Prolouge

Prologue

I'm sitting on my bed with the pizza box that my foster father, Michael, brought up to me. My homework folder with the words for my spelling test is sitting next to me on the bed. Sadly there was not much pizza left in the box that my foster father brought me. He ate most of it with his friends, but thankfully they saved me two pieces of their supreme pizza and the crust of the pizza. I pick off all the toppings except for the pepperoni and take a bite. While I eat, I look at the spelling words and closed my eyes and tried to spell the word "answer". A.n.s.e.r. I open my eyes and look at my paper and see that I spelled it wrong. I close my eyes and try again. A.n.s.w.e.r. I open my eyes and see that I spelled it correctly. I turn over my notebook and put a piece of paper on top and write the word. I turn the notebook back over to make sure I spelled it correctly and then wrote the word 3 more times. I grab the slice of pizza and take another bite. I keep going through the rest of my words while I eat the left over pizza.
I as get to the last word, beautiful, I hear yelling coming from downstairs. I could hear earlier that my foster father was playing poker with his friends, it sounded like he lost money. I hear footsteps coming up the stairs. My body starts to shake hoping that he doesn't come into my room. I hear the footsteps getting closer and closer. The footsteps go past my room and I freeze. I close my eyes trying to imagine myself somewhere else. I relax a little when my foster father passes my room. I freeze again when I hear footsteps again coming back again. I think to myself, 'Please keep going. Please keep going. Please don't stop.' The footsteps keep going past my room. I start to breath again, relax and open my eyes as the footsteps start going and go down the steps. 'He must have come up to get more money or something else to bargain with,' I thought.
I go back to my last word search. I close my eyes and spell it. I open my eyes and saw that I spelled it correctly, so I turn my notebook over and spell it on my piece of paper. After I write it, I turn over my notebook and see that I spelled it correctly and start to write it again when I hear footsteps coming up the stairs faster than before. I knew that this time he was coming for me. I get off the bed fast and hide behind the bed. The can hear that the footsteps are almost at the top of the stairs. The footsteps approach my room and bang on the door. I feel my body start to shake.
"Jane open the door now!" he screams.
I don't say anything. I just shake. I know my door it locked, but I am still scared that he will knock the door down.
"Jane!!" he screams, as he bangs on the door harder. "Unlock this door now!!"
I still don't answer, too scared to go to the door. I hear my foster father banging on the door again. He screams down the stairs, "She won't open the door. Come up and help me!"
"You better get Jane down here! You promised her to whoever won the hand." I heard one of his friends scream.
"She locked the door and I can't get in. If you want her then come help me!"
"Fine, I'll pick the lock. She better be worth it!"
I get even more scared than I was before when I them yelling. I can't seem to stop shaking. I think to myself, 'what did he promise that I would do or they would do to me?'
Then I hear footsteps coming up the stairs again. They stop at my door. Then I hear my doorknob being picked. I start to cry as soon as my door opens.
"Jane where are you?" he says.
"She is here somewhere. There are no windows for her to climb out of," one of his friends says.
I close my eyes again and pretend that I'm not here.
"Jane! Here you are! Why are you hiding," my foster father says. "You are going to listen to my friend and make him happy. Do you understand?"
I nod my head letting him know that I understand, but keeping my eyes closed. He slaps hard. I start to cry.
"I asked you if you understand! I want to see your eyes and hear you say 'yes', not see you shake your head!"
I open my eyes and with a shaky scared voice I say, "Yes. I understand."
"I'm glad. Now get up," he yells at me.
I stand up like he asks not wanting to get hit again.
"Go downstairs to the basement," he says.
That only means one of two things. He is going to hurt me in someway or lock me in the basement. I know by going to the basement means I am going to hurt you and cause you pain, I'm mad at you and you are not going to be aloud to leave the house. I start to cry even more. "Please no, I promise I will be good. I have to go to school tomorrow. I have a test tomorrow. The school will be mad if I miss another day of school. The principle told me that I am not aloud to miss more school." Trying to convince him to let me go back my room and not take me to the basement.
"Nice try. I will call the school tomorrow and tell them that you are sick again. You can make up your stupid test next week. Get your ass to the basement now!" he screams. "Come on boys! Let's go have some fun!"
He pushed me down the stairs. "Move your ass Jane! Stop moving so slow!"
I start to get up and then I feel a foot kick me again. They start to kick me forward thinking it is faster to kick me down the stairs than to let me walk. They get me to the top of the basement steps. I start to stand up again "Please let me walk down the stairs," I beg.
I see a foot coming at me and it hits my legs and I feel my legs buckle underneath me and I fall down the stairs. I feel the wooden stairs hit my body as I fall down the stairs. I hit my head on the ground when I get to the bottom of the stairs. My head is really starting to hurt and throb. I lift my head off of the ground and I feel a sharp pain in my head as I lift it up. I lay my head back on the ground. I head laughter coming from the top of the stairs followed by footsteps. I start to crawl away from the steps when I hear the footsteps. They turned on the light and it caused my head to hurt even more. I try to stand up again and work through the pain. I stand up start to back away from the stairs. I start to think to myself, 'where can I go? There is no place to hide down here, my foster father made sure of that. What do I need to do to survive? Play along like always. Yes! Yes! Then maybe they won't beat me that badly if I play along.'
My foster father and his friends has gotten to the bottom of the stairs and are walking toward me like a pack of wolves about to pounce on their pray. "Tie her to the wall," I hear. I start to shake out of fear again not knowing what is going to happen. One of my foster father's friends grabs me from behind and everything I planed to do to help me get though this goes out the window and I start to scream.
They pushed me against the wall and I felt my head hitting the concrete basement wall. I feel my hands being tied above my head and the pull of the scratchy ropes on my wrists. I close my eyes refusing to open them, scared about what I might see if I opened them. I hear them yelling at each other, laughing and drinking, having a good time and I try to ignore what is going on and think about something else. 
Seeing as I know what kinds of items are in the basement and what he has done to me with the items in the basement in the past. I was scared to see what he is getting out. I can't hear any of the metal items that are in the basement so, I figured he must have gotten out some of the leather items. I finally feel something on my foot and I jump and scream. I open my eyes slightly to see what touched my foot.
I see the leather cat'o nine tail whip in my foster father's hand. The whip's base is leather with strips of leather coming off of it, so with every hit, each and every strip of leather would hit my body. I see him reach his arm back and swing forward and hit my foot. I screamed in pain as I felt the 6 strips of leather hit my foot. Everyone in the room laughed. I saw him reach back and bring the whip back towards me again. I feel the whip hit my foot again and I scream again.