Home  | Login  | Register  | Help  | Play 

Angel: The Beautiful Outcast

 
Logged in as: Guest
  Printable Version
All Forums >> [Gaming Community] >> [Legends and Lore] >> Writers of Lore >> [The Bookshelves] >> Other Creative Prose >> Angel: The Beautiful Outcast
Forum Login
Message << Older Topic   Newer Topic >>
6/26/2008 17:22:39   
_Depression
Member

Book One - Escape

"Put your hands on your head," the Chaser said, his gun pointed squarely at my head. "Now."

I responded obediently to the man, slowly bringing my hands to rest on my soft, silky brown hair. "What's wrong, Sir?" I asked, innocently.

As he cocked his firearm, taking aim carefully, he laughed. "What's wrong is that you think you can trick me. I saw your wings, Angel," he said, spitting the last words at me bitterly.

I gave the man a small, dark grin and threw myself at his chest before he could react. With little effort I dragged him into the air, rising thirty feet before stopping and tearing the handgun from him. "Two things you missed, Chaser. First, bullets can't kill me," I said as I tossed the useless weapon to the pavement below. The metal hit the ground and clanged sharply, but the noise was quickly eaten up by the sounds of the city rushing into the grimy alleyway. "Second," I continued, "I'm no Angel."

The Chaser fell, screaming, to the unforgiving concrete. I landed by his head, picking up his gun and tucking it into my belt. As I began to walk away, I smiled and turned back. "The name's Lucie, and I'm your worst nightmare."

.....

Five days later, I revisited the alleyway I had killed the Chaser in. The investigation had quickly been dismissed as a suicide on the man's part, a background check revealing that he was currently unemployed and single. In the dirty alley, a dumpster on one side radiating what smelled like dead fish, I smiled and leaned against the side of a brick building. The Manhattan traffic resonated through the shaded alley, and I closed my eyes to better hear what was going on.

Three hundred yards away, someone in a Starbucks was ordering a espresso. Fifty yards east of him, the tinkering of a bell alerted a store cashier to a homeless man entering the shop. In the public school thirty-four yards south of that convenience store, a fifth grader entered the girl's bathroom and let out a piercing scream, shouting "Wings! Wings!"

My eyes shot open almost as fast as my jet black wings, extending nearly nine feet to either side of me. As I drew myself into the air, I concentrated all of my exceptional hearing on the unfolding scene in the bathroom. I could hear the screams repeated throughout the hallways, teachers and security frantically trying to calm the chaotic children. With the students making it difficult for the security to locate the Angel, I streaked across the sky to the brick, prison-style school.

As I landed on the opposite side of the girl's bathroom window, a gunshot rang in the hallway. I ripped up the window and dove inside as a security guard rushed past, his gun drawn. He failed to notice me as he ran by, and I took what little time I had to scan the green-tiled bathroom for the young girl. When I heard a muffled sniffle from inside the stall nearest me, I realized that the Angel must be inside. I smiled, thinking, "Good, she's still here."

The door to the stall opened inward slowly as I crept forward, and a young girl peeked her head out, her blue eyes fearfully looking around and seeing me. For a moment she froze, but calmed when she noticed the wings on my back. I motioned for her to come out quietly, and as she slowly made her way to me another security guard ran past. I ducked out of view of the doorway, but too late as a bullet cracked the tile behind where my head had been. "Watch out!" I yelled to the Angel, who threw herself back into the stall.

The guard rushed into the bathroom, and aimed at me with his pistol. Angry at his intrusion, I growled and rolled to my left, a second bullet missing me by inches. Using my wings to give me momentum I launched myself at the guard and, grabbing the overweight, stereotypical 'mall cop' by his collar, pushed him to the ground. He brought his gun up to point at me, but I angrily grabbed his arm and forced it back to the tiled floor. Shouting in the hallway meant that more of these fat guards were on their way, so I quickly knocked out the one on the ground with a punch to the forehead.

"Come on!" I shouted to the Angel, dragging her from the stall and heading to the window. Without hesitation I jumped through the tall opening and turned around, grabbing the girl and pulling her out after me. I flew, hard and fast, through the sky as I heard more of the guards enter the bathroom. One of the guards, unlike the others, calmly walked to the window and looked out, searching for the small dot in the sky that I was.

'Oh, crap,' I thought to myself. 'They're following me.'

__________

< Message edited by _Depression -- 6/26/2008 17:23:17 >
AQ  Post #: 1
6/26/2008 17:30:29   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 1 - "Chaser"

"Are you okay?" I asked the young Angel as we landed in the yard of a large, mansion-esque house in Old Westbury. The girl was silent as I led her through the tall, unkempt grass, and as we entered the house through the worn back door, she let out a small sniffle. "Are you okay?" I repeated.

The girl shook her head, wiping tears from her sad eyes. "What am I?" she asked, her voice small and afraid.

"You're an Angel," I said calmly, smiling as I met her eyes.

"Does that mean I did something wrong?"

I gave the girl a confused look, not sure whether to find that funny or scary. "Angels are beautiful people, full of goodness and kindness," I said. "No matter what anyone says."

"But-" the girl started. I cut her off and sighed.

As we walked through room after collapsing room, I finally stopped in a rotting kitchen and opened a cupboard, picking up that day's newspaper from the counter. "July 7, 2007," I said musingly. "How lucky." With a small smile, I turned to the Angel. "Angels are called bad by people who don't even know them. We're different, better than normal people, and that scares them."

"My dad told me not to show anyone my wings. He said they would cut them off and-" Again I stopped the girl.

"Your dad knows about your wings?"

The little girl nodded. "He promised not to tell; he said he loved me more than he loved Momma..."

I raised an eyebrow at that, not believing for a second the girl's father had said that truthfully. "That's nice," I said. "But he was lying when he said they would cut your wings off." I saw a look of relief on the girl's face. "If a Chaser caught you, he would just chain you up and keep you locked in his house to do whatever he wants."

As a look of horror crossed her face, I grinned. "They're no stronger than any other normal person though," I said. "All you need to do is just hit them with all your strength, and they'll go down as easy as anyone else." I gave a light giggle. "The only thing you need to worry about are guns. They really do hurt."

"What about you?" the Angel asked. "You have wings."

"Yes, I do. But not like you." I opened my black wings, shaking them gently for an added effect. "Mine are black. I guess that makes me a Devil."

"Is there a difference?"

"I don't care much for being nice. But I think that's just preference," I said, winking. The girl gave a small smile. "Anyway, why were you showing someone your wings in school?"

The Angel looked away, her face growing red. "She was my friend," the girl said. "I thought she would accept me."

'Look how that turned out,' I thought, rolling my eyes mentally. "It's hard for people to understand that we're really good people."

"I know," she said.

Changing the topic, I asked, "What's your name, anyway? I'm Lucie."

"Courtney."

Courtney lifted her eyes and met mine, smiling slightly. "Are you feeling better now, Courtney?"

"A little."

"Good." Before the girl could blink, I had spun her around and pulled her hands behind her back. Pushing her through the next door, I forced her against the far wall and picked a pair of thick handcuffs off a nearby table. Swiftly cuffing her, I connected the chain between her hands to a longer chain attached to the wall. Courtney slumped to the ground in shock as I took a neck cuff off of the table and fastened that on her.

"What-?"

I laughed darkly. "I'm a Chaser, Courtney. Welcome to your new home." Her blue eyes searched my face, scared to death as she tried to comprehend what was happening. As I stepped aside, sweeping my hand across the opposite wall, I grinned. "Meet the family."

