Hi. My name's Faith and I have a problem. Well, that's not true. I have problems but the problem I'm here to tonight to talk to you about was most likely caused by all my other problems.

I don't usually talk about myself much. There's not much that I think people need to know about me. Usually just my name, the fact that I can kick their asses if I wanted to and my less than strong need to have friends. Those are the three things people need to know about me. Anything else is just filler.

But I agreed to come here and talk because it gets me out of other useless crap. So, my name's Faith, I can kick all of your asses and I don't need friends. I'm independent, I'm secure and I can take care of myself. I've been doing it long enough.

I guess the first problem I can remember is being hungry. When I was a kid, I never got enough to eat. My parents just never thought about feeding the five kids they brought into this world. We were mainly just workers for them. Slaves. People to do the housework and make them feel good when the world showed them that they didn't mean much.

The second problem I remember having was not being good enough. Ever. My mom would yell at me for not being pretty enough and my dad would yell at me for not being strong enough. I'd clean their ashtrays so well, I mean those fuckers shined, but it was never good enough. When my dad got sick, I couldn't get his medicine quick enough. When I'd get it to him, he'd take the pills then backhand me for being slow.

See, he wasn't sick like with cancer or the flu or anything like that. He was sick in the head. I was told that something wasn't wired right, you know? Like I knew what that meant. Hell, I still don't know. All I know is that he'd flip out. And when I say flip out, I mean he'd go crazy. He once put a Colt .45 in my mouth because he saw me blink. I swear to holy God, that's what he said. "Faith! Fucking whore, you fucking blinked!" I was eight. After that I just kept my head down a lot.

My mom never helped with him. Sometimes she'd play games like hiding one of his shoes. He'd put one on then couldn't find the other one. She knew it'd drive him nuts until he'd start hitting his head against the wall because he couldn't find it. My mom would bring guys home too. My dad would be sleeping on the couch and she'd wake him up so he could lie there and watch her screw these young guys. They couldn't have been more than eighteen or nineteen. My mom liked them young.

She was an addict...to everything. I mean, if it was addictive, she was addicted to it. Nicotine, alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex. You name it. She'd make me and my brothers do drug runs for her. One time I had coke, heroin, crystal meth and valium all stuffed down my shirt and in my underwear and I had to walk by this donut shop, you know? I was so scared. All these cops just looking right at me. Nothing happened, except I went home and got a beating because I took so long.

I was introduced to sex when I was eleven. When I say introduced, what I mean is that I experienced it for the first time. I had watched my mom fuck nameless guys since I was old enough to see. Now, my newly assigned therapist has told me that what I experienced wasn't just sex. It was incest and rape. I don't know about that, you know? Technically, I guess it's true.

But I never said no. I didn't fight it. I just let it happen. My oldest brother Cory did it. I can't really blame him, you know? I'm pretty sure that my dad and mom had been fucking with him for a while. I guess it just sort of goes around. He'd say things to tip me off, you know? Like, he'd say that he was being so much nicer to me than 'they' ever were to him. He'd say that he was taking care of me and he wouldn't let 'them' get to me.

He never hurt me, that's why I'm not so sure about the rape. Doesn't rape hurt? Part of me hates myself for... Shit, whatever. I didn't come here tonight to fucking cry. Cory was an okay guy. He held me when I bawled. He looked out for me. He tried to help me with my work so that Mom and Dad wouldn't give it to me so bad.

Cory was the first one my dad killed. I remember the look on Cory's face when Dad stabbed him. Shock. Scared. Judgement was coming, I guess.

I remember, I was so scared. Not because I was afraid my dad would kill me, but afraid because Cory was gone. The only person who ever gave me any piece of comfort was gone. I just sat there and watched as my dad gutted him. I was fourteen.

My dad came over to me, looming over me like he was death himself. And he was. The knife was still in his hands. Cory's blood was dripping from it. It was staining the light blue carpet and I remember thinking, 'Dammit, I'll never be able to get that out.' Just another bruise for me. It didn't even register that my Dad was holding a weapon and had just killed my brother and could kill me any time.

"Faith," he said, his voice low. "Run and get Daddy's medicine, okay? Be a good girl." I did, I ran to the bathroom and got his pills. When I went back into the living room, I saw my brother Paul on the floor, the knife sticking out of his back. Next to the couch was my brother Sam, he was only a year older than me. His neck was slit. His head was only attached by a small thread. Dad had sure killed them fast. I didn't think about it then, but now that I have all this time to think, I have to wonder how he killed them so quickly, although Paul was still alive when I passed him. I walked slowly to the couch where my dad was sitting. He smiled at me, taking the pills and the glass of water from my small hands. He took the pills, then threw the glass at the wall. "Faith, be a good girl and get Daddy his gun."

Like the robot I was, I did. I handed it to him and he pulled me onto his lap. I don't know why I asked or where the courage came from, but I asked, "Why'd you hurt Cory, Sam and Paul?" He just shook his head, like he didn't know the answer. "Why are you sick?"

"They fucked my brains, girl, don't you know? They took me and reworked my mind." He started whispering in my ear. "There's rats in my brains, there's rats in my brains. They want out, they want out. They want to eat you, Faithy, they want to eat you!"

I remember that I couldn't think. I was trying to, but I couldn't. I watched my dad put the barrel of the .45 in his mouth like it was playing out on TV. There was a loud noise and then I was covered in warm stickiness that I later found out was a mixture of his blood, flesh and brains.

I just got off his lap and he slumped over. I moved to the kitchen and found my mother's bloated body lying on the counter. She had a syringe hanging from one of the needle tracks. I've figured out since then that my dad found her dead. She had overdosed and that's why he did what he did.

I found my other brother Phillip in the pantry. He had squeezed himself up so small and was hiding in there, curled up on a shelf. He just looked at me and I just looked at him. Phillip's a whore now. He lives on the streets of Boston, selling his ass for twenty bucks a fuck. Usually it's men who pay him. He gets dicked for money and he likes doing it. His head's messed up, you know? He's twitchy, that's why he can only get twenty bucks a trick. People don't pay top dollar for a mental case.

So what am I? I'm not a whore. A slut maybe, but not a whore. Me? I'm a killer. I take people's lives away. I was trained to help save lives, but I was also trained how to kill. I was trained to kill with ruthless efficiency. Well, the efficient part was what I was trained for; I added the ruthlessness myself.

Killing got to be fun. Everyone owed me, so why not take it out by way of their lives? I take your life, you don't owe me anymore. Fair deal, at least for me.

So why am I here? Talking to all of you? Because you're all borderline, here. You could go either way. You're all in this place because they think that you can be reformed, even before you've done anything horribly wrong. I came here tonight to tell you not to be like me. See, going the way I went led to a pretty life of a twelve by ten cell. I get three squares a day, so I'm better off than when I was a kid, but I don't get shit in the way of...hell, anything.

Oh, sure, I'll get out some day. But I'll never be free. I'll be shipped off to England to re-educated by the Council who first trained me to kill. They've got connections, but I'll always be living for someone else, paying for mistakes I've made. Until I die, someone, some thing will own me

There's lots of evil out there. Don't be a part of it.

~**~

End