The Demon's Angel

Chapter 2

Elizabeth
I hate my life. I have lived almost every second that I can remember in captivity, going from one captor to the next. Some were better than others, but all of them were cruel and impossible to escape. Sometimes I was stolen, but most of the time, I was bought. Although slavery had been outlawed years ago, the authorities seemed to always look the other way when my kind was involved. I was always treated like I was an animal, a piece of property, just for being born different.

I am a mutant. I was born with speckled brown and white wings, like some kind of weird bird. They grow out from in between my shoulder blades. I also have hollow but extremely strong bones, to make me lighter and more nimble. My cage and collar kept these attributes from earning me my freedom, but they have been useful to each of my 'masters', if they could control the person connected to them. Sadly, they could most if the time, through physical or emotional pain.

I had been used for many things, but my latest captor had taken to illegal mutant fighting. It's like dog fighting, but much more 'interesting', if you find mutants being set against each other to seriously injure or kill their opponent interesting. The problem was the fact that I wasn't a good fighter. I had lost every one, always coming back at death's door. I didn't want to hurt them, those people who had gotten tossed into that cage, terrified and alone, just like me. It was a terrible choice for anyone to make. We had to fight, or we'd die, but I refused to be the one to actually hurt my opponent.

Although I had been born in England and had lived there with person after person most of my life, my most recent master was German. He took me all across Europe, trying to win, but I always failed him. Eventually, he grew tired of treating my injuries just for me to lose again, and decided to bet everything, including my life, on a fight in East Berlin. It was a fight to the death, and I was terrified. You kept playing and earning money until your mutant died or won the whole thing. First prize included a huge sum of money and first picks on any useful parts of the dead mutants (that idea still makes me shudder). I would either become a murderer at this place or finally end this miserable life of mine. I hoped that my death would be quick.

As I sat in my prison, my thoughts began to wander into a darker corner of my mind, a corner that has slowly been growing in size and power. Maybe.... maybe I wouldn't have to die in that ring. No... no! I refused to! I wouldn't give them the satisfaction. Frantically searching the trailer, I found the shard of metal that I had cut myself with by accident just a few days before. I slowly pressed it against my wrist, wincing when blood began to well. I took a deep breath. "You can do this," I thought. "It's not like you have anything to live for." Before I could even make a decision, however, the truck jerked to a stop, and I cried out as the metal ripped a long cut into my arm.

At first, I panicked, but then I realized that we couldn't be at the warehouse yet. We had barely travelled an hour. I peeked out of the small slit towards the ceiling with bars across it, that was supposed to pass as a window. I saw posters everywhere for something called the Munich Circus. Most of the posters that I could see showed a mischievous-looking young man that was all blue with a tail and yellow eyes. All of the posters with him on it said, "Come see the Incredible Nightcrawler!" It seemed that he was the star. I only heard my captor mutter something about "valuable" and "circus freak" to a group of men who had walked up to him. They gestured him away, and I immediately began to feel sorry for the poor thing that was going to end up with me. I looked down at the metal shard, then my arm. I sighed and ripped a strip off of my rag of a shirt. I couldn't leave that person alone with these terrible people, whoever they were.

Hours later, my 'master' came back with a large bag being dragged behind him. As he opened my trailer, he pointed a wicked looking taser at me. I quickly scrambled back into a corner, folding my wings around me. He waved the taser at me threateningly. Practically feeling the electricity ripping through me, I flinched, wings folding more tightly against myself, feathers ruffling. He laughed cruelly before grabbing a large board to separate the trailer into two sides, each open to the door. What he didn't notice as he nailed the board in, was that the end closest to the wall didn't touch. In fact, it left a large enough gap for me to slip through. Every time the person in the bag began to come around, he paused in his work to knock them unconscious with the butt of his hammer. When the board was finally secure, he dumped the contents of the bag roughly into the cage. I didn't dare peek right then, just in case he noticed. Tossing in a food and water dish in after them, he slammed the door.