Page 8 of Beg Me Angel

People had said I was cold-hearted. . .

But that was far too nice of a word. They had no fucking idea.

There was no word in the dictionary that could explain who I was. Not that it mattered anymore, I removed myself from the population.

But even that isolation wasn't enough to silence the demons inside me.

As the sun hit the landscape, slicing itself in half, the red and orange rays burst through the forest, tangling around the branches like the thick fingers of fire.

For a moment I stopped, wanting to take in the only thing I ever really appreciated, the one thing that never changed. The sun had been the only thing in my life to stay constant, it rose in the morning and set in the evening. It was my shoulder to lean on.

But a soft scream shook the serene painting mother nature had started to sketch out. The scream was delicate, filled with a fear that sent goosebumps down my flesh.

My feet shot forward, my brain ignoring the risk that whoever was taking refuge in my woods could now hear me coming from a mile away.

None of that mattered. The woman's scream was enough for me to forget my purpose in the first place. Her tone wasn't highlighted with fun giggles, it was riddled with distress.

Running between the trees and thick foliage, the scent of the fire became stronger and stronger. Hitting the ground harder, I shoved branches away from my body the best I could, just trying to reach the source of the scream.

I could see the faint flicker of dying flames in a clearing, I could hear the sound of thrashing, like something was tangled up and caught.

Launching out into the open space, I yanked my gun from my waist and held it up high. Scanning the clearing, the fire was burning out, smoldering in damp leaves and fresh green branches.

I kept my head up high, searching for the voices, searching for whoever made that horrible scream, but there was no one. No men with guns, no trucks or four-wheelers, just a slow dying fire and an engine fading off into the distance.

Motherfuckers, they must have heard me and bolted.

What was the scream?

Maybe it wasn't a woman at all. . .

There were several different animals in my woods that could have made a sound like that; owls, fisher-cats, it could have been anything. I was pissed at myself for letting my mind flip its switch and think that the noise was a woman screaming.

I let my guard down, stepping back into the war zone and mistaking the cry as human. It was hard to forget what I had seen and heard, it never went away, it only settled into the cavern of my chest, constantly reminding me of what I had done.

I wanted to carve it out with a fucking knife, but no matter how hard I tried, nothing worked. It was something I was going to have to live with, to learn to live with.

Tucking the gun back, I started to kick dirt on the pit, suffocating the final flickers and killing the fire. Then I heard it.

A gentle cry echoed from inside a thick bush. Stepping closer, I noticed pink sneakers poking out from under the leaves.

What the hell?

Fanning the brush back, I couldn't believe what I was seeing. There was no way in hell that I could have expected to stumble on her in the condition she was in.

A young girl was curled in a tight ball, her knees tucked firmly against her chest. She had trickles of blood coming down her legs and arms, her lip was swollen and split down the center.

Fuck.

Bending down, I brushed her hair from her face and scanned her body. “Are you okay? Who did this to you?”

She didn't answer, the only sound she was making was a gentle and weak cry. “Can you tell me your name?” Picking up her legs softly, I bent her feet up and down, then repeated it with her arms.

Nothing looks broken, that's good.

“Miss, I need you to tell me who did this to you, where did they go?”

Her bottom lip was trembling, that single movement then washed over her body as she began to shake.

---