Against the wall, chained the same way as Courtney, were four other angels, all older than her. One of the angels, awoken by my entrance, raised her head and stared at the new captive. The Angel shook her head slightly and laid back against the other, still sleeping angels, her eyes never leaving Courtney's face. "That's Grace," I said, smiling at the girl. "She's almost eighteen. The others are Serenity, Miracle, and Seraph." I pointed to each in turn, and as I called their names they woke. "Serenity, the blue-haired one, she's sixteen. Miracle's fifteen, she's the one in the pink shirt, and her twin sister Seraph is in the white shirt."

"Why..."

"Why would I capture Angels and keep them for my entertainment?" I asked, finishing the girl's question with a dark grin. "Because you're so beautiful, Courtney. All of you are. So much cuter than dogs or cats, and you Angels follow orders better, too."

Before Courtney could recover from her shock, I leaned down and kissed her lightly on the cheek. With a final grin, I left the room.

__________
Comments

< Message edited by _Depression -- 6/26/2008 17:31:10 >
AQ  Post #: 2
6/26/2008 17:33:03   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 2 - "Servitude"

I woke earlier than my Angels, as usual, and contemplated what was going through the kid Courtney's mind as I showered. Though I never much cared for what my captives were thinking, this new one was different. She was the youngest I'd ever taken, the twins having been two years older when I captured them. 'So what?' I asked myself, staring at my reflection in the slightly fogged mirror in the bathroom as if debating the image I saw in it.

I shook my head and turned away, still wondering why I cared. When I was dressed, wearing a loose black tee and black jeans as I normally did, I gave a final look at my reflection. My gaze rested on my face, innocent and deceiving, and my green eyes grinned darkly as my mouth did the same. "Good morning, Grace," I called as I left my bedroom, stepping into the Angels' room next to it.

"Lucie," Grace muttered groggily, having woken with my call. "What do you want?"

I laughed lightly and knelt in front of her, staring hard into her eyes. "You look tired."

"You should know. The new girl kept me up all night with her sobbing."

I glanced at Courtney over my shoulder, and grinned as I took in her red eyes and sad appearance. "She cried herself to sleep?"

Grace gave a sarcastic laugh. "She cried after she passed out, thanks to you. Couldn't handle the trauma of your touch, I bet."

"That talk could get you in trouble, Grace," I said flatly, turning back to the blonde Angel, only two years younger than I was. "Be careful now."

"Whatever." Grace turned to Seraph, the Angel sleeping on her left, and began to shake her awake. "Get up, Seraph, our slave driver's awake."

"Slave driver?" I asked sincerely. "Where?" With a deceiving smile I reached out my hand, stroked Grace's soft, white-feathered wing, and quickly snatched the bony upper ridge. Pain coursed through the older teen's body and her back arched as she clenched her teeth and cried out. "Don't forget who's in charge here," I said softly, whispering the words into her ear as she loosened her muscles.

"Sorry," Grace said, breathing hard.

Seraph watched the older Angel as she calmed, carefully moving so as not to be noticed by me. She had forgotten, apparently, that my eyesight was as sharp as hers. "I'll let you wake the others, Seraph," I said, my eyes resting on the fifteen-year-old's blank face. She met my gaze with her soft, hazel eyes for a moment before nodding and silently turning to her sister.

While the four older Angels roused themselves, I crossed the decrepit room to where Courtney lay, propped up against the legs of the table. "Courtney," I called down to her sweetly, kicking her in the hip to wake her. As she came to, her eyes blinked open and moved slowly up my admittedly toned body, stopping on my face. "Good morning," I said.

"Lucie?" the young Angel said, somewhat disoriented. She felt the chains on her hands and her eyes grew wide as she scanned my smiling face. "Lucie?"

"What?" I asked, snapping the question at her.

Courtney shrunk away from me as I stared down at her. "Why?" she said, her voice as small as it had been yesterday. She tried to hide her face behind her short, straight brown hair.

From across the room, Serenity sighed. "She's a Chaser, kid. People as insane-" I gave her a hard stare, "- sorry, eccentric as her don't need a reason."

"Grace, unchain Serenity for me," I said, tossing a keyring over to the blonde without taking my eyes off of the blue-haired Angel.

Serenity strode over uncertainly as I continued to stare at her, and when she had reached my side she paused. "Yes?" she asked, trying to sound as sweet as possible.

With a single swift motion I grabbed the collar of the Angel's shirt and dragged her to her knees. Grabbing her wing lightly along the ridge, sending a small pulse of pain down her spine, I said, "You've got the pleasure of teaching the new girl how we do things around here." As I released her wing, Serenity shivered and nodded. "Good."

"And us?" Grace asked, standing with her arms crossed next to the twins. "Are we cleaning your precious bathroom again?"

"First, give me back my keys," I said, and the Angel handed the ring to me. "Now, you three can go outside and play. You've been good little girls this week."

Rolling her eyes, Grace led the twins toward the door to the kitchen. "Glad to have pleased you, Satan."

I turned back to Courtney and grinned, happy to see a look of fear on her face. "Serenity, you can unchain her hands if you want. But we want to keep the leash fairly small for the first week or so."

"Where are you going, then?" the blue-haired Angel asked.

"A friend dropped into town," I said. As I left the house through the back door, I saw Grace and the twins stretching their wings. Walking over to the older Angel, I spread my own wings and shook them lightly. "The new girl," I said. "We'll call her Bright."

Grace only nodded as I took off. The look in her eyes assured me she would keep the twins from running off. She was my first Angel, and for five years I'd kept her captive. I was surprised when, one morning, I woke up and saw she was out of her chains. It seems she grew loyal to me, however much she hated me. 'I just wish those damn twins would figure it out, too.'

Before Miracle and Seraph took off, they turned and saw Grace walking back to the house. "Where're you going?" Seraph asked, her pink hair covering her face partly.

"Just wait there a second," the older Angel said. She stepped into the house and called out, over the sound of muffled sobs, "Serenity, the new kid's name is Bright. Got it?"

"Bright, got it!" Serenity called back.

Grace walked back outside and rejoined the twins, the three of them lifting off into the air and watching me disappear as I flew back to the city.

__________
Comments
AQ  Post #: 3
6/26/2008 17:35:19   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 3 - "To Kill an Angel"

I flew through the sky, gazing down on the scarlet hued streets and houses of suburban Long Island as I soared to the concrete jungle of Manhattan. In the early Autumn morning there were few thermals to help my flight, and I was forced to use my wings more than I had wanted. Having not eaten breakfast, I already had little energy to spare. If I was going to be fighting - and I knew I was - then I had to stop off for a snack somewhere.

Now, let me put this into perspective. That show "Deadliest Catch" shows that the crab fishers eat close to four thousand calories a day. To fly in zero-thermal conditions for an hour, I may need three thousand of those same calories. McDonald's was looking really good as I was flying, let's put it that way. With no other options, I landed in the nearly empty parking lot of the Golden Arches.

I tucked my wings tightly to my back, hoping no one would notice as I walked briskly to the deserted drive-through. "Hello?" the heavily Spanish-accented voice crackled from the voicebox. "Can I take your order?"

The swiftness of the response took me by surprise. I guess others had walked up to the drive-through to order. Looking around at the impoverished state of the neighborhood, I probably should have figured it had happened. "Do you serve burgers now?" I asked, hopeful.

"Yes," the voice answered. I had expected to hear a "Si," but that was just me being cynical.

