Kathleen was four years old when things in the peaceful Baxter family began to break apart. Perhaps it was her birth that started complications, or perhaps other things, but the marriage between Mrs and Mr Baxter was crumbling. Late at night, when the two arrived home, they would often be caught arguing in the entry hall of their home, although these disputes never lasted long before the two kissed and made up, moving on with their lives. It wasn't until Kathleen's fifth birthday that things began to escalate.
For her birthday party, there was a massive party planned, and of course, every invited guest was over the age of 30, all friends of Mrs and Mr Baxter's, as Kathleen had had no friends and wasn't expected to ever have any. There was only one guest that wasn't planned to arrive- a young child of the age of 7, coming with a Ms Lily Jones, Katherine's best friend. It was blizzarding outside, and Lily's nanny had failed to arrive to babysit her child. The child, by the name of Heath Jones, was kept in the nursery with Kathleen for the large majority of the party. He nicknamed her "Katya" because he couldn't pronounce her name. There was no cake, no candles to be blown out, just little silver-wrapped presents from people Kathleen never knew. A good chunk of the gifts were things she couldn't even use- a china clock, packets of money, etc. Most of it went to her parents.
Heath and Kathleen bonded over their time together in the nursery, and seeing this, Lily convinced Katherine to allow them to visit often. The two grew up together, growing a close relationship over time. They both attacked a very lavish private school together, spending their downtime with together, not making many other friends besides each other.
When Kathleen was seven years old, the ship began to sink.
The arguing between her parents escalated. There was no more kissing and making up- instead, there was fighting, her father not only hitting his wife, but throwing vases, kitchen knifes, whatever he could get his hands on at her recklessly. It become an unspoken agreement with the servants to avoid the entry halls, and the second floor master bedroom, from the hour of their arrival 'till dawn the next day, in order to avoid injury. Then, at dawn, they would hustle downstairs and clean up the mess, removing the marks of a broken marriage. Mrs Baxter never showed any sign of harm, covering it up with make up, scarves, and a plastic smile. Things went on for another year.
Kathleen began to take ballet classes and gymnastics in her spare time, paid for by her father. Still, she spent little time with her family, although she now was allowed at family parties and was expected to be presentable. Table manners and politeness was expected. There were consequences for not obliging to her parents rules, and they weren't simply the removal of privileges. The first few times an incident occurred, Rosaline managed to remove the child before anything happened, but Mr Baxter began to lose control over his anger. Spankings became commonplace in the household, but grew to be more. Kneeling on grits and rice, the usage of a belt... things could go on. Many of the accidents weren't her fault at all, but her father had somebody to blame, and it usually was her.
Sometimes, her father would come home from work in a poor mood, and Kathleen would escape out the house, and down the street to Heath's home, where they would flee to the nearest park and hide, running their imaginations wild and leaving their world of reality behind. More often than not, the nannies and the maids were in trouble for her disappearances, but they never scolded her. If anything, they encouraged it, allowing the girl freedom while she could have it.
The Baxter couple began to attend therapy in efforts to repair their relationship- they botched this effort when Kathleen became nine. Often, Mrs Baxter wouldn't appear at home for days. Mr Baxter took this to his advantage. During their New Years celebration that year, Kathleen was running about the house, regardless of the strict rule against it in place, with Heath, and tripped on a carpet, tugging it out of place and sending a bookshelf toppling down in the parlor. Her father was absolutely furious. After the party, he took it out on her, crossing a never before breached line in his abuse. Katherine left soon after the party ended to go on a trip with Lily, leaving Charles with nothing blocking his way to his daughter's room that night. It became common for him to visit her at night after that, and Mrs Baxter never knew, because she was never home at night either
Kathleen never spoke of it to anybody, because she knew what her father would do if she did. There was the constant threat under her father's bed; he showed her, late one night, that underneath the bed was a shoebox, with a loaded gun and extra ammo beside it, her name practically written on it. So she kept quiet, and took the abuse. Some part of her was trained to believe it was okay, that it was her fault for her misdeeds and mistakes. Her father told her that it was his gift to her, that other men would do much worse than his pardoning. As long as she didn't resist, and was daddy's little princess, he said it would be okay. In school, she became more secluded, and drew away from Heath for that very reason. He left her alone after a fight between the two of them, in which Kathleen verbally abused him.
