The sound of gunfire rang through the streets and the roar of police sirens came soon afterwards. Deep in an alleyway, a little girl looked at her father as patted her head, saying things would be okay. But she wasn't fooled. Her dad was clutching his side, desperately trying to hide the fact he was bleeding. But she couldn't do anything.

“Everything will be fine, Rose. I—” He cringed in pain, before lifting his head to look his daughter in the eyes. “Daddy'll be alright.”

“Promise?” She wanted to believe those words were true. But she couldn't stop staring at the wound in her dad's side.

“I-I promise.” He said with finality, clutching her hand weakly.

She wasn't convinced.

The next day, Nathaniel Flowers died, leaving his wife and six-year old daughter alone.

The month after the funeral, Rosary noticed a distinct change in her mother; she had seen the depression and endless tears to the point where she had gotten over her dad's death faster than her mother. She had started buying these white rocks and no matter what, Rosary couldn't touch them. And her mother kept getting worse and worse.

Sometimes, they had no food. Rosary would have to raid the back of a restaurant for a meal, scrounging up whatever was edible in the trash. Other times the water or the electricity would shut off and Rosary would surround herself in blankets to keep warm as her mother screeched about insects under her skin.

Then, one day, her mother let a strange man in. He was wearing a suit and had a beard that reminded Rosary of rich people. It felt like just the kind of thing a rich man would wear. He glanced at her mother, before diverting his attention to her, his smile far from reassuring her. He kneeled down, probably to make himself seem less imposing.

“Lovely to meet you, Rosary. I'll make this clear; in exchange for us satisfying your mother's addiction, she has offered us your services.” The way he said it in contempt almost made her relax; but they were coming to take her away, weren't they?

“Services?” What could she do when she was, um, seven?

“Delivery. I'm a man far above the prostitution of young women such as yourself, but I can see that you have the look of a fine courier. I know about your escapades around town, Rosary. How you can hide in plain sight, take food from those dumpsters right under their noses. I've seen you do it; ever since your father died, I had to look out for you.”

He knew her father and all this stuff about her? What kind of man was he?

“Ah, your face says it all. Your father and I were part of a particularly famous gang—the Decepticons—until they were disbanded. Your father decided to go clean, but unfortunately, he ended up being six feet under too soon, the way he would have had he continued that life. It was a tragedy, and even more so if I let you two live this way. All you have to do is deliver packages, and you will have food, water, and electricity. Is that fine with you?” His voice was calm and soothing, but this was definitely wrong. Normal people didn't do this, the nagging voice in the back of her head said.

But she was sick and tired of scraping by.

So she signed herself into the clutches of Marcus Bernardino.

The work was not difficult; rather, it was fairly easy. Marcus had taught her which gangs she was not to run afoul of, and he made sure to enforce the idea that she was not to be touched. They gave her packages, and she delivered, using everything to her advantage. Rosary had a natural talent for hiding, and quite a few times, it was only thing that prevented her from getting shot or caught.

But things stayed the same. Her mother quit her job. The money Rosary herself made barely paid for what they needed to live, and often, her mother would lie there and do nothing unless she asked for a dose of crack. It was up to Rosary to forge her mother's signature to pay the bills, buy the groceries, satisfy her mother's addiction.

And go to school. Rosary never belonged, and while she was intelligent enough to perform above average, she was constantly bullied for the fact she smelled weird and how her hair was a mess and all sorts of things she would never have the time to fix. They didn't understand that she was teetering on the edge of survival every day.

But playing hooky would draw attention. So she went to school anyway.

Eventually, someone tipped off Child Protective Services. Her mother was promptly arrested, and since Rosary had no close family, she was sent to a foster home at the tender age of ten. It was absolutely horrible, but at the foster home, they had books. And books were tales of things she never had the chance to experience.

Soon after she went to the foster home, Marcus showed up once more. She was sick of his shit and asked him what she thought was the most obvious question.

“Why didn't you adopt me?” She was nearly screaming. It was almost betrayal for him to abandon her like that in the aftermath. But she wanted to trust him.

“I couldn't, Rose. I may be in charge of this idiotic set of the Bloods, but I do have my place in something much greater—the mafia. And adopting you means you attract the attention of hitmen. It was to protect you, I swear.” She wanted to believe that was the truth, and she convinced herself that it was. That she hadn't been left alone after all. That there was someone watching her, looking out for her.

“I—Alright. That’s fine, if you’re keeping me safe.” She said uncertainly, her voice still conveying her doubts.

“Well then. Now that that is over with, are you interested in a promotion? Without your mother holding you back, you can finally afford things for yourself. The mafia has gotten a new gang under its hands, and I think the next set of missions will be well worth your time.” Once again, a job offer that Rosary could not refuse. The foster home was absolute trash, worse than the dumpsters she had sifted through for a meal.

