'i should hate you'

chapter zero: every scrap of you would be taken from me

•.¸¸.•'¨* •.¸¸.•*'¨•.¸¸.•'¨'

ARA REMINGTON'S CHILDHOOD WAS NOT THE DEFINITION OF PERFECT.

She grew up in a small, rather crowded home. That was not the problem though, it was her father that was the issue.

He wasn't abusive to his daughter very much, at least not physically. For as long as she could remember, she recalled that her father was seemingly burdened by her existence.

He would often scream at her, at her mother too, especially at her mother.

She remembered their fights in the kitchen, loud and sometimes violent. Young Ara would stand at the top of the stairs, listening with bated breath, hoping that her mother would be okay.

The fighting would typically end with Cole Remington storming out of the house, the rickety back door slamming behind him.

He would be gone for days at a time, doing God knows what, then he would come back and act like nothing had happened.

This went on for years, a deadly cycle that had no hope of stopping.

But he never hit his daughter, or his wife, at least Ara did not see that part.

Until one day, seven year old Ara came into the kitchen when her mother and father were in one of their fights, a rather violent one at that.

"STOP!" Ara yelled, her small voice squeaking as she yelled the singular word. She looked at her father, into his eyes, the eyes that they shared. Dark brown pools, like chocolate flowing through a fountain. Though Cole Remington's eyes were cold and mean, a stark contrast from his daughter's warm, welcoming eyes.

But she was too late, she had jumped in the middle of her mother and father, and her small face had been met with her father's hard, clenched fist.

Instantly, tears sprung to her eyes, threatening to spill out onto her tanned cheeks.

Her small face burned red, and she let out a cry of pain, the sound ringing through the house.

Her mother, Abbie Remington, screamed at her husband. "COLE, YOU CAN HURT ME AS MUCH AS YOU'D LIKE, BUT YOU WILL NOT EVER TOUCH MY DAUGHTER."

And after that, Abbie and Cole got a divorce. Abbie didn't think it would be that easy to be rid of her horrible husband, but she and her daughter had finally escaped his menacing grasp.

The divorce was rough, but they were free now.

Ara looked at her mother as if she hung the moon and stars, and they were practically joined at the hip.

Abbie spoke three languages, English, French, and Spanish, and set out to teach her daughter to speak those languages as well. Her daughter was a quick and very responsive learner, but little did she know that her daughter not only picked up the three languages, but had a natural aptitude to pick up on hundreds of various languages.

To be quite honest, the girl didn't really know how she had gotten this skill, but she wasn't complaining. Though, being able to understand anything no matter the language barrier was sometimes a burden.

Ara would do anything for her mother, her biggest inspiration, her best friend. She seemed as if she was able to withstand anything, and Ara hoped that someday she would be half as strong as her beautiful mother had been.

She was a force of nature, a wonderful woman, she overcame and fought so much, until one day, she couldn't fight anymore.

•.¸¸.•'¨* •.¸¸.•*'¨•.¸¸.•'¨'

ARA WAS TEN YEARS OLD WHEN her mother was murdered.

It was a day unlike any other, at first. Ara went to school, she was in fifth grade at the time. It was in May, the rain and gloom had exchanged itself for the late spring sun. Ara looked forward to a summer of popsicles, sidewalk chalk, and staying up past her bedtime with her mother.

She walked home from school as she did every day, because she lived only a couple of blocks from her school.

She used her key to get into the house, and realized instantly that her mother was not home. She is always home when Ara gets back from school, and she especially wanted her to be home now. That is because today, the fifth graders had went to the middle schools to tour where they would be going to school in the fall.

Ara had been so excited to go to middle school for so long, but especially now she was. This is because she had some issues with her current group of friends and wanted to start over.

'A blank page to your next story' as her mother had affectionately called it.

Maybe her mom was stuck in traffic, or just leaving the office late, or maybe she had an appointment later in the day that she forgot to tell her daughter about? She is a physical therapist about ten minutes away from their house, but her last appointment is usually around 3pm, so she usually arrives home at about the same time as her daughter.

Ara chose not to worry. She went to the kitchen to fetch herself a snack, a small bag of goldfish (her mom bought her favorite extra cheddar version!). She went to her small pink floral backpack and snatched the folder given to her with all of the information about the middle school.

