Angel (sample)

Trapped in a life not of her own making, Angel doesn’t see a way out until the most unexpected hero arrives to rescue her. Surviving everything life throws at her is one thing but surviving the rescue is another – her old life won’t let her go easily. Even in freedom, the chains of old still hold us down.

**warning: scenes of violence, assault, explicit sexuality and language**

ANGELINA, A LITTLE DREAM

When I was adopted, it was the best day of my life – I was eleven. Up until then I had shuffled from foster home to foster home, the frequency increasing the older I got – no one wanted a kid my age about to go through puberty and all of the fun that comes with it, I guess.

No one until Mama.

Mama didn’t care – in fact, she loved that I was older and not a baby like everyone else wanted. She signed the papers after we met one time and took me home as soon as she could – I’d never felt love like that before, ever. My biological mother died during childbirth, at least that is what the story that travelled along with me is and no one knows anything about my father.

Sperm donor is more like it.

He never came back for me so after my mother died, I went into the system until Mama found me and took me to her home and what a home it was! I got my own room with a canopied bed, balcony and bathroom! There was even a closet full of clothes just for me that I didn’t have to share or leave behind when I move on because I wouldn’t be moving on – ever, because I was home.

For the first time in my life – someone wanted me.

Someone loved me.

I remember waking up that first morning in my new room, in my new life and feeling nothing but joy and excitement for the future I now had before me. Before that I was looking at seven more years of being carted around until I finally aged out of the system then who knows what would have happened to me – but not anymore, because now I had a home.

I had a family.

I had a Mama.

I lived the most amazing life for five years. I went to school and had sleepovers with my best friends, hung out at the mall for endless hours and crushed on older boys that would never give me a second glance. They were typical, adolescent years only I had no idea how special they were – how much I was going to end up cherishing every minute of them, missing them, regretting not doing more or spending more time ‘living’ while I had the chance.

Because I don’t have the opportunity anymore.

My life is no longer my own.

It hasn’t been for three long years already – the last year though… the last year has changed me. Mama was so good to me when she brought me home – bought me everything I needed and even things I just simply wanted; I was dizzy with glee over the positive change my life had taken. I quickly forgot everyone I had left behind, focusing all of my time and attention on Mama and becoming the person she wanted me to be. I dressed the way she wanted, acted the way she asked me to and when she needed me to quit school the minute it was legal for me to do so at sixteen, I did so willingly.

She’s Mama – she knows what is best for me.

It was only going to be temporary – she needed my help with her business. Things were getting busy at the hotel she ran which was great but the extra workload had meant she hadn’t hired an extra cleaner which is where I was going to come in. After everything she had done for me, it was the least I could do and again – it was only going to be short-term. I was going to resume school in the fall after she had a chance to get caught up, which my helping her out would allow her to do.

Win-win for everyone.

So I dropped out – temporarily, to help Mama at the hotel. I cleaned rooms – changing sheets, cleaning bathrooms, that sort of thing, all the necessities of keeping that kind of a business running. I remember being confused and asking Mama about how often I would have to clean the rooms, sometimes six to eight times in one night which made no sense to me. Didn’t people rent rooms to sleep overnight? Mama had a story or explanation for everything and I was the gullible daughter eager to believe whatever she tells me, even if it makes no sense.

Some rooms have ‘bad vibes’ so people don’t stay.

She says it is an easy money maker to rent them out anyways which always sounded like underhanded business to me but who was I to say anything? If that many people were looking to rent the rooms at Mama’s hotel, it was putting the clothes on my back so I shouldn’t complain.

Turns out, I should have.

I was kept in the ‘background’ for two years, cleaning the ‘haunted’ rooms for my always busy Mama. I never did go back to school – Mama always promised but time and time again, nothing would happen until I finally stopped asking. I scarcely went outside anymore; I was so busy with the business that I didn’t have time for anything else. All of the pretty clothes Mama had bought me over the years sat in the closet, collecting dust as I wore my new uniform which was introduced about a year after I started working there. I tried to argue with Mama when I saw it – it reminded me of the cliched ‘French maid’ outfit so much so that it was embarrassing. The skirt scarcely covered my behind while the neckline dipped dangerously low in front – I’d have to be careful bending over, in both directions. Mama didn’t listen to any of my protestations and insisted the new uniforms gave hotel ‘distinction’ and so for the next year, when I was awake, that became all I wore.

Because when I was awake, that’s all I did.

I worked at the hotel. I had no other life anymore – no school, no friends, no social life whatsoever. Everything and everyone I once held dear had completely disappeared and I was alone except for Mama… and the cleaning job she made me do. But after two years of cleaning, everything changed – my entire world – my entire life.

I turned eighteen.