Kira St.Croix was the daughter of a traveling salesman, sold to a Carnival and absconded by gypsies. That's the story as she tells it, the truth's a bit more unfortunate and less pleasing on the ears. Born in rural Oklahoma to an abusive father and a mother that abandoned her at the age of seven, Kira St.Croix survived long enough in a physically and emotionally abusive home. Long enough to learn that if she didn't take care of her own life, there wasn't anyone else in the world who would.
Egged on by her boyfriend that promised her life, love, the moon and the stars, Kira St.Croix should have been headline news across the nation from the murder of her father. When she and her love fled from that burning house with her father's corpse strewn out inside, she thought her life would never catch up to her. In a way, she was right. No one ever found Kira St.Croix. What followed the execution of her father at the young age of 17 is a story that bends history backwards and stretches the imagination.
17 years old and on the run, the thrill and excitement lasted as long as the money stolen from her father did. Soon Kira and her accomplice were stranded in a lonesome stretch of the Nevada desert with no gas, no money and thinning patience. What in their minds would be a Bonnie and Clyde whirlwind romance of bank heists and holdups was quickly becoming little more than an ill-thought roadtrip presaged by violent murder.
When the police finally caught up to Kira on that stretch of highway things turned violent fast. One car out of gas turned into an officer's attempt to help a young couple in distress. He wasn't supposed to see the guns under the blanket in the back seat, shouldn't have called attention to it, probably never should have drawn his gun. By the time the bullets stopped flying her beau lie dead on the Nevada sands and the police officer in question equally robbed off the mortal coil.
Kira said her goodbyes out on that desert, and rode a police car in to Salt Lake City Utah, ditched and burned it. Out of money, out of options and alone again, Kira's hard luck found her out on the streets. Acerbic, violent little girls don't get far in the real world, guns included. Sure, she couldn't explain why she didn't have a scratch on her or why the sheriff seemed so slow on the draw, even just outside arms reach, she didn't need to. She'd always been quick.
Utah was the first time Kira met Samuel Sullivan, a charming rogue of a man old enough to be her father and wise enough not to try. He talked her up about her plans for the future, where she saw herself in ten years time, bought her drinks and had her dreaming of a better life, only to disappear without a trace the next morning. In the intervening years that followed, finding herself wrapped in layers of street crime in steady escalation from prostitution to drugs to whatever paid the bills, Kira St.Croix got her hands and soul dirty.
She'd earned a reputation as a fast draw, quick on her feet and equally as sharp of wit. It's probably why when she actually got caught by criminals she wasn't on the good side of, that they treated her so badly. Too much blood on her hands made revenge against Kira an easy solution. One surgeon's scalpel and a night of screaming later, they'd taken her eye and her dignity as a message to her employers.
At the age of 20, that was the second time she'd seen Samuel Sullivan.
He showed up just in the nick of time, brought her to a doctor that would be willing to sew her up "on the slide." Samuel's devilish charm and guardian angel appearance made it easy for him to engender himself to Kira, and this time when he asked her for a favor, it went as smooth as silk.
By the time Kira had healed up and grown accustomed to working with one eye, she was ready for Samuel's proposition. He had a list of people, long and storied, and he said he'd need some help crossing out the names. He told Kira that he knew what was coming for her, that when she returned to the gang that had taken her in, they'd be gone, and a man named Charles Deveaux would be waiting for her, and that would be that.
But Samuel had a list, he had a plan, and Kira just wanted to believe him so bad when he told her she was special. It's what she always wanted to be, someone out of the ordinary, someone with a better life, a better chance. It's hard to be that when every time she looks in the mirror there's a girl with one eye staring back at her, reminding her of how helpless she is.
Maybe there was a man named Charles Deveaux waiting for her out there in Salt Lake City, for all Kira knew he was just another thug with a problem. She wanted to believe Samuel though, wanted a second chance at her life. When he said he could give her that… she wanted to believe.
So she tried.
And history lost track of her.