Their mascot was the tiger. Ara loves cats, and she wanted one very badly, but her mother was allergic, and so they had never gotten one. Maybe having her school mascot be a tiger would fill that empty space in her heart, she at least hoped so.

She finished the papers, grinning from ear to ear about all of the opportunities at her new school. She could do the play in the fall (this year they are doing The Wizard of Oz), she could do choir, and maybe even run on the track team in the spring. She was eager to create her schedule, but the children were instructed to wait to do so until they were with a parent.

Ara really hoped that she would get to be in their beginner cooking class, she loves baking with her mom, they bake something every weekend, (last weekend was red velvet cookies). This reminded Ara the one perk of her mother returning from work late, she could eat a cookie before dinner and she wouldn't be there to tell her no!

She walked to the pantry, picking out the biggest cookie possible and walking back to the couch. She also was not allowed to eat chocolate on the couch, after an incident with a brownie a few months back.

She picked up her newest copy of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but this one was in Italian. Her mother had bought it for her last week, and she was very excited to read it.

She'd read until her mom gets home, which would hopefully be soon, and then they'd go over her schedule signup, and they'd reheat their lasagna leftovers from the previous night. Ara had been looking forward to that dinner all day.

But she didn't return in a timely fashion. It was past 5pm, and Ara was now worried. She didn't have a phone yet, so her mom had no way of reaching her.

Luckily, one of her mom's good friends, Tarah, was living right next door. She didn't have any kids of her own, but had become like an aunt to Ara, and Tarah and her husband were Ara's godparents as well, her parents had decided that when their daughter was born.

She walked next door, knocking her small fist on their wooden door.

Tarah answers almost instantly. "Oh hi, Ara. Is everything alright, sweetheart?"

"My mom hasn't come home yet,"

The smile on Tarah's face fades. "Come in, and I'll give her a call." She ushers the small girl inside, motioning for her husband, Lucas, to sit with the her.

"Hey little dude, how's it going?"

Ara giggles at his words, she always found Lucas to be quite funny.  "I'm alright, I'm worried about my mom though,"

Lucas frowns. "I'm sure she'll be home soon." he says as the girl sits next to him on the couch.

Meanwhile, Tarah had went to the kitchen. She was calling Abbie, but her phone was just going straight to voicemail. This was unlike her.

If she was stuck in traffic, or an appointment was running extremely long, she would've texted Tarah to check in on Ara like she had done many times before. That is when Tarah came to the conclusion that something was wrong.

Of course, she couldn't tell the girl in the living room that, as she was excitedly awaiting  her mother's arrival. She had to say something though.

She walked back to the living room. "Hey sweetie, your mom didn't answer, but I think she must be stuck in traffic, and that's why she isn't answering." This lie wasn't the best, but she was only ten, and a fifth grader typically wouldn't question these things.

"Oh." The girl twirled a strand of curly black hair on her index finger, picking anxiously at the ends.

"Why don't  stay here until your mom gets back, we're having tacos for dinner!" Tarah announces happily.

This temporarily lifted Ara's anxiety. Tacos were one of her favorite foods ever, and Tarah's were especially good. "Tacos?! Yay!"

Tarah forced a smile, though she was happy to see the girl not as worried as she had been only seconds ago.

Though, she did hope that her best friend was alright.

•.¸¸.•'¨* •.¸¸.•*'¨•.¸¸.•'¨'

THREE DAYS LATER, THE BODY of Abbie Remington was found in a ditch.

Discarded as if her life meant nothing, and the search for her murderer began.

Tarah and Lucas had reported her as missing that night around midnight when she never came home. Ara had stayed the night with her godparents, and her worry only increased.

Her greatest fear came true when her mother's body turned up.

Who, you may ask, found the woman's body?

Her daughter.

On the way from school in the morning, she found her mother's dead  body lying in a ditch.

She screamed, sprinted the rest of the way home, and the police were called as soon as she arrived home. Her godparents tried to verify that it was Abbie's body, but the girl was inconsolable.  She was shaking like a leaf from head to toe, and she couldn't even speak.  

Later at the police station, it was confirmed that was indeed Abbie's body.

Ara's life was flipped upside down, and she was unfortunately not under the custody of her loving godparents, but she was sent back to her old town to live with her horrible father.