The summer after her tenth birthday: the worst fight between her parents that Kathleen remembers.
She awoke to screaming and crashing from downstairs, and snuck to the balcony above the stairwell in the main hall to see. Charles was beating his wife down to the ground, shattered bits of glass surrounding them. Other servants soon rushed from their quarters; Rosaline took Kathleen away, and the others were ordered to clean up the mess, and contact an ambulance. The cover story? She had a heart attack and broke the vase when she fell. A lot of money was probably involved in that one.
The conglomerate began to fail, losing revenue to it's opposition. Charles would pace his study at night, high on anger, and drunk. As long as he was not in his room, and instead in Kathleen's, Katherine didn't care. It was her daughter being abused every night, but there are sometimes limits to familial relationships. But one night in July, Rosaline finally found out what was going on. No, Charles wasn't reading bedtime stories to his daughter, bonding before she fell asleep. The old woman tried to guard the room to the young girl, but Charles took his gun, shot her twice in the leg, and fired her. A lot of money covered up that one, too. He later took out the rest of his anger on Kathleen. He hired a new nanny after that, one that.. understood, of his nightly arrangements.
Heath found Kathleen curled up in the snow the following winter at the park they spent their childhood in. She told him everything, and he forgave her for her outburst, and the two began to grow close again. She made him promise her that he would never leave, and he told her that as long as snowflakes fall on her birthday, he would be there. As of every year, it had snowed on her birthday. It seemed like a good enough deal.
The abuse didn't worsen, nor lessen in the following years, but Kathleen managed to make more of a life for herself than she had before. She stayed with Heath, clinging to him like glue, and he provided some semblance of defense for her in life. She was never allowed out after six- a rule of her father's, ensuring her nightly availability and further prohibiting his daughter from having a decent life- but they still made the most of what they could. When she was sixteen, a junior in high school, he asked her out to prom. She wasn't sure if she would even be allowed to go, but made secret arrangements to. Her mother at the time had developed clinical depression and health issues, often making trips to the hospital. One night a few months before the prom, her mother left to an emergency hospital trip, her father in tow. She fled the house to purchase her gown. Then, she stashed it at Heath's home, and on the night of the prom, crept out through her window. The night itself was wonderful for them both, but when she arrived back home, Heath escorting her, her father was waiting, drunken, high, and pistol in hand. She fought back against her father, struggling to pull the gun from his hands, knocking his bottle of alcohol to the ground. He grabbed hold of a piece of glass and stabbed her, raking the glass across her torso, the cause of her scar. Heath was shot, and killed. The following winter, there was not a single snowflake on her birthday.
She was withdrawn from private school, and given a tutor, and was confined to her bedroom. No privileges, no friends. The door was locked, and there was no way out. It was endless torture for her, and she almost went insane. A year after the prom, her mother fled, leaving Charles for another man. The divorce happened soon after. While the conglomerate was back on it's feet, albeit unsteadily, her father still held high tensions. The abuse, of course, continued.
One night, after he left the room, she noted it was kept unlocked. Her buried hatred urged her to move out, and she ran to his bedroom. He wasn't there, he was in his study, so she grabbed the shoe box from beneath the bed, and retrieved the pistol. She located the study, door slightly ajar. He was sitting in his desk, facing away from her and out the window, a picture in his hands, vodka on the desk. She clutched the weapon with both hands, and lifted it. He turned seconds before she fired. First shot, she missed, hitting him in the shoulder. The second shot went straight between his eyes.
And then she ran. She took the gun, and raided his wallet, his money stashes, everything she could. She planted the gun in the servants quarters, and fled the house in the night, staying at a motel for a week as the investigation on her father began. She came back after the week, claiming no awareness of the incident; a few servants, ones she knew from her youth, backed her up in saying she was away at a friends. The will was read soon after- it was a will from a decade before, when she was a mere child, probably the only reason why anything was left to her. She had the home, the servants, almost everything. But she left it all, taking only a portion of the money, getting rid of most of it, and changing her name. Cora Frost.
Needless to say, one of the servants was blamed for the murder. Free from the guilt, she stayed only for the cremation of her father's body before she fled the city and began a new life. The cremation liberated her from her past and let her move onto her future.