"Good. I'll have ten Big Macs please. And a large Diet Coke."

The voicebox was silent for a moment. I wonder what the lady on the other side was thinking, a skinny girl ordering so much for herself. Suddenly the Spanish lady's voice crackled through the speaker, telling me to come around to the first window. I pulled two twenty-dollar bills from my jean pocket and strode casually to the brightly lit ordering window. As I handed over the money and waited for the food, I found it impossible to resist saying something stupid. When the cashier handed me two large, loaded bags of fat and cholesterol, I smiled at her and said sweetly, "Don't worry, I'm not bulimic."

The lady gave me a confused look. "Oh, do you not know English that well?" I asked. With her face twisted in a repressed rage, I laughed loudly and flung open my wings, throwing myself into the air. I landed in Central Park fifteen minutes later, my left hand freezing from the overly-iced soda. 'I can't believe I actually did that,' I said silently.

Sitting against a small boulder, I opened the first bag of Big Macs and took one out. Staring at it for a moment, I sighed and unwrapped the package. "Eating all of these is like torture," I muttered, ripping nearly a quarter of the sandwich off in the first bite and chewing ravenously. Less that fifteen minutes later, I was throwing out two bags full of empty sandwich boxes.

Feeling refreshed, I checked the sky. The sunrise was nearly gone, only small signs of red hues remaining on the horizon. Around me, I could hear morning traffic begin to pick up, and the few pedestrians in the Park walking quickly to jobs or homes. Taking a deep breath I turned East, strolling purposefully to the same alley I had committed murder in.

That alley... it held something special for me. It was where I first flew, where I found Grace hiding from her parents. It was a place of memories for me, and I used it as a little home base while I scoped out the city. Today, though, I was going to the dirtied alley for a different reason. I knew the Hunter would be waiting for me there.

Just thinking of the Hunter sent small shivers down my back. He was tall, dark, and handsome; that's why I fell in love with him. But when we went out on our first date, in the great city of Paris, France, and I told him about my wings, he freaked out. His reaction was as evil as I had ever seen, and I still had the scars to prove it. Armed with only a steak knife and black belt-ranked karate expertise, he chased and fought me for eighteen miles through the city of romance.

I was terrified of the Hunter, and he knew that, but I was along stronger than he was. The confidence in my strength helped me press forward as I walked quickly to the alleyway. I expected him to be waiting for me there, alone, but from what I could hear he had brought company. Two others, Chasers most likely, were going over preparations for my imminent arrival.

Guns were ineffective, the Hunter told them, explaining that my reflexes were sharp enough to dodge bullets if I could see or hear the gun being fired. And I so could. 'So the they're armed with the only other possible weapon,' I thought. 'Blades.'

I leapt into the air as I neared the alley, deciding to come in from above and attack that way. I needed to get the Chasers dead first, and then I could focus on my fight. As I turned the corner into the alleyway, I dropped swiftly at the first person I saw, a young white guy holding a machete. "What an unwieldy weapon," I said, ripping it out of his hands and driving it into his shoulder as I lifted him high into the air. "Tch, look at that. Killed by your own weapon."

The first Chaser fell to the ground, landing with a crunch, and I divebombed the second man. Another young white guy, he tried to slash me with his army-standard dagger, but missed horribly as I stayed just out of reach. I grabbed his wrist as it sliced past me, and picked him off the ground with little effort. "Don't struggle," I chided, the frightened Chaser flailing beneath me. "You'll dislocate your shoulder." I laughed darkly. "Not like it matters," I said, swinging him into the side of the brick building facefirst and letting him drop to the pavement.

Standing calmly on the ground beneath me, the dark-skinned Hunter gazed up at me. "Are you gonna come to me?" I asked bitingly. "Or am I supposed to come to you?"

"Lucie, can't we just discuss things like adults?" he asked, his suave voice causing me to hesitate.

Shaking off the emotion I felt, I shrugged and pulled a handgun from my jeans, the same Colt I'd snatched from the Chaser almost a week ago. "I have five rounds," I said calmly, cocking the gun and aiming.

The Hunter dove away from the first two bullets, ducking behind the dumpster as a third smashed into the concrete. "Can I take that as a 'No'?"

"Take it as whatever you want, just sit still, damn you."

I cocked the gun again, flying slowly over to the dumpster to get a good shot. Suddenly, what felt like a wrecking ball smashed into me from behind, knocking me in a downward spiral. The gun fell from my hand as I crashed into the ground, knocking my head hard enough to make me dizzy. The Hunter stepped out from behind his hiding spot and grinned down at me, unsheathing a steak knife.

From behind me, someone grabbed my wings and pulled me upright, the bolts of pain coursing through my body causing me to writhe in the unknown person's grip. I slumped, exhausted from the pain, against the feminine body behind me, and a thought shot through my mind as I blurted it out. "An Angel?" I said, shocked.

The Hunter grinned as he used the steak knife to cut a slit into my tee shirt, revealing the scar he had given me on my left shoulder. "Yes, Lucie. You might recognize her, if you saw her."

Struggling to look over my shoulder, I caught a fleeting glance of dark green hair and a cold, ice blue eye. "Mary?" I asked, not wanting to believe it.

"Yes, Lucie. Only, I call her Angel now."

"Mary?" My mind raced as memories of Mary, my childhood friend, flooded through me. "I thought he killed you..."

The Angel let out a wicked laugh, twisting the ridge of wing hard enough to send me into spasms. "I don't think so, Lucie. But he will kill you, I promise you."

"Why?" I asked, my breathing ragged. I felt the steak knife cut into the skin of my chest, slowly penetrating into my heart. "Why?"

The Hunter shrugged as he let the blade sit in my heart. "You broke my heart, Lucie. So I'm breaking yours."

A drop of water fell on my cheek, and I turned my face to the cloudless sky. Flying above the alley, her hands covering her mouth to stop her from screaming, was Grace. "Run!" I called, my last ounces of energy devoted to keeping my own Angels safe. With a grunt of pain and exertion I threw myself backward, pushing Mary to the ground. "Run!" I shouted again, and with adrenaline coursing through me I kicked out at the Hunter, breaking his lower ribs and forcing the breath from his lungs.

I felt the knife in my heart shift, sending a sharp pain through my whole body as I turned to Mary. Pulling the blade from my body I drove it into her right arm, pushing it through the bone and drawing a scream of pain from the Angel's lips. Bleeding heavily, I collapsed onto my former friend, feeling my senses growing dim. The last sounds I heard were Grace's wings, flapping hard as she shot through the sky. 'Stay safe,' I thought, my final breath leaving my body.

__________
Comments
AQ  Post #: 4
6/29/2008 1:28:08   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 4 - "In Memoriam?"

Grace shot through the air, pouring all of her strength into her wings as she forced herself faster than she had ever flown before. Tears sprung to her eyes as the vivid image of Lucie, screaming in pain as the Hunter drove his blade into her heart, clouded her vision. 'Why do I feel so sad?' the Angel asked herself, soaring over the East River and crossing onto Long Island. 'What did Lucie ever do for me?'

Memories of the Chaser chaining Grace to her wall flashed before the blonde's green eyes, memories of being beaten into submission and of being forced to do the same to Serenity. As she flew past Queens, the Angel's thoughts turned suddenly to the other Angels Lucie had captured. 'What's going to happen now?' she asked herself silently. Adjusting her direction slightly to the North, having gone off-course during her emotional breakdown, Grace felt fear rise inside of her. 'Is the mansion safe anymore?'

