It might not make sense to you, the story I’m about to tell. If you haven’t lived similar horrors, the reasons we all got together to do what we did might still seem unfathomable to you. I only ask that you keep an open mind, and don’t judge us too harshly.

It all started innocent enough, well, the motive was innocent anyways. I suppose you could say it was redemption. For each of us, what once held innocence was shattered by another- with intent. There are some things that truly seem to break a person, from the inside out. Some things,or some people we can’t talk about, some of us who can’t talk for ourselves. We have nowhere to turn, so we shrink away into our retreat of safety, where at least they can’t hurt us anymore.

13 months and 17 days, the group had been meeting, before anyone wound up dead.

The club started as an emotional support group. After leaving my abusive ex, and coming to terms with PTSD, the anger and pain that remained inside me was too much to bare. A friend and I had been talking...and she told me about a group she was in, where basically women (who were abused, manipulated or systematically taken advantage of) met, to help each other in various ways. One of the big things was with perspective. Abuse can really mess with a person’s sense of reality, and it was up to us all to listen to the unfiltered fears and help one another be sure we are not responding from trauma, to ordinary circumstances.

The problem with that, was that it seemed the trauma liked to follow some of us around. Our club was secret for a few reasons. One reason being the safety of the girls who may still be attached to a partner who is a danger, the other being so the girls helping don’t wind up on their radar. It’s also a factor that none of us are quite comfortable with most people knowing what we have been through, and half of us discredit our right to be upset.

It started as seeing the beauty in one another, and wanting the best... It truly was with good intentions. How, though, can one grow to love such desperately hopeful beings, and not grow an intense rage at the ones who would purposefully tear their hopes, like plucking the wings off of a butterfly, with not only disrespect-but disdain. Pure disgust, it seemed, that anything in this world dare dream of more than the haunted wasteland of broken promises and bloodied tears their “love” had to offer.

And that night, when Isabelle came through the doors, covered in blood and tears...it set something off in us all. She was only 17, the daughter of our club founder, a child, whom as far as we were concerned-was ours. We decided we would get him back. And then, we would get them all.