As Romany slept the night away, Seth was wide awake and unable to sleep. He was sat at his little cooking fire, staring into the flames. He couldn't believe the little tramp had gone and got herself a house, along with a boyfriend, a policeman at that. Seth had been following her for a few days and knew all about her. She made him sick.

He had heard of the Pike's. The whole town had been humming with Patrick's murder. Everyone had said they felt for the daughter the most, losing her mother and then her father. Seth had wanted to shout, 'At least she had a father for a while!'. He bet she had been spoiled as a child, given all the toys she could have ever wanted. Not like him. Not like his childhood.

As he stared into the fire, he remembered. He remembered his mother, before she died. Maria Snape had been fairly beautiful and hardworking. She hadn't been very emotionally stable though. Ever since she had fallen pregnant and the father hadnt wanted to know, she had struggled with episodes of depression, followed by extreme highs. Manic behaviour. Growing up with that as a child is hard.

He remembered how he would sometimes wake up in the night and hear her crying. He had only been a young child, around five or six, and hadnt understood why she cried, only that he wanted to comfort her.



She had raised him all on her own, with no support from anyone. The house they had lived in had been tiny and tatty. His mother had done her best to make it nice, but all of her money went on feeding them and paying the bills. There had been no toys.

His mother worked so hard, she was often tired and grumpy. She would fly into rages with him, slapping him and screaming abuse. She would say things like...

'Why weren't you good enough? Why cant you be better! If you were better your father would want to be here with us! You are such a disappointment! '



'I wish I had never had you, I don't love you or want you here, you are the reason your father left, I wish you would just go and never come back!' was another of her favourite sayings.

For a small child to hear such things, is devastating. Seth had begun to get confused. Was he a bad child? Had he made his father leave? Did his mother hate him? He would dwell and dwell until he couldn't control his own thoughts anymore. It was around the age of seven that he started to go insane. Rare in children, but his mind was broken with trying to cope with the constant ups and downs of his mother and her words.



Sometimes his mother would be in a good mood, rare, but sometimes. Those days he lived for. They would sit side by side on the worn old sofa, watching the black and white tv together.



One particular day stuck in Seth's mind the most though. The day his mother beat him so hard, he thought he might die. His mother seemed to realise at the last minute, that she was going overboard and stopped, dragged him to the door and threw him out of the house, told him not to come back. He was eight.

He had made his way to Central Park, to sit on the swings, trying not to show he was in any pain. He didn't know what he had done to upset his mother that day, but sometimes he didn't think he had to do anything. Just existing was enough.

As he tried to make his way to the swings in the park, a little girl had noticed him and come running up. She was full of beans and asked him if he wanted to chat with her for a bit. He thought she seemed nice enough and let her ramble on for a bit, as girls tend to do.

But then she had started going on about how she was at the park with her father. That he was the best father ever and would always push her on the swings. She went on and on about how she had the best father in the world. Finally she turned to him and said, 'Where is your father? You do have one dont you?!'



Something had snapped in Seth's head. Years of grief from his mother about his absent father had seen to that. All that repressed anger and humiliation. He had turned on the girl, dragging her down to the ground and fighting with a terrifying fury.



He wanted to hurt her so badly, like he was hurting. However she took him by surprise and gave as good as she got. In the end, he had to give in, she was a better fighter than he. As he lay on the ground, trying to catch his breath, he heard a man calling the girl.

'Romany! What ARE you doing with that dirty little boy?! Come away this minute!'

Yes, that little girl had been Romany. Romany Pike, he had found out a few years later. The daughter of the great Patrick Pike, the perfect father. She had humiliated him, beaten him in a fight...she had everything he didn't have. He hated her.

After the fight, he had gone home, hoping his mother might have calmed down. Luckily for him she had. She was feeling guilty, knowing she had gone a bit far. Summoning up his courage, he asked her about his father.

'Mum, why don't I have a dad? Like all the other kids?' he said, fearfully.

'I have told you Seth, he didn't like you. The minute he found out I was pregnant with you, he left. He came to visit once after you were born, to tell me that he didnt want you and didn't want anything to do with me ever again. You made him leave!' his mother had said, sadly.



'What was his name? Do I look like him?' Seth had chanced.

'You don't need to know his name, he doesn't want anything to do with you. You look more like me than him. Now I don't want to speak any further about it. If it will keep you happy, there is something under my bed that your father left you. The only thing he ever gave you. When you see it, you will see how much you meant to him. Now go away and leave me alone, you have upset me enough for one day and I have to get some sleep before my next shift,' she had said vaguely.

Seth had been shocked. He hadn't known his father had left him anything! Rushing into the bedroom he dug deep under his mother's bed, until he found a little box. Opening it quickly he had looked inside and....shut the lid again. His mother was right, it showed how much his father cared about him. None what so ever clearly.

He had never asked about his father again after that day. Not just because he didn't want to know, but a few months later, his mother had been electrocuted to death at one of her jobs. Seth had ran away from the social worker who came to get him...and that had been him, on the streets ever since.

Coming out of his fire induced trance, he felt renewed hatred towards Romany. Her and her perfect father. He still wanted to hurt her. Like he had been hurt. In fact, he thought he might actually want to kill her.