When the blonde landed three minutes later in the backyard of the mansion, she rushed inside and straight to the chain room, where the other Angels were sitting silently. The youngest Angel, Bright, seemed not to notice Grace's entering the room, her eyes staring aimlessly at Serenity's left hand. "Back so soon, Grace? I thought you were going to kiss up to Lucie today," the blue-haired Angel said, her voice bitter.

"Lucie's dead," the older Angel said bluntly. Everyone in the room snapped their eyes to Grace, surprise and disbelief mixed on their faces. "She was killed by a Chaser."

"Are you sure?" Serenity asked, her voice obviously restrained. "Like, you saw it happen?"

Grace nodded, and as a wave of emotions passed over her again, she leaned on the nearest wall for support. "There was an Angel with the Chaser. She helped kill Lucie."

Seraph jumped to her feet and gaped, wide-eyed, at the older Angel. "An Angel was helping a Chaser?" Again, Grace nodded. "Why?"

"I don't know." With a sigh, the blonde Angel shook her head. "But with Lucie dead, what do we do?"

"What do you mean?" Serenity asked, slowly. "We're free, we don't need to do anything. Not anymore."

"How will we eat?" Miracle said, joining the conversation suddenly. "Lucie doesn't keep enough food here for all of us, especially now that this new girl's here."

Grace raised an eyebrow at the white-haired Miracle, stunned. "You haven't said a word in over a year. Why are you speaking again now?"

"How will we eat?" the Angel repeated, speaking each word slowly.

"We go out and buy some. Simple," Serenity said, shrugging her shoulders. "Where does Lucie keep her money?"

"A bank," Grace said, her voice small as she realized why she had been so sad for Lucie's death. "She doesn't have more than loose change around the house."

After a heavy silence, Bright spoke. "Where's Lucie?" she asked.

"Dead," the blue-haired Angel said quickly. "Weren't you listening?"

"I- Where's Lucie?"

Grace gave a bemused smile. "Wow, Serenity. What did you do to her?"

"I work fast," the Angel said calmly.

"How can we survive without Lucie?" Seraph asked.

The room fell silent, each of the Angels realizing that they had grown dependent on their captor. A gust of wind slipped through a crack in one of the windows facing the backyard, causing goosebumps to rise on Grace's arms and neck. "I have an idea," she said slowly. "But I can't believe I'm saying it."

"What is it?" Serenity asked.

Hesitating for a moment, the blonde Angel sighed and spoke, closing her eyes so as not to see the shock on the others' faces. "We could go back to where we used to live, before being captured."

"No!" Miracle cried almost instantly, covering her mouth and throwing herself on Grace. "No."

"You can't do that to us, Grace," Seraph said, pleadingly. "We won't have anywhere to go."

The older Angel gave the twins a confused look. "What do you mean, nowhere to go?"

"Our older brother's a Chaser, too. He tried to kill Miracle when he saw her wings, and we ran away. Lucie promised to keep us safe. She promised that he wouldn't touch us," Seraph explained. Her twin buried her face into Grace's shirt, crying freely and hugging the older Angel tightly.

"All right, all right," the older Angel said, stroking the hysteric girl comfortingly. She turned her attention to Serenity, who had remained silent. "What about you?"

"No," she said simply. "I- just, no. I can't."

"We need Lucie," Bright said, softly, from her spot on the floor. She turned her head up to Grace, the chains around her neck chinking as she met the older Angel's gaze. "Lucie can help. She can keep us."

"Lucie's dead," the blonde said. "She can't do anything, anymore." For a long while there was silence in the room, but a sudden knock on the front door - followed by a short sigh - alerted the Angels to a new presence. "Stay here," Grace said quietly, removing herself from Miracle's embrace and creeping slowly to the back door.

As she crossed through the two rooms separating her and the back door, the Angel listened intently to the intruder's shuffling footsteps. Outside, Grace could hear a voice muttering incoherently, and she pegged the speaker as an older teen boy, no older than herself. Knowing this, any fear she had left, and she strode forward confidently to meet the boy at the corner of the house.

The boy, his eyes focused on his black jeans and sneakers, nearly ran into Grace. Looking up quickly as he stopped short, his eyes grew wide. "Whoa," he said dully. "Didn't expect anyone to be here."

"Why are you here?" the Angel asked, staring down at the boy, her arms crossed over her chest to create an imposing figure at nearly six feet.

"Why not?" he said quickly, his eyes level with Grace's. "No one lives here anymore, from what I can see."

The blonde shifted her weight from one foot to the other. "What about me?" she asked. "I've lived here for five years."

The teen laughed, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black, leather coat. "Yeah, right. Those jeans of yours - they're brand new. True Religion, same type as the store I work at."

"And...?"

"Those pants are two hundred bucks a pop. If you lived here and had that type of money, you wouldn't have let it get so bad," the boy said. "So, what's the real reason you're here? Meeting your boyfriend to show him what's under those expensive stitches?"

Grace's body tensed, offended by the teen's statement. Her wings ruffled slightly, an instinctual action caused by her anger. "Watch it, punk," she said. "You don't want to get me mad."

"Ooh, what're you, She-Hulk?" The boy scoffed. "Seriously, why're you hanging out behind an abandoned mansion?"

Serenity poked her head outside and, seeing that the intruder was just a teen, stepped outside. As she walked over to Grace, she found herself staring at the boy's cute face and hair. "Who's this?" she asked sweetly, resting herself on the older Angel's shoulder.

"Another one?" the teen said, somewhat surprised. "Wait, are you two...?"

Grace shook her head quickly as the boy's implication clicked. "No, no," she said. "We're sisters."

"Ah, okay," the teen said, relaxing somewhat and running a hand through his black fohawk. "I was just- worried for a moment there."

A sly smile crossed Serenity's face. "Why were you worried?" she asked. "We're both cute, right?"

"What?" Grace said, nearly shouting as she spun to the blue-haired girl. "What the hell are you saying?"

The boy began backing away slowly, his eyes growing wide as Serenity smiled toothily at him. "What's wrong with you now?" she asked. The teen pointed silently at the Angel's right arm, and as she glanced over she sighed, seeing her wing partly visible. "Oops," she said, and shrugged.

"You're- an Angel?" the teen asked, somewhat scared. Serenity nodded. "Don't kill me," he said.

"Kill you?" The blue-haired Angel said, taken aback. "Why would I do that?"

The teen stopped, conflicted. "That's what Angels do... that's what everyone keeps saying they do. They say Angels are psychologically disturbed killers."

Grace let out a bemused laugh. "Is that why people are so afraid of us? My gosh, and here I was thinking the exact same thing about regular humans." She smiled at the boy. "We don't kill. We normally hide or run away, well, fly away. We're normally trying not to get killed."

"Really?" the boy asked, his body calming significantly.

"Yeah," Serenity said, her voice sad. "People try to kill us, capture us, enslave us... and we don't normally fight unless we have to."

"I- I didn't know..."

With a sad smile, Serenity lowered her head and peered at the boy with her golden-brown eyes from behind her straight, long blue hair. "We're not around long enough for anyone to know. Being an Angel is a life of escaping from one danger and falling into another."

Grace put an arm across the Angel's shoulders. "We're outcasts," she said. "Even our families threw us out."

"What?" the teen said, shocked.

"My dad threatened to choke me to death," the blonde Angel said softly. "My mom called the police on me. They both hated me from the moment they saw my wings." Slowly, Grace extended her soft, white wings to their full length, a beautiful twenty-one foot display.

