Through the closed door of her bedroom, she could hear shouting. She knew where those shouting came from: her parents' room. Though she didn't know why they were shouting at each other, she knew that they weren't always like that. They used to be so nice towards each other. Her father used to teased her mother and her mother would blushed and laughed. She liked those days, they were happy then. What happened?
There was no reason why they hated each other now. Perhaps because of her. Maybe she was too naughty and she made her mother so angry that she shouted at her father. It was all her fault. More tears flowed.
A crash sounded like a shot of cannon in the silence of the night, the little angel burrowed deeper into the covers, whimpering softly in fear. More shouts ensued. Then ominous silence settled like a thick blanket of fog in the house. Was it over?
The little angel waited for an eternity in her warm little cocoon before she gathered enough courage to creep to the door with Teddy in the crook of her right arm to ease the door open to peek out into the empty doorway. A movement at the top of the staircase caught her eye. It was her stylish mother, suitcase in hand, wearing a furious expression and shoving at her father who looked fit enough to kill.
"Where do you think you're going, Sylvia?" her father hissed, grabbing her mother's upper arm in a painful grip.
"Away from you, you monster!" her mother's voice was low and vicious. "If you think I'm going to stay here and listen to your insults, you're sadly mistaken! I'm filing for divorce and for Danette's custody! We are going to remove ourselves from your life before you destroy us both!" She yanked her arm from her husband's punishing grip. Several things happened at once.
Her husband's face turned an ugly shade of purple in his anger and he lifted his arms to reach for her mother's throat, snarling, "You bitch!"
Her mother's silvery gray eyes dilated with fear and she took a hastened step back from her enraged husband. Her heels didn't touch solid ground. With a shrill shriek of desperation, she fell backwards.
Her father's face was one of horror as his wife's hand reached out at the last moment to grab hold of his shirtfront. With a terror-filled shout of 'No!', they both tumbled down the long winding stairs.
The little angel stood stunned for a moment before rushing back to bed, tears no longer flowing. As she pulled the covers over her little body, her mind was burying what she saw in the depths of her mind where only in her deepest nightmare she would see it again. Her little heart crystallized to an impenetrable one of precious diamond. No one would be able to hurt her now. No one.
Downstairs, servants came awake and rushed out front. When they saw the entwined broken bodies of their master and mistress, they ran around like chickens who had lost their heads. Only Baxter, their butler remained calmed enough to instruct them to stay in the dining room and call the ambulance.
Chapter One
Back to the ALIL Index
Back to the Hosted Stories Page
Back to the Main Page