't find the words I want to say. I don't know what to say. I can't stop my eyes from shifting to Spencer's burned ear and I ask the only question I can think of - "How old were you?"

"F-fifteen."

"W-What did you do to...I mean, why did -"

"Mother burned my ear because they are too big, but the curling iron didn't make it smaller. I guess that's why she left the other one alone, right?"

" I -"

"It's okay, Hanna. You don't have to lie to me. I know my ears are big."

I spring up and plunge my hands into my hair. I need to get out of here. I need air. I need to use my tools.

"Are you walking fast to lose weight? Mother made me run up and down the stairs because I was too fat.."

"N-No, I - No. Spencer, g - go get some water, okay? Will you get some water for me?"

"I remember where you keep the water bottles! In the fridge, right?"

"Y-Yes. The fridge."

"I will get one!" Spencer leaps off my bed and hugs me Again my eyes are drawn to her ear. I think of the 'tattoos' on the back of her knees and I'm hit with nausea.

"Go on, silly!"

Spencer grins at me and rushes out of the room. When I hear her on the stairs, I bolt into my bathroom and slam the door behind me. You need this Hanna, and you always will.

D: So what did you guys think? Leave reviews, please! Up next will be the Sparia