Next to the older Angel, Serenity opened her own tawny wings, showing off a sixteen foot wingspan for her five foot, two inch figure. The teen gazed at the wings in awe, his mouth agape as he fully appreciated what he was seeing. "I think they're beautiful," he said, his voice full of wonder.

Serenity smiled at the boy. "So do I," she said. "I'm Serenity. You?"

"Jake," the teen said, and ripped his eyes from the Angels' wings to meet Serenity's golden-brown eyes. "Serenity? That's a nice name."

"Thanks," the blue-haired Angel said. "I can't remember my old name, so it's all I have."

"Your old name?"

Serenity nodded. "When I came here, my ma- Lucie, gave me the name. It's been over two years, I can't remember who I was before."

Jake's eyes showed compassion for the Angel. "I'm sorry," he said. "So, who's Lucie?"

"She was an Angel, like us," Grace said, picking her words carefully. "But not exactly like us. She- was a Chaser."

"What's that?"

The Angels exchanged uneasy glances, and after a moment Serenity spoke. "Chasers try to capture Angels like us. They lock us up and force us to do whatever they want."

A look of pure horror and disgust passed over the boy's face, almost unbelieving as he stared at the Angel. "You mean, like a slave? That's sick. And Lucie was a Chaser too?"

Grace nodded. "It's strange. She kept us as pets, almost, but she was nice, sometimes. She's also the one who bought us these clothes. I think, maybe she wasn't completely evil."

"Wait, why are you talking about her in the past tense?" Jake asked, suspicious. "Did she leave you?"

"She's dead," Serenity said dully. "Another Chaser killed her."

The boy was stunned. "When?"

"This morning."

"Well, what are you going to do now?" Jake asked, confused. "Does that Chaser know about you? Could he find you? And what about stuff like food? If you were kept as slaves, does that mean you don't have money?"

Serenity shook her head. "We're trying to figure that out," she said.

"Well, I have some money back home... it's not much, but it might buy you two a couple meals."

With a small smile, Grace shook her head. "Thanks, but we're trying to feed five."

"Five?" Jake's eyes grew wide. "There are more of you?"

"Does that surprise you?" Serenity asked.

"Well, a little... I don't have enough money for five people..."

"It's okay," Grace said, shaking her head. "Even if you did, we'd need that kind of money daily."

"We'll figure it out," Serenity said with a smile. "But thanks." Walking quickly over to Jake, Serenity wrapped her arms around him and embraced him tightly. "It's good to know that someone cares."

The three stood for a silent moment, when suddenly an idea popped into the boy's mind. "What if," he started, pausing to clear his thoughts before continuing, "what if I became a Chaser, and I kept you? I just turned seventeen, I can probably get my parents to let me become one - they'd love an excuse to get rid of me. And then I could figure out how to make money like that."

Grace and Serenity exchanged glances. "This-," the blue-haired Angel started.

"-could work," Grace finished. The two Angels turned back to Jake, smiling wide.

__________
Comments
AQ  Post #: 5
7/13/2008 22:51:59   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 5 - "Your New Master"

Serenity hung loosely to Jake as the two followed Grace inside. Stopping in the dusty, decrepit kitchen, the oldest Angel called, "Girls, come here." She waited patiently for a moment, but when a minute had passed without any response from the other Angels, Grace strode to the doorway and called again.

"Just give us a second," Seraph said. "That boy's not going anywhere with Serenity all over him."

Jake's eyes grew wide, and he turned his head quickly to the blue-haired Angel at his side. "How can she see us when she's not even in the same room?" he asked, frightened and confused.

"She can hear us," Serenity said, simply. "We Angels have pretty good ears."

Grace turned to the boy with a grin. "She's being modest. We can hear a good two hundred yard radius without trouble. Lucie could get to three-fifty."

Jake gaped at the older Angel, shocked. "How...?"

"I dunno," Grace said, shrugging. "But that's not the only thing that makes Angels better than normal humans. Seraph wasn't kidding when she said you weren't going anywhere, Serenity could probably hold you to that spot in her sleep."

Serenity smiled slyly at Jake, who eyed her warily before turning back to Grace and seeing, out of the corner of his eye, movement in the next room. Focusing on the doorway, he could see the other Angels walking across the bare, warped wood floor. As they entered the kitchen, he asked, "Are you all Angels, too?"

"What do you think?" Seraph asked, flashing her wings as she stared the boy down. "Honestly, Grace, I don't know what you're thinking, this kid becoming our 'master'."

"Kid? He's two years older than you," Serenity said, almost angry.

With a short laugh, the young Angel stepped toward Jake and, staring him dead in the eye, asked, "Have you ever had someone try to kill you?" The boy shook his head. "Have you ever been kidnapped and chained to a wall? Beaten until it hurt to cry?" Again, he shook his head. "Have you ever been forced to take a knife to your friend, and told to kill her?"

Jake, too stunned and frightened to speak, shook his head and tried to back away, but Serenity stood firm. "No," he choked out, the young Angel's piercing glare unavoidable. "No."

"Then you're not older than me," Seraph said, her voice low but strong. She turned to Serenity, her eyes still fiery, and said, "And you. Why do you care about this, this -" she took a moment to find the right word, "idiot?"

Miracle, with a small sigh, sat against the wall near where Grace stood. All eyes turned to her, instantly, wondering if she would speak again. "Do we have a plan?" she asked, her voice sounding tired.

"I think so," Grace said. "We - Serenity, Jake and I - thought that maybe he could pose as a Chaser. He would pretend we were his Angels, and-"

Seraph laughed loudly, cutting the older Angel off. "There's no way this kid is going to be my master, not if-"

"Shut up," Serenity said, her voice dark. "If you have a better idea, I'm all ears."

With Seraph silenced, Grace continued. "So, Jake would pretend we were his Angels, and either find some way to provide for us, or find some way for us as a group to make money."

"Well, how did Lucie make money?" Seraph asked, curious. "I mean, we never worked, and she was home most of the time."

"Was she a bank robber?" Jake asked, trying to put himself in the conversation again. After a short moment of silence, the girls turned to him, staring as if he had two heads. "Stupid idea?"

Grace shook her head. "All right, we'll figure this out. Seraph, Miracle, take Bright out back and work on her with flying. I doubt she's spent much time in the air."

When the younger girls had left the house, Serenity turned to Grace. "Let's go upstairs to talk. We'll go to the quiet room."

"Quiet room?" Jake asked.

As the three walked through the adjoining rooms, crossing through Lucie's bedroom and bathroom, Grace explained that when Serenity had been captured, the black-winged Angel had decided she needed a room where someone could speak, but no one outside of the room could hear. Lucie had put Serenity in the room with Grace the day it had been finished, arming the older Angel with a meat cleaver and ordering her to either kill the blue-haired Angel or make her subservient.

"So Lucie goes there a lot?" Jake asked, still not completely clear on the purpose of the room. "Why?"

Serenity shrugged. "We've wondered about that. She used to go there two or three times a day. It was a lot more often after Seraph and Miracle came, and none of us have been in there for a year."

"She might be working up there," Grace said. "She muttered a lot about keeping her investments safe, and said one day she left all her money in the bank."

Jake nodded, concentrating on the rotted floorboards so as not to fall through a weak section of wood. Suddenly, he walked into Serenity, his head brushing past her cheek. He stepped back quickly, his face growing red with embarrassment as the blue-haired Angel, smiling sweetly, put her hands on her hips. "S-sorry," he said.

