I was a mistake. My mother's mistake. She wasn't careful, and she got landed with me. She named me Karma, it seemed to fit the situation. So here I am, seventeen years later, Karma Barlett, orphan. Not that I mind being on my own, it's great. No one bossing me around, no one screaming what a miserable waste of flesh, bone, and blood I am.
My mother died when I was seven, but by then I knew enough about getting along on my own in the world. I've never needed anyone. Never will.
I live by a code. My code is what has kept me alive for the past thirteen years. A code made by my brother, and passed on to me.
Mark's code went a little something like this.
If you have a choice to fight or turn away, you turn away. Don't make enemies on purpose.
If you see someone that needs help, you help, no question asked.
If you’re in a fight and your pride, and life, are at stake, you fight. Fight like the hounds of hell are at your heels ready to eat you if you fail.
In a fight, you always play fair. If your opponent doesn't have a weapon you don't use a weapon.
If a fight turns life or death, don’t take the first punch. You do, you land your dumb butt in jail. You don't, anything you do is counted as self defense.
I live by my brother's code, it is the only thing I have. So I'm sneaky, and a little reckless. I've been to Juvenile centers before, lots before. But I'm not stupid, the mistakes never result in more than an over nighter.
I made a few mistakes on my way here, but not many. Sure, I joined the wrong crowd in my third year on my own. I got out of it without a scratch. But I picked up some bad habits. I smoke, can't seem to stop, and I love adrenaline.
So here I am, leaning against a brick wall at eleven at night, smoking, and just begging for a fight.
"Hey, baby. You waiting' for someone?"
I turn, a man about twenty seven, tall, dark, but not my type. So I turn back around and finish my cigarette, acting like he's not there.
A hand comes down on my shoulder and I react automatically. I throw down my cigarette stub and turn, being reckless again, I throw the first punch. I hit him square in the nose, feel the bone break and smile.
He's mad now, his friends are laughing behind him, he wants me dead, I can see it on his face. He throws the second punch, but I duck just out of reach and smile again. My games are beginning to annoy him.
I'm bored, half drunk, and reckless, so I make a mistake. I provoke him.
He's real mad now, and pulls out a gun. So I think, the code says to not throw the first punch, too late, so now I start getting' smart.
I lower my hands, straighten my leather jacket, and turn to walk away. I surprised him, so I'm good. I'm no longer a threat, so I'm good. I walk away, and don't look back. Tonight I goofed.
I made a mistake. But I made it out still intact. But I'm on a road to nowhere real fast. I need to get smart. So I turn. I head to the one place I never would go before. I don't want to lose my edge, so I'm going.
Looks to me, like I'm going to meet my father. I frown, and as I fade into the shadows, I hear my brother's last words again.
My mistakes, so many, are mine. Don't make them. Go to dad, he can teach you all you need to know to survive alone. Do what he says, but trust no one. Don't make mistakes, Karma. Mistakes are what get you killed when you’re like you and me. Promise me, no mistakes.
I'd promised.
My name is Karma, Karma Barlett. I am seventeen, an 'orphan', and my twin brother is dead.
Some take pity on my story. I hate pity, pity and sympathy alike. Not that it matters.
Everyone knows the saying about Karma. In my case, the saying fits, in more ways than one.
I walk down the street, it's daylight, so I stick to the shadows of the alley's. I hate cities, but here I am, in the biggest one of all. New York. I'm here to find my dead beat father.
I walk slowly, wincing as my dark sunglasses press too tight against my face. I quietly curse all hangovers under my breath. I stop; slip a hand into my leather jacket's pocket and pullout my cigarettes.
I pull out my lighter and light the sucker. I can feel the nicotine in my lungs.
My father. A deadbeat. I was told he lives in a apartment in New York. So I'm here. And if he doesn't like it, he can drop dead.
I wait in the shadows. Wait till the sun goes down. When the orange globe of fire is out of sight I walk calmly across the street to my 'father's' apartment complex.
I enter the building and take the stairs. I find apartment B38 and knock on the door. I can hear a woman laughing on the other side, and a man’s voice, teasing her. I grind my teeth and knock again, harder this time.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" The man yells.
I resist the urge to punch him in the face when the door opens. I stare, shocked. I always knew I didn't look like my mother. But I never knew what my father looked like. So I stood, shocked, staring at me as my father.
