Unkillable (Monsters Series #1) (Wattys2014)

Chapter 3: Gifted

I awoke with a start. The sound of the bombing up above was merely a whisper down here. In this room, it looked a bit more like a home than the hospital room, but not by much. I was in a padded cot. The walls were aluminum and covered in pictures in ornately carved mahogany frames that looked strangely out of place on the steel walls.  

There was one picture of the most precious little girl I ever saw. She had long blonde hair in dainty waves that were barely to her knees and eyes that are two different colors; one was the color of a lily pad floating on Lake Superior, while the other was gunmetal blue, like my own. Her cheeks were a powdery fuchsia, and freckles were scattered all over her face.  

The next picture was of her also, but Angel had both hands on her shoulders. I saw no resemblance between the two of them, but I knew she was Angel's daughter. I just did.  

She looked like me, though.  

"Feeling better?" Angel sing-songed from behind me, "I see you're admiring some of my photos. Beth and I have been taken family portraits since the day I signed the adoption papers. It's been five years today."  

While I was listening to Angel go on and on about his sweet little daughter, I noticed something about this Beth I didn't notice at first. She was the same little girl that was in my dream, smiling wickedly at me.  

"Father?" a charming, euphonic little voice trilled, "Who's there? I feel someone else here, Father. The smell is not at all familiar, Father. Father?"  

Angel danced over to the other side of the room and took little Beth's hand. She gasped.  

"Hush, peu d'amour. It's me. It's Father." Angel lulled sweetly, stroking her hair.  

As he led her toward me, I heard tapping on the aluminum floor. Beth's long, blonde hair was in a side braid down to her waist, and her mismatched eyes were wandering aimlessly. She was holding a white cane in her hand, tapping it on the floor as she came over to me, trying to detect any obstacles. She was wearing an oxblood dress with black lace overlay, black mary-janes, and white knee socks with lace trim.  

"Beth, darling, this is Jesse. He's going to be staying with us for a little while until he's healed."  

"Hello." I stammered.  

Beth walked over to where my voice was coming from, pulling an office chair with her using her cane. Then, she stood on top of it.  

Beth felt my face with her hands, studying my every feature, as if my face was Braille.  

"What's she..." I began to ask.  

"Wait." Angel interrupted, "This is how she learns."  

Beth suddenly brings her hand away like she touched a hot stove. Her face was motionless, pausing at a shocked expression.  

"It's you!" she exclaimed, elongating every syllable.  

She stepped from the chair cautiously. As she felt for her cane, Angel took it and placed it into her delicate hand, closing her fingers. She scurried to a mahogany desk cluttered with papers of colors from white to tannish-yellow until she finds a tattered sketchbook. Beth flipped to and caressed each page until she found the one she was looking for. She walks back toward me and hands me the page.  

On the page, there's a perfect portrait of myself on the ground, covered in my blood and the blood of other men that must've been drawn weeks before anyone here knew I even existed.