The Beauty In Love And Murder

Chapter Two - Adrienne

The safe house is a bright, loud place with a fireplace in the common room and a long dining table where we all take our meals. There's usually a fire snapping to and fro in the evenings, and Tarryn keeps good cooks around so there's cookies and cakes enough to satisfy my sweet tooth. The males around here make fun of my odd eating habits— my lack of nutrition and overkill amounts of sweets.

I don't mind much as long as I keep my figure, and stay fit enough to beat their asses when they get too handsy. It's strange sometimes, living with a lot of young men who don't wear shirts and drink too much on weekends. I'm one of the two women who live here, so often the males get a little too friendly with me late at night when we're sitting by the fire. I generally don't care if they do, I've never had an interest in anyone before.

At least, not since Tobias.

Tobias was my best friend when I was growing up— We loved each other fiercely, holding hands as we ran around town and falling asleep in each others' arms at the tender ages of seven and nine. When I was ten and he was twelve, he swore me an oath. "When you turn nineteen, I'll marry you. I'll keep you safe and protect you for the rest of your life." He thought he was doing me a favour, what with my home situation.

I never realized I loved him till the day I left home, but by the time I had those three words ready to spill off of my tongue for him to hear, I was already in a carriage heading to the city. I tried to go back to find him a couple years ago, I haven't seen him since the day I was sent away.

My father drank a tad too much when I was young, and as I grew up he became more and more violent under the influence of the local tavern's alcohol. My mother would let down my skirts to hide the bruises on my legs, and I remember her arranging her own hair to cover the black eyes that flowered on her milk white skin so often. I hated my father, from the moment I saw my mother crumple to the ground under his fists for the first time. 

The first time he hit me, I was eight. I didn't notice the bruise on my arm until Tobias grabbed my wrist and pointed. "Who did that to you?" He asked me, with an expression i'd never seen him wear before. I'd blinked, confused. "Oh. Father was out late last night, came home angry." I'd shrugged, tearing up when he poked at it and Tobias had pulled me into his ten-year-old chest with childish impulse. "I'm so sorry, Adri. You don't deserve that."

Eventually, my father realized I was too smart to keep around and to trust to keep my mouth shut. He knew I'd spill out my story to someone and he would have to deal with the husbands of my mother's friends, so he wrote to a friend in the city and sent me to an all girls academy, 'to educate me better'.

I ran away from school on the second day, and that's how I met Tarryn.