My time with the Vipers

I was always a very petite child. This got me noticed by a group of older girls at Redgrave when I was 6. They called themselves 'The Vipers.' The group consisted of Harriette, Ilyana, Yazmine and was led by Clemencia initially. As I grew older the group evolved. Somehow I was always the youngest member.
 
Initially I tried to refuse and Clemencia had Harriette beat the shit out of me. I had the bruises for weeks. I was told that every time I refused to take part that this would happen again, but worse. I had to agree.
 
It became my job to help them rob people's houses at night. They find a house to target during the day. At night, I would be taken to the target house and given a leg up through an open window that they had found - most often a bathroom window. From there it was my job to unlock the backdoor to let them in to rob the place.
 
I never got anything back from them.
 
I actually tried to leave a second time when I was around 9, just after Clemencia moved out and Ilyana took her place as leader.
 
Ilyana proved to be an even scarier leader than Clemencia, mainly because she found a way to get and keep a dagger.
 
Ilyana and that attempt at stopping is how I got the scar over my eyebrow.
 
I fought, but she pushed me to the floor, held me down, and carved, just around the eye and over the brow, to remind me that she should do anything she wished to me.
 
 
When I reached 9 or 10 and was getting too big to be hoisted through bathroom windows they taught me how to pick locks. It became my job to pick the lock of the back door of the house they wanted access to since I was stealthier with a lockpick than the rest of them.
 
I only got caught a small handful of times. When I was very little I could get away with it, being a cute kid. By the time I was 11 I could not. It only once made it back to the orphanage, once when I was 13. That was when I received the worst punishment of my life. The other two times I was caught between the ages of 11-14 it was dealt with by the local authorities. Both times I was kept in the stocks for an hour. Much better than what would've happened at Redgrave.
 
When I was 14, after studying for just over a year with the monastery, I stopped helping The Vipers. They tried to make me continue helping them but by this time I knew how to defend myself. After that I was not bothered by them again. Nor were any other young children.
 
I did end up keeping my lockpicking skills sharp. Sometimes I felt like I needed a break so would sneak out of Redgrave to stay at the Monastery for a night.