Serenity giggled. "See, if you had done that on purpose, I would've commended you for your bravery. Walking into someone like that, especially where your hands almost ended up, could get you killed."

Flustered, Jake's response left his mouth as a garbled mess. Satisfied, Serenity turned to the older Angel, who was standing stoically with her hand on the doorknob of a new, solid steel door. "Are you two done yet?" she asked, turning the brass knob. "We still need to discuss a lot of things."

"Why are we doing it in here, again?" Jake asked, relieved that Grace had stepped in.

The blonde Angel sighed. "I don't want the others to hear all of this, so we need to either talk here or fly far enough away."

"And you don't exactly have wings," Serenity said, grinning as she wrapped her own tawny wings around her body, encasing herself in feathers.

Grace nodded and pushed open the door, stepping into the soundproofed room and moving aside for the other two to enter. As she closed the door behind them, however, she noticed a small Post-It note sticking to the foam panelling of the steel door. She took it off, carefully, and looked it over. "There's nothing on it?" she said, confused.

"On what?" Serenity asked, and seeing the paper, stepped over to the older Angel. The yellow Post-It was indeed blank, and with a shrug the blue-haired Angel said, "Maybe Lucie left it there as a reminder or something."

Grace looked at the spot the note had been attached to, and found nothing. "Yeah, I guess." Shaking her head, she turned to Jake. "Anyway, we need to talk."

"About...?" the boy asked, hesitant.

"You," Serenity said. "First, I want to know what you were doing here. Why did you knock on the door?"

Jake seemed relieved. "I was walking past the house on my way home from my job, and I decided to take a detour through the backyard."

"Yeah, right," the younger Angel said, putting her hands on her hips. "Why are you even thinking of lying? Any one of us Angels could kill you, without breaking a sweat. And you're lying?" She took a single, intimidating step forward. "Do you want to die?"

Jake shrugged. "I'm not lying. I only knocked in case someone was actually living here, and then I went around back. The place is so run down, I wasn't expecting to meet anything but bugs and weeds."

"All right, enough," Grace said, her green eyes flaring. "If you can't trust us, how are we supposed to trust you?" Her face turned soft suddenly, and she gazed at Jake sadly. "We've told you all of the horrible things we've lived through. Why can't you tell us the truth?"

The boy turned his face away, almost ashamed of himself. "I was looking for a place to run away to," he said quietly. "I hate my home. My parents. My sister. They idolize her, she's such a 'genius,' and I get ignored. I can't take it."

"Your life sounds so bad," Serenity said, her voice flat. "You wanna trade?"

Jake sighed. "I know, I know. I don't have it nearly as bad as you girls do. I mean, you were living as slaves for years. This is as close as I come to that. I'm treated like nothing, and all because my damned sister has a high IQ. I almost wish she were an Angel, too. That way, maybe my parents would look at me again."

"Say that again?" Grace said, her voice obviously restrained. "It almost sounded like you wanted your sister to be hunted and captured - or killed - just so you could be Mama's boy. Am I hearing you correctly?" She grinned darkly. "Wait, don't answer that. I'm pretty sure I heard you right."

Jake stepped back from the blonde, and mentally kicked himself for speaking so stupidly. "I'm sorry," he said. "I used to wish that, back when I thought Angels were monsters. I guess, I was just being too emotional. Sorry."

"You apologize too much," Serenity said. "Shut up."

"So- okay," the boy replied.

Shaking her head, Grace continued. "Okay, we have that first question out of the way. Now, the second. How the hell are we supposed to make any money, let alone enough to feed all six of us?"

"Five," Serenity said. "If Jake needs, he can always get food from home for himself."

The boy nodded, scratching the back of his head as he thought. "Well, maybe we could work on stuff like construction or something. I know people don't like Angels, but if we can convince them that you're tame, then maybe..."

"No," Grace said. "That won't work. You're my age, for crying out loud. Any sane person would see right through that. Besides, even if we could say that, nobody would want to hire an Angel."

"Modeling, then?" Jake proposed. "There's an agent for a big modeling corporation that stops by the shop. Maybe one of you two..." His voice died away as his face grew red.

Serenity was stunned for a moment, then shook her head and giggled. "So you do have some guts. What kind of modeling does this agent do?"

"Uhh..." Jake's face grew a deeper red, and he turned his eyes to the foam tiling above the Angels' heads. Realizing that the girls expected an honest answer, he dropped his gaze to his feet and muttered, "Victoria's Secret."

In the long silence that followed, Serenity felt the initial shock change to a sense of dark satisfaction. Grace, however, found herself growing angry. "What? Just what is going on in that head of yours? Underwear modeling?" The older Angel was nearly screaming, and her hands curled into fists as she advanced on the boy. "You have some nerve, you little freak."

"Calm down, Grace," Serenity said, dragging the girl to a stop. "He's just being honest, you know. Stupid, but honest." She turned her head to Jake and winked. "I like that."

Jake backed up to the wall, pressing himself against the foam as Grace's glare burned holes in his head. "Sorry," he said quickly, fearing the Angel's wrath. "I didn't- I mean, I was just-"

"He was just trying to help," Serenity cooed to the angered girl, and swiftly snatched the bony ridge of her wing. A sharp jolt of pain made Grace's knees weak, and as she collapsed to the ground, the blue-haired Angel said to her, "Besides, he's not wrong about you."

"Shut up," Grace said, gasping from the pain. "We're not doing it. We need to find something."

Jake relaxed his tense body, rubbing his eyes as the blonde Angel stood. As he stepped toward the girls, however, he felt a foam panel pulling away from the wall. Looking to his right arm, he saw that the panel was stuck to his leather coat, and was almost completely free of the rest of the tiling. A green light blinked in the shadows, and Jake removed the tile completely, revealing a sleek, black laptop. "Hey, girls?"

"What?" Grace asked, still angry at the boy. When she saw the laptop, her eyes grew wide. "What the-" She walked forward to the wall, and delicately removed the laptop. Opening the top carefully and clicking the mousepad, the notebook's display sprung to life. The wallpaper, a picture of Serenity flying through the air, was obscured as a window popped up demanding a password for the user, Lucie.

"Any ideas?" Jake asked, looking over Grace's left shoulder.

"Maybe 'Angel'?" Serenity said, peering at the laptop over the blonde Angel's right shoulder.

Grace inputted the word, but when she pressed enter the window re-appeared. "Nope," she said. Thinking for a moment, she submitted the names of each of the Angels, but still none worked. "What could it be?"

"Did you try birthdays?" Jake asked. When none of the girls' birthdays worked, he put out another suggestion. "What if there's no password?"

"Excuse me?" Serenity said, turning to the boy. "What do you mean, 'no password?'"

"I mean, try putting nothing in, and pressing Enter." When Grace tried, the window disappeared. "See?"

Shaking her head, the older Angel silently scanned the screen. A folder titled 'Grace' caught her attention, and she opened it, curious. Inside, the folder was divided into four sub-folders, titled, 'Family,' 'School,' 'Training,' and 'Purpose.'

"What the hell?" the blonde said, opening the 'Family' folder. Inside, document and picture files filled the screen, and the three teens watched the scroll bar on the right of the window shrink. Grace opened the first file, 'Birth Certificate,' and was surprised to see a scan of her birth certificate, an image of her as a baby, and of her parents holding her. "How did she get this?"

