3. My Angel #2
Sometimes, I worry my father will send someone to collect my body. Other times, I think he truly left me here to rot. What better place to bury a person than in a condemned garden that no one visits.
A flashlight shines through the slats of the shed. I wish it were daytime so I could see her in the natural light. I’ll have to settle for the one on her phone.
The door handle jostles, and a tiny girl wearing a black raincoat enters.
“Hey. Can you take this?” she asks, unaware that my eyes are open and I’m watching her.
She hands me the phone. I shine it on her as she removes her coat and hangs it on a broken tree branch that juts through a hole where once was a brick.
When she turns, she runs her fingers through long, dark hair. The glossy strands curl at the ends.
“How are you feeling?” She takes off her sneakers and steps onto the blanket, lowering onto it and sitting with her legs crisscrossed.
Finally, her eyes meet mine. They’re citrine like my birthstone.
They’re also big and beautiful with long black lashes that curl toward her eyebrows.
Her skin tone is warm like honey, and her face is as storybook as her name.
She could be a fairy with those features.
And those lips. The bottom one is plumper than the top.
This girl will bring men to their knees one day.
She’s beyond what I had imagined, and I pictured all kinds of appearances based on her sweet voice, but this wasn’t one of them.
I hate that the innocence of her face doesn’t match the depth in her eyes.
It stirs the demon in me who wants to tear apart the source of her anguish, but I’m too weak for the beast to rise and act on the promise of retribution I made to myself earlier.
I redirect my focus to my savior. “Fable,” I say her name, loving how it suits her. “It’s nice to officially meet you.”
She smiles, and it brightens the dark shed like the sun eclipsed the moon.
“You can see!” She beams and springs forward, arms spread wide to hug me. She stops short before embracing me, her hands planted on the brick wall behind me, her face close to mine. “I could have just hurt you so bad. I wasn’t thinking.”
The scents of jasmine and vanilla wash over me.
She even smells like a fairy tale. I breathe in and commit the scent to memory.
The best thing I can do for this girl is remove myself from her presence, and quickly.
I have a plan to anonymously donate a large sum of money to her mother, so they can afford to stay away from her rotter of a father and never worry about him again—at least until I remove him from their lives permanently.
Fable, my angel, will grow up to live a beautiful, happy life like she deserves.
She pushes away from me and sits on her heels as she scans my body. My back rests against the brick wall, my legs are stretched out long, feet crossed at the ankles. The size difference between us is significant. She’s slight of frame too, but her hips are more woman than teenager.
Even so, had I met her outside of here and been around her age, I doubt I would have noticed her, which is a shame. She deserves to have someone aware of the beauty she beholds on the inside as much as the outside. She’ll get that one day.
The thought of another man in her future coats my insides with thick tar. I have no business feeling this way about her.
“I brought more to drink.” She digs in the jacket pocket and removes a bottle of water. “The Gatorade’s all gone. I’ll get more tomorrow.”
“I won’t be here.” It kills me to say that—to never see her again.
She sets the water next to me and glances at the door, her eyes tightening with thought. “Even if I could help you to the garden wall, I can’t get you over it. I’ll need a ladder, but I haven’t figured out how to get one without drawing attention.”
She’s still trying to help me. “You don’t need a ladder. I just need your phone. I have a friend who can help me.”
“Oh.” Her features fall with the word.
Is she sad to see me go or sad that she couldn’t be the one to get me out of here?
She blinks, and her eyes widen. “There’s no service out here.”
Is that joy in her voice? “I have a plan. I’m going to write a message in your notes with a number. I need you to text it to the person when you have service. Can you do that for me?”
She nods, even as her features fall again. From her back pocket, she produces her phone.
I take it and type a cryptic text.
I’ve been left for dead in the abandoned garden at the back of Hale Manor. I’m too hurt to scale the ten-foot wall. Bring help and get me the fuck out of here. No one can know, especially the owners.
I add his number and give the phone back to her.
She reads it. “You didn’t sign it.”
“He’ll know who it’s from. He won’t text back either. Delete the message and number after you send it. No one can know.”
She nods and pockets the phone. “When do you think he’ll come get you?”
I rest my head against the brick wall. “If you send that when you leave here, hopefully sometime tomorrow afternoon or night.”
Her lips curve with a frown that tugs at my heart. “Will I ever see you again?”
I shake my head.
She bites her bottom lip and stares at the blanket. “Can you at least tell me your name?”
As soon as I tell her, she’ll know who I am and who she’s been helping. It’s better for her if she knows nothing about me. “You can call me whatever you want. Bear. Big guy.”
She laughs, but it lacks enthusiasm. “Will you be needing anything else before you go?”
I shouldn’t say this, but the way she frowns at me, as if I were dying, has me nodding to the space beside me. “I’d like you to sit with me and tell me everything you can about yourself.”
Her face brightens a little. She moves next to me and stretches out her lean legs. It’s hard for me to believe anyone, let alone her father, could ever hurt someone so small.
If she were mine, I’d protect her from everyone and everything. I’d make her smile until tears of happiness filled those citrine eyes.