Prologue

R emy aged 4

I run as fast as I can, down the short hall into my bedroom before hitting the ground. The brown carpet scratches my knees when I crawl into my hiding place. I have Paprika in my arms; she's my stuffy that Daddy got me. Sometimes he picks me up and takes me for rides on his bike.

Mommy is screaming so I curl up even smaller and close my eyes. When Mommy has her friends over I have to stay in bed and not get out. Sometimes she makes screaming sounds but she told me it's because she's having lots of fun.

"Rem? Remy, are you here?"

"Sunny?" Unscrunching my eyes I peek through the flaps of my tent. My daddy got this for me too. I like hiding in here with Paprika when the men come. A big blue eye peeks through and then Sunny is crawling into my tent with me. I scrunch up small so she can fit. She's bigger than me. Like really big. She goes to school.

Mommy starts screaming louder now and she's saying lots of bad words. I don't know what's happening, but if Sunny is here, my daddy must be here too. I snuggle into Sunny and she puts her arm around me and squeezes me tight.

"It's OK Remy. Dad's come to take you home. You're going to live with us now."

Remy aged 9

"Come on Remy, Dad gave us money to go to the mall," Sunny is smiling huge at me, waving a wad of cash. I don't want to go to the mall, but I heard the men talking about "club business".

I know that means me and Sunny have to hang out somewhere else for a while. When we were younger some of the club girls would look after us. Well, they'd look after me. Sunny said it was because they were trying to become Dad's Ol Lady. It didn't work. After I grew out of being little and cute they just ignored me until Sunny could take care of the both of us. Sunny told me that both our moms were club girls. Sunny's mom left her with Dad straight after she was born. My mom kept me for a little while until Dad got sick of her leaving me by myself all the time. Then he came and got me and I've been with him and Sunny in our trailer at the clubhouse ever since. It's not too bad except when we have to be out for a long time when I'd rather be reading my book.

"Come on, bring your book. We can get smoothies and sit. You can read and I'll do schoolwork."

I smile up at my big sister. She makes everything better.

Remy aged 11

"Rem?" Turning to the sound of my name being called, Dad is heading my way, his face crumpled. Sighing, I know that club business is about to happen.

"Rem, there's some shit going down, I need you to not be here. Is there anywhere you can go for a few hours?"

I gather up my books and nod up at my dad. It's not his fault that stuff goes down all the time. Usually when this happened Sunny would take me somewhere with her. We'd hit the mall, go to back-to-back movies, or even hang out at her friends' houses. Since she's seven years older than me it was up to her to look after me. Now, she's busy working her butt off at community college.

"I'll go to the library. It stays open until late and I have some things I can do there," Dad looks at me with soft eyes and kisses me on the top of my head.

"Thanks Rem. I'll send Chase to pick you up when we're done." Nodding, I let out a breath. Chase is one of the nicer prospects we have around here. I've heard that he's having his patch-in party at the end of the week and his new name will be Savage. That's what they should name the other prospect, Carter. He's nasty and goes out of his way to mess with me. He stands too close and tries to touch me all the time. He sometimes tries to get me to go places with him. Chase caught him one time and broke his nose. He's pretty much left me alone since but he gives me filthy looks or tries to corner me.

"Don't forget, stay inside the library until Chase comes, baby girl."

Remy aged 13

"Well, you're back again huh, Miss Remy?" Miss Shawna's eyes light up. I love coming in when she's on.

"Hey Miss Shawna, yup, back again!"

"Well, that's just fine with me. I have something a little special that's just arrived. I thought to myself, ‘Miss Shawna, who is a good kid you would trust with this here thang?' and you were the only one! So, come on child. Lemme show you what we got," Miss Shawna books it through the library, heading to where all the community computers sit, her ample body jiggling under her colorful long skirts and scarves and things.

"Ta daaaaa!" She waves her hands around like those women you see on TV game shows, my gaze following her hands.

"Is that a gaming computer?" It's beautiful. I've been coming and hanging out at the library for the last couple of years. After reading all the books that took my fancy, I started to gravitate more towards the computers and the cheap internet. Whenever there was bad stuff going down at the clubhouse, which seemed to be all the time, Dad would send me to the library with $20 and a cellphone top-up so I could let him know when the library was closing.

"It sure is, sweet thang. It's loaded up with that game that all the kids are raving about these days. AND you can chat with other gamers online." She gives me a pointed look and I know what that means. She's been encouraging me to get out there and make some friends, but it's hard when you belong to the Death Riders MC. Most of the kids at school just ignore me; the ones who don't ignore me call me biker trash and wreck my stuff.

"Look, child, online friends are just as good as real-life friends. Unless they're 50-year-old men pretending to be kids. Watch out for those creeps, OK?" I nod up at Miss Shawna and try not to giggle. "OK, well, take a seat and get to it girl, I think you might surprise yourself." With a smile she swans off in a blur of color, whisper yelling at some kids to keep it down.

I wiggle the mouse and the screen comes to life showing the opening graphics of the game - Shadow Wrath. I've heard the kids talking about it at school. The start-up screen asks me for my gamer tag, what I'll be known by in this world. Thinking about my name, Remington Wright, I decide to do a play on words. Beretta_Penn. That sounds pretty cool.

I click through to the next screen and realize it's some type of role-play game. Maybe in the Shadow Wrath world, I can be confident and outgoing and maybe even popular. Someone different from who I am in this world.

I want to be the opposite of myself so I choose a huge troll avatar. I give him long black hair and a nose ring. I finish up with spiky armor and then my avatar gets dropped into the village where my campaign is going to start. A flashing box in the corner of my screen catches my eye so I click on it. A message pops up from an elf character with a single word:

St_Margarita: Hi.