Her Dark Angels

Digging Up Memories

Logan;
Standing in Sawyer's room had my head swarming. I try so hard to keep my emotions hidden, I need people to see that on the outside nothing bothers me. But here in her room, I just couldn't. When I first met Sawyer freshman year, she looked like all the other girls raised with wealth. She sure didn't look all flashy like most of the other girls but, she just looked like she had it all. When she looked at me I saw the nothingness in her eyes. It felt like I was nothing but a waste of space in her eyes, and my anger snapped. From that day on, I made remarks towards her everyday to make her feel as small as I did.

Knowing what I know now, I can't stop the guilt from how badly I treated her. She had been wearing a mask to hide her truth. She'd been hurting then, and the nothingness I saw in her eyes weren't towards me at all... they were toward herself and I hated her for no reason.

"It all looks so... normal." Jay stated as he glanced around her room.

Jayden and I had similar backgrounds, orphans. He was the more broody, quiet type when dealing with things. While I take the loud and cocky route, but we always understand one another.

"Yeah, it does. Kinda like her. She always looked so normal and yet... did you see all those scars Jay? She has so many..." I asked walking farther into Sawyer's room.

We left Asher and Kason back at our place to look after Sawyer, while Jay and I went to get all of her things. She told us she didn't want anything but her clothes and a few other things. Jay walked around the room, grabbing a stuffed animal off Sawyer's pink canopy bed. It looked like she kept it the same since she was a little girl, unless... no. I couldn't think about those men touching her; if I did I'd kill them all.

"This room looks wrong though, right?" Jayden asks as he sets the stuffed bunny back on the bed.

"It's like it was taken right out of a catalog. It looks likes she's had it since she was a little. Even the stuffed animals don't look new but, you can tell they weren't played with. It's as if her room was frozen in time or something."

I took a closer look around the room and started to notice more. The bed was white with a baby pink canopy and a matching baby pink bed set. The rest of the furniture was white with pink flower details, and the stuffed animals all sat perfectly on the bed seemingly untouched. It looks like it was supposed to be in a magazine.

I noticed another door on the opposite wall. I started walking over to it, assuming it was her closet with her clothes. As I walked closer to the  door something weird catches my eye; the door... it has a lock on the outside. I reached up and slid the lock over, opening up the door.

"Oh god." I gasped as I took in the scene before me.

Jayden cursed behind me, throwing a punch into the nearby wall. There were some clothes, but not much. The rest of the tiny closet consisted of ratted blankets, an old pillow and a bucket in the far corner.

"She...she slept here?" I asked, more to myself than Jay.

I squeezed my eyes shut, as I felt bile rise up my throat at the horrible thoughts going through my mind. The bedroom must have been used for... the men who came to her; the closet was her real room. I shook my head clearing my thoughts nod began grabbing the few clothes. I glanced up at the top shelf to look for the box Sawyer described. I know it's her private stuff but, I opened the box just to put her five pieces of clothing inside.  I swallowed roughly at what was inside; a small beat up diary, an old teddy bear and a photo of a beautiful women, holding a little girl no more than four years old.

My eyes shut quickly as my heart clenched at the memories of my past tried to make there way to the surface. Jayden gently put his hand on my shoulder, pulling me out of my dark downward spiral.

"Come on man... let's get outta this hell hole." Jay said. I just nodded and put the top back on the box. I turned around and followed Jayden out the house, toward our car. The ride back was quiet, and I was okay with that. I didn't want to talk right now, not with how my thoughts were at the moment. I needed to push this down before we got back to the house, an that meant burring it deep in my mind again.

When we walked through the front door, we saw Kason and Asher lounging on the couch int he living room with some beers.

"Where's Sawyer?" I asked as I scanned the room.

"She was exhausted. We showed her to her room and she passed out as soon as her head hit the pillow." Kason replied with a small smile on his face. He is totally whipped.

"How'd it go? Did you get all her stuff?" Asher asked confused, as he looked down at the one small box in my arms.

I scoffed and walked over to the table, placing the box on it.

"That's all?" Kason asked looking at the box, then back to us.

"Yep. The rest I would rather burn before I brought it here." I said, my voice hard.

"Why...?" Asher questioned with furrowed brows.

"She slept in the damn closet." I said through clenched teeth.

"The rest of her room looked like some pervert's fantasy. She didn't use any of it, all that was hers is in that box... Asher, the closet door had a lock on the outside..." Jay added, anger in his eyes as his fists clenched at his sides.

Kason cursed under his breath as he ran his fingers roughly through his hair. "I can't believe she went through all of that and never told a soul." Kase added.

"I don't know how she had never tried to run away before... Hoe did she survive so long with him?" I questioned, falling onto the couch; grabbing Kason's coke from his hand, downing it.

"I did try once or twice..."

We all turn to see Sawyer coming down the stairs. She offered us a sad smile before she sat on the arm of the loveseat.

"The last time I tried, I was fourteen. My father told me he would be working late in the city one day. So I told my teacher I was sick and lied saying my father was picking me up. I rode my bike as far as I could before I got too tired. I ended up at some park a few miles away, just as it started to rain. I sat on one of the swings, thinking about what to do next." She stops for a second, looking towards Kason.

"Then some scrawny kid walked up and pulled you into a tunnel to shelter you from the rain." Kason said with a small smile.

"Yeah, he was one of the first people to ever help me." She said shyly. "Kason ended up calling his mom and she drove me back home... my father was furious. I guess the school had called him. He was pacing the living room when I walked back in. I've never seen him that angry before."

"He hurt you." Asher said, filling in the rest of her story.
She nodded. "The next day Kason found me in the cafeteria, and we became friends. My father had beaten me pretty bad the night before; it discouraged me from ever trying to run away again."

"Why didn't you tell me back then?" Kason asked quietly.

Sawyer sighed and lowered her head. "My father always told me since I was a little girl, no one cared about me and they would never believe me. Then when nobody seemed to notice me coming to school bruised and hurting from the beatings. I believed him."

"I'm so sorry Sawyer... I should've noticed something was wrong." Kase said moving to sit next to her, taking her hands into his.
She shook her head. "NO. Kase, you were just a kid. There was nothing you could've done. I couldn't risk you getting hurt too."

"That won't happen again. This time you have four of us on your side." Kason assured her and the rest of us spoke up in agreement.

"Your guardian angels." I added with a sly smile.

She glanced at each of us with a grateful look in her eyes and smiled. "Thank you. All of you."