He stared back. Our gold tinted eyes met, and as he gaped I gained composure. I tucked a few strands of my long midnight black hair behind my ear. I stare back, giving away no emotion.
"I'm looking for Gregor Barlett." I said, challenging him to lie to me with my eyes. He was smart. He told the truth.
"That's me. What do you want?"
"What, no welcome home princess?" I said. I was mocking him, he didn't like it. He sneered.
"What the hell is that supposed to mean? And just exactly who are you?"
"It means you're an idiot. And I'm your daughter. Surprised?"
He gaped again. A woman, wrapped only in a sheet, platinum blond hair covering her shoulders, walked up behind him and stopped cold.
She stared, looked from me to my dad a few times. I could almost see the connection she made. She stared in horror for a moment, then marched away to find her clothes.
She came back, fully clothed, and stormed out the front door. The door slammed behind her. The sound rang like a gun shot in the silence.
"I thought you were aborted." Gregor said.
"And what? Leave mommy with a scar? Never!" I say in mock
horror. "Why didn't you stick around and make sure she killed me?
That is what abortion is you know, killing the kid? Don't matter how
old, it's murder. But that's not the subject, please answer the question
'Daddy'."
"I had stuff to do, and so I left."
"And never came back." I say, staring at him hard. When he starts
to answer I cut him off. "But that's not why I'm here. I was sent by Mark,
your son. He said to come to you if I start getting wreckless."
"I have a son too?" He says, outraged.
"Yep, and we were twins. He's dead." I said.
Gregor just stares at me for a minute. I don’t like the look on his face.
"So why did my 'son' send you?'' He asks. I stare, I'd just told him,
was he seriously this stupid?
" 'Cause I'm getting reckless." I sneer. It should have been obvious.
"And I'm supposed to care?" He says, as he raises a raven brow.
"Nope, but I'm supposed to give you this. Mark said it would convince you." I say. I pull a folded cloth out of my leather jacket pocket.
I open it and shove it toward him, a small box was wrapped in the cloth. He opens it and pulls out a small locket.
I blanch. The locket was my brothers. I have an identical one.
Gregor oes white, loks at me, i continue to gape as I pull my locket from around my neck. I sit there, clutching my locket, a gift from my brother on my seventh birthday. We had matching ones, I remember as I gape, both silver with an outline of Fenris the wolf in Onyx, and one eye. Mine has a ruby, Mark's, an emerald.
"Where did the two of you get these." Gregor demands. He is furious.
"Mark got them for us; birthday presents for us when we turned seven...he had had to sell him at age ten so we would have money for food." I say, remembering that winter. And remembering the contents of each locket. "Each locket holds some kind of dust. We never figured out what it was."
We sit in silence for a long time. I lose my patience little by little. I'm confused and angry, but i keep my cool.
"Ok, I'll show you the ropes." Gregor finally says.
I'm astonished. I stare for a minute, then shrug.
"Come back here tomorrow at four a.m., don't be late, I hate slackers." He says. I decided to be a full twenty minutes late.
I stand up and walk out the door with both lockets. I dont say goodbye, no need to.
I step out onto the street. I have lots to think about until four twenty the next morning. How did my brother get his locket back? Why did Gregor change his mind after seeing the locket? What kind of dust is in the lockets?
I slip my sunglasses on and cross the street. I walk and don't stop. I just think about my brother. Remember his last words to me, repeat them in my head, again and again.
My mistakes, so many, are mine. Don't make them. Go to dad, he can teach you all you need to know to survive alone. Do what he says, but trust no one. Don't make mistakes, Karma. Mistakes are what get you killed when you’re like you and me. Promise me, no mistakes.
No more mistakes, I promise myself, for Mark. No more mistakes, I promised, and a mistake always keeps a promise to another mistake.
I lay down on top of a building, watching the stars. I fade into sleep slowly, wanting to continue to watch the stars.
I miss you Mark, but I can't do anything about that. I will keep my promise. I won't dishonor your last request or break my word to you. From this day on, I promise you, no more mistakes....
Four twenty p.m., on a Monday, in New York. Bad idea, I think to myself. A horn blasts somewhere behind me, I groan. Sure, agree to show up at your dads at four in the evening, I complain to myself.