And that was how Rosary Flowers began her work for the mafia at the age of ten.

The new deals were harder, and often times she was told of the contents of her packages now. In the end, she delivered everything from loaded guns to ammunition to pipe bombs to heroin to even birthday cards for the big boss’s daughter. But on one mission, she was assigned a bodyguard and a certain package that she did not like at all.

Crack cocaine. The thing that had ruined her mother and drove her to a shell of a human being.

Her bodyguard was from the new gang that Marcus had unscrupulously had acquired. His name was Hayden Raleigh, but he was different. Instead of packing tattoos and a shaved head, he looked more like someone you would find at a local well-to-do high school rather than a gang.

“I don’t need you, you know. I can handle this by myself just fine,” she’d said, causing the man assigned to her to raise and eyebrow and slide her a pistol. She took it, but not like she would use it.

“I don’t need you either, but that’s just the way life works. You and I know both know how that feels, doesn’t it?” Tch, how annoying. But he did have some sort of point—assuming he had a background just like hers.

“Arguably. You spend a shitton of time on the streets scrounging for food?” Just a question to see if he wasn’t bullshitting through his teeth. Everyone tended to do that to each other, to the point where the truth was a precious commodity.

“Know it like it was yesterday.” With the way he said it, it probably was, and she dropped that line of conversation right after that. Nobody wanted to dwell on those kinds of things.

Everything had gone smoothly; but the meeting point was compromised. Why the hell anyone would fuss about crack this much was beyond Rosary, but when the shootout happened she could do nothing but hide.

Hayden was a skilled man; nearly everyone was dispatched with an astounding ease. But he had been wounded; two bullets in his side, mirroring her father from years before. She couldn’t bear to watch, but then she heard his cries for help.

“Damnit, you can’t just leave me here…” Of course she could. But something made her stay. Maybe she just couldn’t leave someone out to bleed like that. It reminded her too much of her father.

“Aren’t I supposed to prioritize the damn delivery?” And just as she said that, she got a text giving her new directions to where she would meet Marcus instead. She’d have to make a decision now, and looked at the pleading man with calculating eyes.

If she let him go to the hospital, Hayden would end up in jail and possibly interrogated. If she killed him now, it would simply be tying up loose ends. She had to do something.

So she pointed the gun at his head and fired.

But she missed. Her accuracy was god awful not just from lack of experience, but she didn’t have the heart to kill him. She saw the anger that flashed in his eyes and ran to the new rendezvous point, not looking back.

By the time she got there, everything was trashed. The two men posted at the door lay dead, and she opened the door to get a tiny peek inside.

She saw one thing before the sound of gunfire scared her off and made her drop the package. Marcus was dead, riddled with bulletholes. Everything was a mess, so she would have to save her damn hide.

And with her talents, she hid and ran like a rat until she was sure they were off her trail.

That was the end of Rosary’s service for the mafia. With the only man she knew dead, there wasn’t much that would keep her in their service. She became an expert pickpocket instead, honing on her skills while scrounging up whatever she could to sell to anyone. Back to how she was before all this gang business.

Then, when she was thirteen, she made the mistake of pickpocketing a soldier. He looked innocuous enough, grizzled and slightly distracted. Pilfering his wallet would be a snap. And it was. She had stolen his wallet and taken all the cash. All she needed to do was to put it back before he knew anything had changed.

But the man grabbed her by the arm and gave her an unrelenting glare. Well, that was the end to her stainless criminal career.

But the man did something surprising. He didn’t call the authorities.

Logan Walker was a grizzled man from experience in Iraq, and wanted to start a new life. The girl in front of him was a product of the world around him, and judging by how she had tried to put his wallet back in his pocket instead of taking the entire thing, there was a glimmer of redemption in her soul.

So without hesitation, he offered her a chance to be a family. The thing she never had. It was ridiculous, preposterous even, but the man wouldn’t let her go even as she tried to persuade him not to just turn her into the authorities.

And like that, Rosary Flowers was adopted by Logan Walker, and finally, accidentally, she had found a family.

It was only three years later that she got a letter in the mail; Logan lived in Illinois instead of New York, and she had followed him there. A chance to start a new life. And this was another chance to start fresh, to be acknowledged for a talent she had never told anyone about.

It was suspicious, to be sure. But Logan convinced her to go. There was nothing to be gained by not taking risks, and he trusted her to do the right thing.

Trust.

Someone trusted her. And because she didn’t want to break that trust like so many other people did in her life, she went to Zeus Experimental High School.