Born in captivity is something that is usually, normally, attributed to animals. It was, however, a phrase that would always be associated with a young girl who was, quite literally, born in captivity. Laurel Kennedy, known to law enforcement as child X, was one of more than twenty young children to be taken from a commune (read: cult) that was discovered in the deep woods of Oregon. Laurel was ten years old when law enforcement raided the small community and separated men from women, children from parents, brother from sister. The children were rounded up, treated for malnutrition and any number of diseases, and given case numbers. The children were then fed into the system, some hopelessly lost and tied down by endless red tape. Others, like Laurel, were dealt a kinder hand and were given homes with people who would try, and sometimes fail, to bring these children back to civilization to be upstanding citizens.

Laurel was placed with Martin and Sarah Kinney. Martin was one of the officers on the raid, the one, in fact, who had taken Laurel from her mother, a woman described as utterly ferel. Sarah, Martin's wife, was one of the medical professionals on site to help treat the children taken from the clutches of a cult that would have eventually sold the girls in to virtual slavery, and raised boys who were no better than trained killers. Sarah had been the doctor to treat Laurel, the one person that the girl calmed down for. Around everyone else, she screamed bloody murder, screaming for her mother, her father, anyone. The others had let the young girl scream until her throat was raw and she had no energy left to fight anyone. They treated her like an animal and, in return, she acted like one. It wasn't until Sarah tried a different approach that anyone got anywhere with her. It was because of that tentative bond, formed while trying to give the young girl simple medical treatments she so desperately needed, that Sarah convinced her husband to get the girl given over to their custody. It was a fight, but in the end, the powers that be determined it would be one less body the government was responsible for.

It would take months, even years, for authorities to determine what had been happening on the compound in the woods of Oregon. Ultimately it was determined that the group were religious zealots who grew their numbers by kidnapping impressionable men and women and then breeding children who would be trained as soldiers for their cause. The girls who showed no promise of being violent were made into little more than breeding mares. The boys of a similar disposition were turned out into the wild, most likely killed. The remaining children were virtually brainwashed for their "family's" cause and the group often carried out small but increasingly violent acts of domestic terrorism.

It would take months and years for anyone to determine the extent of the damage Laurel's upbringing had on the girl, but its scars were visible almost from the start. Laurel was a quiet child who preferred to be on her own. She was skiddish in large groups and going to school for the first time in her life wasn't easy. Martin and Sarah were called by the school more times than they could count to handle complaints about their daughter's behavior. Eventually the complaints got so bad that Sarah decided to take a sabatical from her practice in order to home school Laurel and get her all the help she needed. The one-on-one attention from her mother seemed to help Laurel adjust to life as a normal child.

Life would, however, not be rainbows and butterflies for the girl. She was deeply emotionally scarred by her experiences in the woods of Oregon and it wasn't long before she was placed into mandatory therapy that was supposed to help her cope with the things she'd been taught, and the things she'd been bred and trained to do. Laurel was left with anger issues that would flare when she felt cornered or attacked. Therapy was supposed to give her the tools she needed in order styme those instincts, which included verbally and physically lashing out, as well as temper her inclination to self harm to deal with a deep well of depression that therapy told her came from not knowing her real family and from having lived so isolated as a child.

Laurel plodded through life, knowing that no matter what she did, she would always struggle. School was hard, being social and making friends was harder. But with the help of tutors she made her way through school. She would always be known as the quiet girl, the strange girl, the weirdo, but she didn't really care what other people thought about her. She had to ignore the whispers about her or else she was likely to go off on whomever was talking about her. The fights never seemed to cease, but they did lessen in number as she gained more productive ways to deal with her anger. Through therapy she discovered a gift for art, painting and drawing, and she spent a lot of time in the art room or going to other art classes. It calmed her down and she was able to take some anger and aggression out on paper or canvas rather than other people.

After graduating from high school, Laurel would go onto Boston University to study psychology. While the course of study worried both of her parents, her therapist believed it would actually be a good thing. Both the therapist and Laurel believed it could help her work through her own issues, bringing to light the reasons why she cycled through such anger and depression. There was also the hope that, eventually, she would be able to help others who had issues similar to her own. In the end, her course of study was a blessing. She walked away from college and grad school understanding her own psyche more, and with a direction she could take her life. Laurel turned out to have a gift with helping others and a professor who had taken her under her wing gave her the idea which would become the rest of her life. While in grad school she volunteerd time at a boys and girls club, offering her services to troubled youth. That turned into a deeper desire to help young people like herself, which pushed her in the direction of being a guidance councilor at a local high school where she takes a special interest in those students who often are seen as high risk or impossible.

Her issues aren't gone, by any means, but its not as likely that she'll flip out on someone, verbally or physically. She takes her job seriously and though she's not perfect, she would rather die than let any of the students who depend on her down.