Dark Angel

Chapter Three

It was just a little after two weeks when Daddy finally came home from his meeting at Headquarters, a division in my nine years, I had never seen him as mad as he was that day.

"I told you to take her to Chad and Melanie. What is so hard to understand about those simple instructions? Take her and leave her with them. That's it." He sounded calm, but going by the way his eyebrows furrowed and the very subtle tremor that I could hear in his voice, he was furious. I didn't need to read his mind to tell that much.

"I thought that being around the other experiments might do it some good." The other scientist said, like he might have actually though that this would be a good reason to throw me into a cell.

"It?" Daddy's voice rose just slightly, speaking through his teeth and it was clear that the man had just said the wrong thing.

"Yes, well it's definitely not human, that's for sure." The scientist gestured to me with a sweeping motion of his hand and I lowered myself gaze to my feet. I did not want to meet the eyes of a man who had just denied my humanity.

I think that Daddy noticed the way that I hung my head and knew that I was hiding tears, because he slammed his hands down on his desk, and his carefully controlled voice rose to a yell that was magnified by the walls of the small office.

"She is my daughter!"

I jumped, startled by the harshness in Daddy's voice. I never liked to hear Daddy raise his voice, but this was different from any scolding that I had ever gotten. This was a side of him that I had never seen before.

"You'd do well to think about who you're speaking to before you say something so mindless and stupid! She is my daughter and she is just as human as me and you, maybe even more so! At least she doesn't make little girls cry! Look at her!!" I didn't look up, but I felt both of their eyes on me for a moment.

The two men's thoughts were so contrasting that it was hard to understand them both at the same time. Daddy's was filled with anger, thinking things along the lines of 'Won't be here long after hurting my little girl.'

It was the other scientist who's thoughts stuck out to me though, I understood them loud and clear. 'Who gives a shit if the little mutant cries. Let it. Maybe it'll dehydrate and die.'

"She has feelings! She's just as human as any little girl! As human as your daugter!" Daddy shouted, and this time the other man shouted back.

"Do not compare that monster to my daughter!! It doesn't even deserve to be in a cell in the experiment ward! It deserves to be in the basement with the other freaks!"

That was when I pushed myself off of the wall that I had been leaning against behind Daddy's desk and ran past the two of them, and out of the office that seemed like it would close in on me if I didn't escape right in that moment.

Monster.

Mutant.

Freak.

Monster.

Experiment.

It.

Monster.

Was I really that horrible? That scary? Scary enough to be a monster?

I thought of monsters as the things that lived in my closet, or under my bed, or in the deepest darkest parts of forests like in the stories.

Was I that bad?

I made my way through the twisting turns of the hospital..no, laboratory halls until I reached the residential area of the building, stopping at the door of the apartment that Daddy and I lived in.

I tried the handle and luckily found it to be unlocked. I shoved it open, and ran through the living room. I think I may have accidentally bumped a lamp on my way. Maybe I wouldn't get in trouble for that.

I stopped in front of a door that was labeled with a hand-decorated sign that read "Lucia" in careful, purple letters.

Once inside, I slammed the door shut behind me and turned the lock, catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror that hung on the back of my door.

Streaks ran across my dirt face, cleaned by the tears that poured unrelenting from my dark eyes. My black hair was matted with dirt and sweat. I looked like a mess, barely even recognized myself. I thought that I looked skinnier too, but I wasn't sure.

I ripped my shirt off over my head and spun around with my back facing the mirror, craning my neck see were my black wings protruded from my upper back. No one else had anything like that, so that made them unnatural, made me unnatural. I knew what did have wings though...birds...not people.

I threw my shirt at the mirror and began to tear at my wings, "Come off! Come! Off!" I cried as I sank down to the floor, desperate to rid myself of the things that made me inhuman, because if they were gone, them I would be just like everyone else. People wouldn't say those things anymore.

I could faintly hear the muffled sound of my name being yelled, and the mirror on my door shook violently, but I payed it no mind. I just needed to be normal! I wanted to be human!

There was a loud crack and my door swung open, letting in Daddy, who immediately dropped to the floor in front of me, where I sat on my knees and took hold of my hands, prying my fingers from the feathers.

"NO!" I yelled "I JUST WANT THEM GONE!!"

"Lucia."

I thrashed about, twisting my wrist in his hands as I tried to pull them away. I needed to get free from him, so that I could be free of those godawful things on my back.

"Lucia!"

"LET GO!!"

"LUCIA!"

Daddy pulled me against his chest, muffling my cries with a tight hug to which I succumbed, burying my face in his should as I wept.

"I just- I just wanna-"

"Shhh..Sweetie, I know. It's okay."

Daddy sat there like that with me in the floor for a long time, just holding me, rocking me back and forth as he ran his hand over my hair time and time again.

It wasn't until my crying had faded to sniffles that I began to notice a dull aching in my wings.

"Sweetie. I'm sorry that that man said those things about you, but none of them are true. Okay?" He asked as he pulled back so that he could see me, hands resting on my shoulders.

"You are not a monster. Your wings are what make you you. They are what make you extraordinary." I nodded my head, his words and the now sharp pain in my wings bringing about more tears.

"Come on Lucia." He said as he stood and picked up a blanked from my bed and draped it around my shoulders.

It was then, as I watched him walk across the room, that I realized we had been sitting amongst smears of red and black feathers strone across the floor.

I pulled the warm blanket close with hands that were also stained red as Daddy picked me up and I rest my head on his shoulder, suddenly very tired.

"Let's get you to Melanie."