Closing out of the first document, she scanned the titles of the other files. Her eyes grew wide as the cursor highlighted everything from a 'Family Tree,' to a 'Christmas Picture - 1990.' Grace opened the picture file, and nearly dropped the laptop as a snapshot of her extended family popped up on the screen. "Oh, my God," she said breathlessly, staring at a smiling, young version of Lucie sitting next to her in the front of the picture.

__________
Comments
AQ  Post #: 6
9/6/2008 2:00:55   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 6 - "What This Love is All About"

I know, girls, you probably hate me. For what I did to you. For what I wanted to do to you. There's no excuse for me, I never planned for there to be one. At this point, I don't really think it matters. Grace, I told you that I left my biggest secrets here in this room, and I know that if you got the chance, you would come here and find them. Well, you've found all of them.

All of these documents are real, from the pictures to the birth certificates. There's even information about me on here. Everything you need to know. It seems creepy, I get that. But, so did my keeping you girls locked up. God, I feel like I'm going to cry. I don't want you to ever hear this, Grace. But, if I'm gone, for any reason, then you need to know how to survive in this hellhole.

All of the world hates us. Don't you ever forget that. We are Angels, the most beautiful and most perfect people on the Earth. But we're also the biggest threat to everyone else who lives. It's because we're better, because we're stronger, that people want to kill us. And if not kill, then capture. My friend Mary was killed when we were only six years old, and ever since then I've feared for our lives.

I've saved up thirty thousand dollars in a bank account under your name, Grace. Go to the ATM machine down on Jericho Turnpike, you can walk there easily. And please, hide your wings well. Tuck them tight to your back, so no one can see them. Even at home, you are surrounded by Chasers. Keep the others safe, and whatever you do, stay alive. I love you, little sis.


Grace turned away from Serenity, not wanting the Angel to see her tears. Half of her could not believe that Lucie was her older sister, but the other half welcomed it openly. The audio clip she had listened to had been Lucie's message to her. It had held the black-winged Angel's true feelings for her, and not one bit of it was anger, or hatred. 'She loved me,' Grace thought, closing the audio clip. 'All along, she loved me.'

"Grace?" Serenity laid a soft hand on the Angel's shoulder, turning her around. When she saw the tears Grace had shed, she pulled the girl close and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm here for you."

"I know, Serenity." Grace sighed and wiped her eyes, turning back to the laptop. "So, we know where to find money, and we can survive here for a long while, if we're careful."

Jake felt his heart drop to his stomach as the girls discussed their options. 'They have money now,' he thought., his lips forming a shaky smile. 'They don't need me anymore.' As he turned to the door, though, he felt a soft hand on his arm. "You don't need me anymore," he said, spinning slowly to face Serenity. "I guess... you girls are all set. I'd only be dead weight."

The blue-haired Angel, her eyes searching Jake's face desperately, forced herself to let him go. She watched as he walked glumly from the room, and heard him as he shuffled through the halls of the rotting mansion. When the door to the backyard closed, she turned to the older Angel and sighed. "What do we do now?"

"Do you think that Chaser took Lucie's body after he killed her?"

Serenity nodded slowly. "He wouldn't just leave her, would he?"

"I wish we could find her, and give her a proper burial," the older Angel said. "We may have hated her, but she cares more than we thought."

The blue-haired Angel sighed, walking toward the door, but stopped. "Hey, Grace?"

"Yeah?"

"What does Lucie have on me?" Serenity walked quickly back as the older Angel opened the folder titled 'Serenity.'

The sub-folders in Serenity's folder were titled the same as those in Grace's, and the blue-haired Angel inhaled sharply. "Can you go to Family?" Inside the folder, a single file stood out to the sixteen-year-old's golden eyes - one titled 'Sister.' "Open that one," she said, pointing to the file.

"Who's that?" Grace asked, staring at a picture of a beautiful young lady, sitting in an open window and gazing at an orange sunset over the Manhattan skyline.

"That's my sister," Serenity breathed, her eyes fixated on the black feathers only barely visible at the bottom of the girl's black, denim jacket. "That's Victoria."

Grace spun to face the younger Angel, her eyes wide and mouth hanging open slightly. Tears filled Serenity's eyes as she fell to her knees, and she took the notebook from the blonde slowly. "Your sister's an Angel, too?"

Serenity nodded and wiped her eyes with shaking hands. "She ran away from home a year before I did," she said. "I never knew why, but now..." She turned her golden-brown eyes to Grace, her lips twitching as tears streaked down her cheeks. "I left to find her. She told me- she always said, 'We're going to fly away from here, together.' She said we would find someplace that accepted Angels as people."

"But she left? Why?"

Serenity shook her head. "She never told me. She just flew out the window one night. My parents blamed me, they swore they would kill me if she got hurt." Angrily, the Angel pushed the notebook off of her lap, slamming her fists onto her knees and sobbing. "She never came back," she screamed. "She left me all alone, and because of her I ran away and got captured."

"Maybe she got captured, too?" Grace offered, laying a hand on the emotional Angel's shoulder. "Maybe she was coming back to get you, and she got taken."

Serenity shrugged off the older Angel's hand and stood quickly, spinning and rushing from the room. She stormed down the stairs and ran through the rotting first floor of the mansion, opening her wings as she reached the back door and throwing herself into the air. In a moment, she was gone, dropping out of the sky and hiding behind a cluster of trees in the yard of the neighboring mansion.

Grace stopped in the doorway, scanning the sky hopefully. "She's gone," Bright said from behind her. "Lucie's gone, we're free."

"Lucie kept us alive," the older Angel said slowly, listening carefully for Serenity. "She gave us food, a safe place to live. She's gone, but she meant a lot to all of us."

"Maybe you're not ready to do the same for us," Bright said, smiling innocently at the blonde. "But, maybe you're better." Grace turned, stunned, to the young Angel and stared. Bright walked lightly over to her, giggling softly at the girl's shocked appearance, and laid her hand on Grace's forearm. "Miracle is afraid that you'll turn into a slave driver; Seraph is worried that you'll run away from us. But I don't know you, so all I can do is hope that you'll be the mother we've never had."

Silence fell in the rotting room as Bright brushed past the older Angel and walked outside. With her mind racing, Grace followed the young girl with her eyes, and she watched as the girl unfurled her wings and drew herself into the air. She gazed at the twins, circling lazily a hundred yards above the ground, when a muffled shout over one-hundred-fifty yards to her left caught her attention. 'Serenity,' the Angel thought, her heart skipping a beat.

In a single, fluid movement, Grace vaulted from the doorway, threw open her wings, and took off in the direction of the shout. "Girls, inside! Now!" she called over her shoulder, feeling the twins turning to follow her. She poured all of her energy into her wings, already tiring from flying to Manhattan and back earlier in the day, as she shot toward the source of the muffled noise she had heard. 'Please, let her be okay,' the Angel prayed, silently.

Grace landed, silently, fifty yards from where she could hear a scuffle taking place, in a grove of middle-aged oaks. 'She's fighting someone,' the Angel thought. 'Probably only one person.'

"Who was screaming?" Serenity whispered, standing behind Grace.

A man stepped out from a bush near the two Angels, cocking his gun and grinning wickedly. "Hey, Mark," he called, not daring to take his eyes off of the girls. "I've got another two over here. Hurry up and bag that brat, these two are hot."

Grace pushed Serenity behind her slowly, shielding the blue-haired Angel from the gunman. Inhaling sharply, she could hear another man walking over from her right. The sounds of the crying girl had ceased. "Who are you?" the blonde asked, trying desperately to keep her voice from cracking.