•.¸¸.•'¨* •.¸¸.•*'¨•.¸¸.•'¨'

YEARS PASSED, AND IT DIDNT GET BETTER. Ara had a rocky relationship with her 
father, and by rocky, that means that she hated his guts, and he hated hers.

When she was 14 years old, she returned from school with a lot to unpack. Not literally, figuratively.

Her ability to decode languages, accents, and slang had attracted the attention of the FBI, somehow. She had been offered to join a program called the Naturals along with other kids who had similar natural abilities, to solve cold cases. The isssue with this program is that her father would never send her away to Washington DC. He was far too controlling for that.

Her dad was sitting on the couch screaming at the TV while a football game was on when she arrived home from school. She was a Freshman in high school, and was a part of the French club at her school, which meets after classes end every Thursday, explaining why she was home later than she typically was.

And when she exited the school, she was met by a brunette boy who slipped her a piece of paper.

After she had walked off of the school campus, she unfolded the paper, figuring out that the paper was in fact a business card, that of an FBI agent by the name of Tanner Briggs.

What in the world could she have done to attract the FBI? Was her first thought, and she immediately called the number.

A welcoming yet firm Agent Briggs had told her about the program, and that he'd meet with her soon, and she could come to live in Washington DC if her father agreed to it.

She really wanted to escape her father, so she hoped she could convince him.

"Dad." She announced as she shut the door to their small and crowded house. It was the house she'd spent seven years of her life in, the house where her father hit her. Though, her mother was still around every corner, she could still feel her presence even though she hadn't lived in this house for seven years, and she'd been dead for four.

Ara hated this house, she always had. Her mother would most likely be heartbroken to know that when her daughter moved back in with her evil ex-husband, he didn't keep his promise of not ever hitting her.

Over the last four years, Ara had suffered abuse through her father, and that is another reason why she didn't think the man would let her go so easily, he wouldn't have his own personalized punching bag anymore.

It wasn't as often as it was in the first three years, because he'd stopped drinking as much as he had.

Turns out, after Abbie divorced him, he developed a drinking problem, but that didn't seem to do much for him anymore, and so he decided that abusing his grieving daughter was a good alternative.

"What?" The man on the couch snapped, not looking away from his football game.

"I got invited to a special school to go to, um, and I was wondering if I could go?"

"What?" Her dad parrots himself.

"A special program-"

"I heard what you said the first time." He snaps. "You're absolutely psycho if you think I'd pay money to send you to some fancy fucking school."

"You wouldn't have to pay." Ara swallows. "I got invited."

"A scholarship?"

"Kind of." Ara couldn't disclose that it was linked to the FBI, that was one of the things that Agent Briggs had told her. This is because the program is still in its beginning stages, and is not a widely known thing.

"Well where is it?"

"DC."

"DC?"

"Yeah, I'd live up there. But there's a house i'll be staying at, and I can come home for holidays if you want-"

"You mean you can stay up there?"

"Yes-"

"And you'll never be here?"

"That's right, as long as you sign off on it."

"I don't care what you do, but if sending you to some fancy school in DC means you'll get out of my hair, then i'll do it."

"Really?" The girl was shocked.

The man nods. "Now go away before I change my mind." and that was it.

Ara hurried upstairs, flopping down excitedly on her bed.

Being in the FBI? Helping real Agents track down killers?

This was something right out of the movies, and the possibilities were seemingly endless.

She finally felt special for the first time since her mom died, like she had a sense of belonging, a place in this world.

Maybe this was exactly what she had been looking for, perhaps she would find purpose once again, like a bright light after being shut away in the dark for so long.

•.¸¸.•'¨* •.¸¸.•*'¨•.¸¸.•'¨'

cam's notes!

MY BABY UGH.

i feel so bad for my darling ara, she was just a baby who was waiting for her mom to come home so she could make her class schedule :(

i feel so bad for ara and her mom, but now ara will find the family she'd been looking for since her mom died!

i was originally going to include her meeting the naturals for the first time, but decided to leave some things up for interpretation so lmk what you think of this prologue!

(and bonus points if you figure out how many song lyrics were referenced !!)

ill see you guys when i start writing chapters for this fic, im so excited to start this story <3