GUARDIAN ANGEL
A.F Lanley

Nobody recognizes the signs; or at least, they didn’t in me. But I see someone, and I’ll know. Because I experienced it. And once I know, I will save them. I will find the ones that hurt them. And I will make them pay.

I can’t run from what I am. I wouldn’t.

I embrace it.

“Ah!”

“Shut up you little bitch- you never should have been born! I don’t know what I was THINKING!”

So it started.

A grunt was heard as the woman kicked the girl hard enough to break a rib.

"Should have killed you the moment you came out of my stomach you little rat!"

“Mommy please!” The little girl’s voice cried; weak, but still pleading.

But the hate-filled rant continued.

“What? You’re nothing, NOTHING, do you hear me? Just like your good for nothing father-”

SLAP

Another cry.

The figure sneaks through the window, silently, bonelessly, and steps lightly to the outside of the doorway.

“-who left because of you! YOU! You bitch, he hated you and that’s why he left me!”

The figure nimbly spins into the doorway just as the woman punches the child, leaving a cut along her cheek from a cheap ring.

Wordlessly, the silent house-breaker grabbed the woman’s neck, cutting off her ranting, and tightened her fingers. Slowly.

The child lay huddled in the corner, oblivious to what was going on and afraid to open her eyes lest her mother starts beating her again.

Then, suddenly, the mysterious figure in black released the woman, who had just begun to black out, and yanks her around to face itself; so the woman could look into the angry brown eyes and see the chilling smile.

The woman let out a gasp, and the child peeked up in time to see the feminine figure shove her abuser's, her mother’s neck onto the figure’s harsh, unforgiving knee, that had come up with blinding speed.

To see her mother die.

The child tried to push herself farther into the wall, beyond terrified of this new development, as the killer walked swiftly towards her, but all she felt as she closed her eyes in wait for her imminent death was a gloved hand brushing away her tears, and a soft kiss against her forehead.

When the five-year old opened her eyes a second later, the figure was gone.