Angel of Death

Chapter 1

I wake up drenched in sweat, the blankets in a lump on the floor. Another nightmare about my parents in their car crash. "Breathe" I tell myself, "Breathe." I can hear my mothers voice telling me, "It's only a nightmare. To separate your nightmares from your reality, name things you know are true." I say quietly to myself, "My name is Angeli Castel. I am 16 years old. My parents were killed in a car crash when I was 10. I have been living at Silverwood's Orphanage in Aberdeen Gardens, Washington ever since."

I climb out of bed and peel off my tank top and put on my favorite sweatshirt. I glance at my sweatpants and decide they are presentable enough. It gets cold in Washington and Silverwood doesn't have any heating. In fact Silverwood doesn't have anything. On the sign out front the "w", the "r", and the two "o" are scratched out, so its "Silve....d house."

I jump down the stairs, hoping for muffins, but, like every other morning, I'm disappointed with the smell of slightly stale bread with oatmeal. I sit in my spot at the table. "Angeli, Angeli!" Emma cries out from the living room. Emma Detillion is the youngest one in Silverwood, only five years old with bright red hair and freckles to match mine. I was lucky to even have known my parents. She bounced from foster home to foster home after her parents dropped her off on the side of the road. She's been at Silverwood for a year now.

"Hey Em!" I say, as I spin her around like she loves for me to do. "We got a new boy, and I can tell he's cute too! I bet you'd like him!" I smiled. She is always trying to make new friends for me, because I'm more of a bookworm than a "social butterfly" as Mrs. Green, the head cook of Silverwood, says. "Oh yeah? What's his name?" She giggles, "It's a funny name, it sounds like the candy!" She points to her M&M pajama shorts. "Does it now?" She pushes me towards the stairs and I grab my bread after taking one look at the oatmeal and deciding not to gag it down for the third morning in a row. "Where are we going?" I ask her with a laugh. "Upstairs silly! You have to look pretty for candy boy! I will even help you so you will look extra pretty!" I laughed again, "Thank you Emma, I bet I will look like a princess!"

So we head up to my room and Emma goes straight to the closet and picks out my white lace dress. "This one." She says rather demandingly. I stop dead in my tracks. Mom, it was my moms. It was the dress she wore to her engagement party to marry my dad. I took it from Emma. It still smelled like her. Roses with a hint of vanilla. "A little too dressy Em, sorry. Let's pick another one." She huffed, "Fine." I carefully smoothed it and put it back in the closet on it's hanger.

After about an hour of hot pinks and neon purples, we finally decided for me to wear a white sweater with some jeans and my boots. I thought I was a bit plain. My cheeks are always red and my green eyes are a stark contrast to my black hair, the freckles that dotted my face didn't help either. My eyes were always a little empty, dull even, not bright green like they used to be before the accident with my parents. I shook the thought from my head. "Well I'm no princess, but what do you think Em?" Emma squealed with delight, "It's perfect! If he isn't in love with you when he sees you he's weirder than the oatmeal we have every morning!" I laughed again. Emma was such a happy person, you couldn't be around her without laughing or smiling at least once. I wish I was like that sometimes.

By the time we got downstairs it was around 12:00 P.M. and so we sat and watched some tv show about Barbie. After about thirty minutes I heard a knock on the door. "Mrs. Wood!" I yelled. She is one of the three caretakers of Silverwood, and the nicest of the three. Ms. White wasn't so bad, but Ms. Hill was about as nice as a viper. Though they all wore the same perfume. It was a dreadful smell, it resembled something floral in nature but to me it always smelled like dying flowers. A sickly sweet smell almost. Mrs. Wood is a plump sort of woman so by the time she got from the top of the stairs to the door, she was red faced. "It must be the new boy," she said. Emma smiles at me about as big as a smile could ever get, and elbows me to the point that my arm is red. Mrs. Wood opens the door and a boy came in just about a head taller than me, with sandy colored hair, very contrasting to mine, and eyes as blue as the ocean. He wore a blue shirt and dark jeans, and you could see his muscles by the way his broad shoulders stretched the thin shirt across his back. I breathed out. He was gorgeous.

"Welcome to Silverwood!" Mrs. Wood says over enthusiastically. She motions us over and Emma practically drags me to the door. Everyone else in Silverwood comes down the stairs Claire Brown who is about 12 with blonde hair always in braided pigtails. Morgan Reddington who is 17 and the drama queen of the house and she has a right to be with her gorgeous... Well her gorgeous everything. Logan Hurst who is 8 and lives to pull pranks on anyone and everyone, he's sort of funny looking with his crooked teeth and carrot colored hair. Finally we have Cameron Willis who is 16, and an absolute jerk, even if he is a cute one. He sort of has that surfer look with the bleach blonde hair.

"This is our dear little Emma, Claire, Morgan, Logan, and Cameron," Mrs. Wood says. "Wait Mrs. Wood you forgot our most valuable member! Little miss Angeli!" Cameron sneers. Everyone laughs at me and I'm pretty sure my cheeks get redder than they already were.
"So you're candy boy," I say under my breath, as I glanced at him. He chuckles at something, probably at the growing redness of my cheeks. There's no way he could of heard me. "Now tell us your name," Mrs. Wood encourages him like he's 9 years old.

He speaks with a clear, deep, and oaky toned voice, "Mortem Collins but you can call me Collin if you want. I'm 17 by the way." Morgan batts her eyes at him and sticks out her bottom lip, "I'll show him around! I'll be sure I give him the full tour," she says, attempting to be seductive. I rolled my eyes. "I'll bet that's what you'll do," I said under my breathe. Mortem laughed again. What was so funny? "Actually Morgan I need your help in the kitchen and the rest of you clean your rooms. Angeli is the only one around here with some sense of order. You can show him around since you've finished your chores yesterday." I'm pretty sure I froze right then and there.