She wanders the streets, hungry, lost, dirty. Her large green eyes stare out at the dark alleys surrounding her, finally dry after loosing all their tears to her sorrow. Streaks trace her cheeks where the mud was washed away by the bitter salt water. Black hair hanging in tangles about her, she looks like any other street rat wandering the alleys in search of a meal. Only she is not quite as emancipated as the rest, not quite as seasoned. There is something about her, an innocence that radiates from her wide, terrified eyes, that says that she doesn¡¦t know survival, not the ugly, desperate, demoralizing survival that someone living on the streets knows. Despite the dirt that embellishes her ragged clothes, she is somehow clean.

The hot, sticky air presses down on her, weighting her sagging shoulders, adding to the ever-increasing load she is forced to bear. She walks as quickly as her weakened legs can manage, simply for the sake of doing something even if she has no real destination, and she bursts out of the alley into a wide sidewalk outside of a popular New York City bar. Loud music mingles with the rumble of shouts and laughs and over-enthusiastic conversation. The overflow crowd has tumbled out the door and a few random drunks stumble about, starting on their clumsy journeys home. Wrapping her arms around herself, she makes her way through them, only too aware of her youth and defenselessness, feeling their bodies press against hers as the crowd shifts and sways with the alcohol in its blood. She has never felt so alone.

She mentally prepares herself to begin her rounds of begging in the crowd. There are so many people here; somebody must be willing to help a 12-year old lost on the streets. Taking one small arm and extending it out, she tugs on somebody¡¦s expensive looking black suit. The man turns, and smiles, the smile drooping slightly as he seems to notice the condition she¡¦s in, and something like pity briefly accents his expression before it is smote out. She suddenly thinks that maybe she is lucky, that maybe this man will give her money.

But money isn¡¦t what she gets. "Been waitin¡¦ f¡¦r y¡¦, petite. Y¡¦ an¡¦ me, we got some t¡¦ings to discuss." She steps back in surprise, but he has grabbed her outstretched wrist by now and her movement is cut short. His grasp is firm, strong, despite his long white hair and thin frame, and she lets a tiny cry of pain escape her lips. She stares up into his lined, angular face, suddenly wondering what his eyes look like, wishing she could see them and get some insight into who he is, but they are shaded in dark sunglasses. Despite the fact that it is night.

He pulls her and she follows, staring at the ground and biting her lip to keep from screaming. That will only make him mad, and who knows what he will do to her then? She is so scared she can taste it, vile and bitter in her mouth. Why was this happening to her? Hadn¡¦t her parents disappearing been enough?

He takes her into a dark alleyway, but just as she has decided that maybe screaming might be the best idea after all, or that maybe she should try to fight him and run, a feeling of calmness shrouds her, one of comfort and safety. She looks up at the man who is gazing at her curiously, loosing all her fear to an invading sense of peace. "Who are you?" she questions in a small voice. He stops walking, kneels down before her. Slowly, he slides off his glasses and she is faced with the most amazing, horrible eyes she has ever seen. Bright, red, burning coals scorch their way into her mind, the black around them sucking her in.

"I¡¦m called de Witness," he says in a rough, Cajun accent, and then adds a moment later, "An¡¦ I¡¦m here t¡¦ tell y¡¦ about your parents."

"What about them?" she asks in a small voice, suddenly terrified again.

His tone is flat, his words simple and direct, "Dey¡¦re dead."

She almost collapses and her heart begins to beat faster than it ever has before. Dead, dead, dead.

And at that moment, with those words, with those suddenly expressionless eyes staring into her, something inside her changed. That¡¦s when the cleanness of her, the innocence, became stained with dirt.

Because she knew. Maybe it was the coldness in his voice, or the darkness of his eyes, or the insensitivity of his actions, or just a simple intuition. But she knew, somehow, that he was the cause of her family¡¦s death. She knew that he was a murderer, a monster without compassion. A man who had caused hardship and pain for many others like herself. One with demon eyes.

From that day on, she¡¦d hated him, had made it her goal to bring an end to the pain he inflicted upon others.

And now, now almost 50 years in the past, she had saved him. In a rare moment of compassion, a moment of weakness, a moment when she could feel him dying almost as clearly as if it were herself, she had saved him.

She had made a horrible, horrible mistake.