Ravenwings (Imaged + Completed) [1st in Trilogy]

Part II: Chapter 31

To hear everything that happened to the precious broken boy who had been through so much made my heart ache.

"So...after the wing thing, Miriam bandaged me up, and they argued. I heard the whole thing. They argued about what to do with me. After years of her begging, Miriam finally agreed to try to remove my wings.

"I didn't try to stop them. I thought if they were gone, Myra would love me, and everything would be all better. I thought the only problem there had ever been were just my wings, those were the cause of my living hell. So Miriam put me under at the clinic to amputate my wings.

"When I woke up, I felt light-headed, dizzy, and my back was on fire. But...my wings were still there. Later I heard Miriam telling Myra that there was a large vein going into each wing, and it was all too close to my heart to be survivable. I'd already lost a lot of blood and would need to be taken well care of the next few days. I healed fast, though. I always do.

"When I was allowed home a few days later, Myra completely shunned me. I hated my wings all the more, for being stuck. I was wishing they could've been gone already; all those years of Myra telling me that my wings made me worthless really started setting in deep.

"I was about four, so I was getting restless being alone, and became an expert of breaking out of my room. Myra always either slept past noon, or, when she got a job as a janitor for a short while, left me in my room all day until she got home for one meal a day.

"So I started breaking out to gather food from the fridge or books to read. I loved to read Harry Potter...another misfit boy whose family hated him, and locked him in the closet his whole life, but he could do amazing things, and ended up saving the whole world and making his new friends proud. Everyone liked him for being different.

"But I never left the house. I was too scared. The neighbors around us had dogs. The one across the street always had parties. The one down the street liked hunting, apparently, something Aunt Miriam wouldn't let me forget. And on the other end of the street, they found the need for fireworks every single holiday. What I'd already seen of the world was awful, and I had no desire to have to see any more of it. I just buried myself in books...there were really good people in books, and the bad guys always got what was coming to them.

"But Myra started getting fed up with me escaping and started locking me in an old dog cage within the closet. That didn't work, so she padlocked it. I picked the lock and got out. So she...duct taped my wrists behind my back. It didn't really stop me, but I didn't want her to go any further...I didn't escape anymore. I was scared of what she'd do next. I just got...really into meditation for a while.

"Things went on like that for almost a month before Aves Noir showed up."

Wait, he actually showed up?! Raven had met this guy?!

"My biological father, evidently. He can shapeshift, and he's an actual Trickster...so he's a bit of a womanizer. The industrial world is more fun to play in for him now a days, so he likes the cities, anything urban and new. Probably hates the forest by now...

"But he...he came back, for the first time since my conception. He just wanted to come back and see Myra. She used to be attractive, simple, easily manipulated, and eager to please. Well...Myra wasn't happy at all to see him. But she didn't tell him about me.

"She just yelled at him and told him to leave. He laughed, and was about to...when I decided I wanted to meet him. So I jumped out of the cage and out of the closet and out down the hall yelling, 'Wait, wait!'

"And when he saw me..." Raven shook his head. "There was such an utter look of disgust in his eyes. I'll just never forget it. I felt like he'd crumpled me like a piece of paper and thrown me into the corner, just like that, in just one look... Like a wrapper that shrivels when you throw it in the fire... Turned out, for once, Myra was right. He shouldn't have been told.