I cut across the street during a red light. The apartment complex is right in front of me. I rush through the door and up the stairs. I walk into apartment B38 without knocking, and choke on my cigarette.
I turn red then rush back out the door, quietly. I refuse to even think of what I had encountered. I shudder and take a deep drag of my cigarette. The door to my oppistie side of my dad's opens beside me and I go still.
A tall teenage boy, about nineteen, comes out the door. He’s dressed all in black, and has a cigarette in one hand. He closes the door behind him and looks at me. He’s grinning, such a boy!
“Gotta light?” He asks, leaning against the wall across from me.
“Depends, gotta brain?” I ask, not noticing until it was too late. The guy was cute, why was I insulting him!
But he laughs. I relax and pull my lighter out of my back pocket and toss it to him, he catches it perfectly.
“You new around here?” He asks, taking a deep drag on his cigarette and tossing my lighter back to me. I miss it and bend to pick it up.
“Kinda. I’m here visiting …family. I don’t like the city.” I say bluntly, straightening, surprised to see he had moved closer to me. He was leaning with his shoulder braced against the wall next to me.
"Oh? Me neither, I'm only here 'cause I don't have anywhere else I need to be, and 'cause my mom asked me to stay a while longer before I go off drifting."
I nod my head, not bothering to answer to his comment. So he was a mama's boy huh?
"You plan on bein' here long?" He asks after a few moments of comfortable silence.
"A while, not long though." I say, taking another deep drag on my cigarette. He frowns for a minute, then grins, takes a drag on his cigarette, then he says something that amazes me.
"So I'll pick you up tonight around eight?"
"Wait, your asking me out?" I ask, confused.
"Yeah," He says, then frowns. "you don't have a boyfriend or anything like that do you?"
"No! It's just that I never get dates...I mean, no one really asks me....ugh! The answer to picking me up is yes." I say, blushing like a star struck teen.
“Ok, where do I pick you up at? You said you’re visiting so I’m guessing you aren’t staying here?”
“No, I’m not. I’m actually staying nowhere, just wandering the city. Just meet me outside the building, ok?”
“Ok, I will. Tonight?”
“No, sorry. How about tomorr- ow night instead? I have some …business to conduct with my father.” I say, grimacing.
“Ok, I’ll see you at eight tomorrow night.” He says, and pauses before leaving. “By the way, we seem to have forgotten some- thing very important.”
“Oh, what?” I ask.
“What’s your name?” He asks, grinning again.
I blanch at my stupidity and say simply, “Karma.”
“I’m Shawn, Shawn Tritor.” He says, and then walks away.
I stare after him curiously, until the door on my other side opens and a red haired woman, in a man’s shirt and a skirt meant for accountants, walks into the narrow hallway.
When she sees me I smile, Gregor is behind her and I get a very good idea.
“Hi, Daddy! Is this my new Mommy?” I ask, batting my lashes and trying not to laugh as the red head pales then stutters, then turns and walks abruptly away.
“That was uncalled for and unamusing.” Gregor sneers as I walk past him into the apartment.
“Really? You should have thought of it before you had the woman over. You asked me to comeback, not the other way around pal.” I say, lighting another cigarette after I snub out the other and toss it in the trash.
“There is no smoking in here, girl.” Gregor says, grabbing my cigarette a second before I can light it. He throws it in the trash and I just stand there for a minute.
Then I laugh. He actually thinks he can control me! I stop laughing and sneer at him.
“I’ll smoke if I want Old man. I was sent to you, I didn’t ask for this either, so get used to it.”
He freezes, narrows his eyes and glares at me. I stare, emotionless as usual, back. No matter who he is by blood, he can’t scold me like some misbehaving child. I’m eighteen, far out of parental reach.
Gregor grunts then nods his head. “Yeah, you got the stubborn Barlett blood in you alright.”
I sneer half heartedly, and then look around. I still couldn’t believe I was here. In my…father’s, house.
I frown and put away my lighter. I don’t want nicotine right now, I want a clear head and steel determination…and answers.
And, I think as I take off my leather jacket, I will have them. Maybe not today, but sometime very soon.
Karma is a very unique character and you could easily make this into more of a story if you wanted to. She's a bit crazy with her actions and words, but nobody likes to read about a normal person, and you created her really well. 
