The room had the image of a sad man, as did the man who sat in the center of it with head hung down. The black curtains draped over were slashed and cut, with holes made from metal bullets. Though their color was fading to a gloomy grey like the skies that day. It reeked of a bar, with alcohol filling the atmosphere and breathing air. It was hinted with the scent of cigar. The sight was horrid as clutters of mess covered the floors with unclean clothes, and stains of blood hardened to the floor. This was hell, but this was also a home. And Cosette was that angel within that hell.
“Daddy?” Cosette said, barely a whisper.
Keegan Sterling buried his face within his greasy, dirt hands. Though he didn’t look up at his only daughter. The woman who conceived his Angel was the one he let slip through his fingers. So gorgeous. So stunning. So pure. But pure never did survive in a world such as his. The violence of the Chicago streets was no place for a goddess of her grace, as it wasn’t for his Little Angel. Though that didn’t stop her, because he didn’t intend to let her slip either.
Aphrodite escaped his grasp. She was free from the evil that lay underneath that skin that once touched her heart. Though he was a man of no word, but a maniac mind whose words were as sharp as Zeus’ bolt. That day she ran, but Cosette could never run as long as he was alive. Even then his friends knew her, saw her, cared for her for the most part and made a promise to her father: “Never let my Little Angel go.”
That day before those friends betrayed him, making a deal with a rival. A man with great power who always envied Keegan and Keegan to him. They wanted what the other had, but Keegan had nothing. Those years ever since he met Aphrodite everything became lost and out of reach. He had nothing to lose which was why the only thing he had he wasn’t going to let go. A man of evil mind, yet with a heart of gold that warmed up for his daughter after nearly killing her in her mother’s womb.
“Daddy?” Cosette whispered louder, creaking his bedroom door open.
Her neighbor that cared for her, taught her and fed her as a baby always told her to never bother her father at times like such. Grandma Harriet had always said, “Cosette, you must not ever bother your father. He is capable of great, dangerous things. He might hurt you.”
“He wouldn’t do that. He loves me.”
Cosette walked into his room, her footsteps creaking on the hard wooden floor. But she walked slowly and gracefully, holding her ragged doll close to her chest. Her heart was warm of love that could never be crumbled. Although she was not pure from the things she had seen, and even heard, she still believed in hope in every soul. Though that hope would sink someday sooner or later, and unfortunately destiny meant sooner.
Her small fragile fingers touched her father’s arm in hope to give him comfort. Though Keegan didn’t move, grumbled a curse underneath his breath. He had lost all, and now he didn’t want to deal with his blood. So he told her in a louder voice, “Cosette, go.”
“Daddy…” Cossette insisted. Her lips pursed as she climbed onto his bed next to him. “I’m sorry. Those men were mean…” She knew everything that had happened. Keegan had no time to bring her to the neighbor’s when they came but hid her in the closet of his room. There she stayed silent, hugging her dove that was barely recognizable anymore and stained of muck. It was her prized possession that no one could ever say different about. “I’m proud of you though.”
The men had left his side. Men he once called friends and are now traitors and enemies. He was pissed and a volcano ready to erupt. Cosette saw her father shoot one of them in the head when he found out and they tried to take him with them. Though he fought killing one of three men. The blood splattered and from where she sat right then she could still see it and smell it. But over the years she had grown used to it. She was pale as a ghost, hardly seeing day unless with Grandma. She didn’t went to school, so the old woman taught her how to read, write and everything anyone should know.
“Honestly. Pinky promise even, daddy. Mommy would be proud too.”
“But she would be! She would be proud how you raised me, protected me, and she would hate those men.”
“Don’t talk of your mother.”
“Why not…? It’s true… Grandma said I have her eyes. Is it true?”
Then it came. All her questions sparked that eruption and there she was. A cold, hard smack across her face so hard it knocked her to the ground and her dove into the harden blood from the night before. The tears fell from her eyes, “D-Daddy…?” She whimpered through the sobs.
Though he never said he was sorry or comforted. Instead he fell to his knees to her, grabbed her by her shoulder and shook her. He yelled and shouted at her, calling her names, saying she would never be like her mother. That her mother was a slut, trash, and was rotting in hell. “Don’t you ever talk about her! You hear that, Little Angel? Don’t you ever speak her name again! Forget her! She is nothing. She is gone and will never come back for you. She’s gone.”
Cosette nodded, tears blurring her eyes. She tried to crawl away to her dove, but no. He pulled her by her legs back and Cosette cried out. “Stop! It hurts!” Then Grandma entered, “Cosette!”
Keegan groaned, picking up Cosette by the back of her shirt and threw her to the bed. Cosette cried, shouting for her daddy not to hurt Grandma. Then it came. Keegan blamed Grandma for putting the thoughts into Cosette’s head about her mother. He took the old lady who didn’t cry. He pulled her by the white hair on her head and kicked her knees to buckle to the ground. The old woman said right before it came, “Be brave, Cosette.”
Keegan took out the shotgun from his show, pulled the trigger and shot. There lay the old woman in a puddle of her own blood. Cosette saw it, smelt it, heard it. Then she heard the doorbell. Keegan only shouted, “What the fuck now?”
“Stay here,” he shouted to Cosette to get the door. When he left, slamming the door behind him Cosette ran to Grandma. She cried, holding her in her small now blood stained arms. “I’m sorry. I’m s-sorry…” So she closed the old lady’s eyes. “Rest in peace, Grandma…”
“Get out!” Cosette heard her father shout.
That was when she peeked out the door and into the hallway. Keegan shouted a number of things, and kept doing so to the man who stood at their door. Cosette starred from around the corner. Her eyes met the man’s warm brown ones. He was tall, built, and had brown shaggy hair. Though his face was welcoming, as he stayed calm talking to her father. Then he said, “Cosette?”
“Who are you?” she muttered, wiping the tears from her face. But the blood wipes on her face and Hephaestus saw.
“I’m a friend of your moth-”
“Get out!” Keegan shouted at the man. “Don’t you dare come back here or come near her!”
Then he took out a gun, pointing it at his face. “Get out of my house.”
Hephaestus saw the trauma in Cosette’s eyes from that night, and didn’t want more to be added. So he nodded, walking out. But Cosette was done even for such a young girl. So she ran into her room, grabbed her suitcase, put some clothes in it and climbed out the window. Out the window she then remembered her dove, and ran back to get it, sneaking passed her father. It was stained but she didn’t care, because Grandma gave it to her. Then she climbed down the fire escape when she heard her father yell her name. But she never did look back until she saw the man who said he knew her mother ahead.
“Wait!” Cosette cried, dragging her suitcase hearing it thump against the ground.
Hephaestus turned and saw Cosette, and so he took her with him. He took the Angel to Heaven… or Olympus in this case.
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