CONDEMNATION ✓

Chapter 1

Freedom was taken for granted. It had been months since you left Meadow Isle Asylum, and you had been more than ecstatic to finally be out of that hell hole they called a haven and able to live an independent life. You weren't a woman who was content with being locked in a cage. In your early twenties, it had taken years of convincing and countless state-appointed lawyers to grant your release. No thanks to your brother; Mono seemed hell-bent on keeping you locked in the hospital for "your protection." He'd been granted legal guardianship after your parent's death, being thirteen when they died. He was only two and a half years your senior, but once he hit the ripe old age of eighteen, you were handed to him as if he had any clue what to do. You would have much rather been emancipated.

He had the paternal instincts of a piece of fruit. He opted to pay the institute to keep you in their care until he could find a suitable living situation. But time was running out, as your eighteenth birthday approached fast. Not that that mattered. He had convinced them that you weren't fit to be released two years after his abandonment. He'd claimed you had a dissociative identity disorder and were a danger to society.***

Naturally, this sent you into a rage which caused you to break the noses of two of the caretakers and crack the skull of the charge nurse in the West
Wing of the asylum. It wasn't the first time you had used excessive force, but it was the first time it was documented on an adult record. Mono had been counting on that, seeing as it had you put through a psychiatric evaluation that concluded you had a severe case of Bipolar disorder. They couldn't confirm the split personality claim; your asshole brother had obviously lied.

He never came back for you. It had been seven years since you last saw the bastard. He still sent postcards and letters on your birthday, but there was never a return address. After being freed from the asylum, letters would be found around your base of operations or left in your car. Car alarms didn't stop him; he knew how to disable them, hack a keyfob, hotwire, B&E, or whatever he needed to do to get the job done. The criminal element in your family was a bloodline trait. He was always apologetic in his notes and letters, telling you he was doing what was best for you and that he'd come for you soon. He just needed you to wait. It all sounded like one bullshit lie after another. Well, fuck that!

At one point in time, you had trusted Mono completely. You attributed it to the young mind of a little girl who wanted nothing more than to follow her big brother around like a lost duckling and grow up to be just like him. It took a few years after that for you to realize that Mono was no role model, but he was family, and you cared for him all the same. It wasn't until distrust began to brew after your parent's death and the lies were brought to the surface did you reject him firmly. He'd shattered your trust, and there was no getting it back. He kept the wool pulled over your eyes all your life, and he expected you to be okay with that?

You grew used to his absence over the last seven years. Family was just a word, but Mono wasn't family to you. No visits, no calls for over half a decade; Mono was dead to you.

You hoped that he was sent into a panic when you left the asylum without his consent. It served the bastard right for the seven years of bullshit you had to endure because of his carelessness. You were out now, finally getting the first taste of unfiltered liberation since birth, and you planned to milk it for all it was worth.

Unfortunately, you were robbed of the headstart that anyone your age already had. You were twenty-three, had no job experience, only a G.E.D. under your belt, no family to back you up, and not a single legally obtained dollar in your pocket. Despite the orphanage's insistence, you had dropped out of school at sixteen. Mono had abandoned you, your parents were dead, and high school seemed like a trivial waste of time. The employees and kids alike knew your family history - some sought you out to try and take advantage of your parents 'mob-like' connections - seeing as their murders were plastered all over the news. Whenever you returned 'home,' though, people tried to keep a football field length between you and them, fearing they may suffer the same fate as your parents if they got too close to you.