"Hah! You don't need to know, Angel," the gunman said, spitting the word Angel at her bitterly. "Just let my partner here chain you up nice and tight..."

Grace tensed the muscles in her arms as she braced for the gunman's partner to touch her. When he did, she almost shuddered, but forced herself to keep calm. The man's hands were slimy and covered in sweat, and made his touch exponentially worse for the blonde Angel. "Hurry up, or we're both going to get shot by your friend," she said.

The man snickered from behind her, letting his hands drift to her waist. "Keep talking like that, Angel. It's sexy."

Instinctively, Grace flinched away from her supposed captor, and made a split-second decision to fall to the ground, acting as if she had tripped. She lay unmoving for a moment, waiting for the two men to draw closer, and when the gunman was within range, she rolled and kicked out swiftly, forcing her heel deep into his gut. As the man dropped his weapon, the Angel spun on her back and caught the advancing man in the side with her foot.

As the captors fell to the ground, gasping in pain, the blonde rolled to her feet and turned to Serenity. "Get the other Angel, and get back to the house. Run, don't fly. We don't know if there are any more of these creeps."

Serenity nodded and dashed out of sight. Grace turned back to the captors and quickly picked the one man's gun off of the ground. She held the weapon delicately, having no experience with firearms, and eyed the men warily as they rolled on the ground. The creep who had put his hands on her coughed loudly and drew himself onto his hands and knees. "You little bi-"

The gun went off in Grace's hand, the Angel having pulled the trigger experimentally and shot a bullet into a tree behind the men. Recoiling slightly, she had the presence of mind to keep the weapon in her hand, and she stared at the black, metal barrel curiously. The smell of gunpowder wafted back to her as she gazed at the handgun, and then to the men on the ground. Pulling back the hammer until it clicked, she pointed it at the creep's body. "I didn't hear you before," she said simply.

The man, smartly, stayed still and silent, breathing heavily from his shock. The other captor, still groaning from the Angel's kick, muttered incoherently. Grace turned the gun on him and pulled the trigger, but the empty cartridge only clicked in response. "Huh?"

The creep, sensing a chance to attack, pushed himself to his feet and charged at Grace, who met him with a powerful kick to the groin. His breath leaving in a long groan, the man fell to the ground and lay still, his eyes rolled back into his head. His partner down, the gunman rolled to his hands and knees, pausing for a moment to catch his breath before beginning to crawl away.

Grace threw the empty handgun at the man, the butt of the gun connecting with his right temple. As the gunman slumped, unconscious, to the dirt, the Angel focused her quickly draining energy to locating Serenity through her hearing. She jogged briskly over to the blue-haired teen, stopping when she saw a young Angel lying on the ground, her wrists and ankles tied with plastic drawties.

__________
Comments

< Message edited by _Depression -- 6/3/2009 21:19:44 >
AQ  Post #: 7
11/3/2008 21:02:57   
_Depression
Member

Chapter 7 - "Halos"

"Help me carry her home," Serenity said, her voice dull as she lifted the young, beaten Angel into her arms. Her blue hair fell over her face, hiding her fiery, golden eyes.

As Grace stepped over to help the fifteen-year-old Angel, she sighed and asked, sadly, "How can people be so cruel to such beautiful children?"

"If you can't compete with an Angel, beat them until they are no longer a threat," Serenity said bitingly, quoting Lucie's words. She shifted her arms as the blonde Angel took the young girl from her, and brushed back the strands of blue hair from her face. "And if you need to, just killing the Angel works well, too."

Grace followed Serenity through the trees silently, frowning and staring down at the ground quietly. "Serenity," she started, hesitating, "I need you here. We all do. I- I don't know what I'd do if you left."

The blue-haired Angel stopped short, and spoke without turning to face her older friend. "Grace, I need to find out what happened to her. I need to go."

"What'll the rest of us do?"

"You're the leader, Grace-"

Grace shook her head gravely. "No, I'm not. I've never been. It's always been Lucie and you."

"Me?"

"Yeah," the blonde said, staring at Serenity as the Angel leaned against a tree, still refusing to turn around. "Why do you think Lucie always had you watch the twins? Or why it was you who made Bright as much a slave as the rest of us? I could never do that, Serenity. I'm not good enough."

The blue-haired Angel turned slowly and met Grace's eyes with her own, tear-filled ones. "You're going to have to be," she said. "I can't stay."

Grace nodded after a long pause and, laying the unconscious Angel against a tree, walked over to Serenity. Hugging her tightly, the blonde felt tears come to her eyes, and she let them fall freely onto the fifteen-year-old's blue denim jacket. "Promise me you'll come back soon."

"No." Serenity pushed Grace away from her. "I can't make any promises. Not until I find my sister."

Grace watched as Serenity spread her wings, the tawny feathers beautiful on her back. She fell to her knees as the blue-haired Angel lifted into the air, crying into her hands as she listened to the sound of wings flapping die into the distance. Minutes later, alone with the unconscious young Angel, Grace wept loudly.

Miracle and Seraph flew to Grace, reaching the Angel and kneeling on either side of her, comforting her. "We heard everything," Seraph said simply, helping the older Angel to her feet as her twin went over to the beaten Angel. Her hazel eyes looking over the unconscious girl, Miracle stroked her fingers along the Angel's bruised cheek.

The young, badly beaten Angel stirred beneath Miracle's touch. "She's alive," she said calmly, and turned to Grace. "Can you carry her?"

Grace nodded and, silently, wishing Serenity was at her side, took the beaten Angel back into her arms. A light breeze snaked through the trees and pushed her hair over her eyes. "Let's go home," she said, softly, and lifted herself slowly into the air. Grace flew slowly, with Miracle and Seraph flanking her, and descended into the backyard of the run-down mansion without really comprehending doing so.

Grace led the twins through the series of decrepit rooms and walked straight to Lucie's bedroom, where she laid the unconscious Angel on the soft mattress of Lucie's queen-sized bed. Turning to the twins, she found herself unable to think clearly - without Serenity, her rock, she was confused, alone. "What now?" she asked to no one.

Seraph glanced nervously to her sister, and then back to Grace. "Bright's gone," she said quickly, drawing a shocked look from the older Angel. Seraph looked down to her feet. "She saw Serenity take off, and went after her. We were about to go with them, but we saw you, and-"

"Bright's been flying all day, she can't possibly keep up with Serenity. We need to go look for her - or whatever Chaser has her now," Miracle said bluntly.

{...}
__________
Comments

< Message edited by _Depression -- 11/3/2008 21:03:17 >
AQ  Post #: 8
Page:   [1]
All Forums >> [Gaming Community] >> [Legends and Lore] >> Writers of Lore >> [The Bookshelves] >> Other Creative Prose >> Angel: The Beautiful Outcast
Jump to:






Icon Legend
New Messages No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages Locked w/o New Messages
 Post New Thread
 Reply to Message
 Post New Poll
 Submit Vote
 Delete My Own Post
 Delete My Own Thread
 Rate Posts




Forum Content Copyright © 2018 Artix Entertainment, LLC.

"AdventureQuest", "DragonFable", "MechQuest", "EpicDuel", "BattleOn.com", "AdventureQuest Worlds", "Artix Entertainment"
and all game character names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Artix Entertainment, LLC. All rights are reserved.
PRIVACY POLICY


Forum Software © ASPPlayground.NET Advanced Edition