Prologue - Realizations

Thea (Thay-uh) was raped. Plain and simple, at least that's how she sees it. Not wanting to shame her family, she doesn't tell anybody. Why would she want to put the weight of her secret on anyone else's shoulders? Everything changes though when someone from before that fateful summer day arrives. Kale. Discharged and weary, Kale goes to the only place he can think of. The house he practically grew up in. His best friend's house. He needs a place to reconnect with the world, where memories of boyhood could counter the guilt. When he gets there though, he comes across a difficulty that he had never even considered. David's little sister. She wasn't so little anymore. But what scares him shit-less isn't just what he feels in her presence. No, what terrifies him is what he sees in the depths of her young eyes. Its what he sees in his own every time he looks in the mirror. Taint.