The Angel with Papery Wings [prequel]

ch.1 Twenty One

Do not read this story. If you're searching for a happy tale, put this book down. I do not like to be rude, especially not to strangers, but I must be honest and warn you that my story won't make you smile.

Just put this book down. Don't bother getting caught up in reading about my time in prison or the girl that used me or the shy one that I ended up stalking...

Are you still holding my book? Are you deaf? I told you to put this shit down. But if you think you have the balls to continue reading, then so be it. 

I think I should start my telling you who I am, but that shit is boring. Plus, I don't really know who I am. They gave me a number: 21 and I guess it's supposed to correspond to how many kids they've successfully stuck on this floor of the prison.

The only thing that connects me to the incident and my past-- which was literally a week ago, but feels like decades-- is my leather jacket. It's not my jacket, it's Sergeant's. Sergeant is-was my biological father. He didn't like to be called "dad," instead, he ordered me and my mom and my older sister, Gemma, to call him by his Vietnam Veteran's title.

I don't want to talk about Sergeant, but that's the only thing these robotic bastards at this damn facility keep asking me about. What was your relationship with your father? How did he die? Why were your hands drenched in his blood?

The truth is, I don't really have an answer for those shrinks in their prissy white coats. I've been here for about a week. They stuck me here after the courts decided I'm "guilty by reason of insanity," and being 13, I'm not exactly an adult. I'm like the fly on the wall; everyone wants to get rid of me, but I'm always there, pestering around.

I guess I'll just tell you what I've done so I can get it off my chest and maybe get out of this shit hole a little earlier. The incident is probably in the newspapers and on the T.V. by this point, but I don't really give a rat's ass. They've stuck me in this bleak room made of four white walls and a rickety chair that can't even hold the weight of my marble ashtray.

I stuck my hands in my pockets and pulled out a tiny ball of beautifully smelly leaves, stuffed all compact and ready to be burned. I tore out a piece of paper from my journal and shoved it inside a metal pipe I had found in the bathroom. These pricks with their labcoats leave shit lying around like a bunch of idiots. I shoo my head. And yet they're the ones with PhD's.

Swiftly, I stuffed my hand into my pillow and tugged my lighter out and kissed it. This baby is the only thing that'll keep my sane while I'm at a mental hospital. Oh, the irony. Fitzgerald would have loved that. I wish I could write like Fitzgerald...

Quietly, I flicked my lighter and held the end to the tip of my makeshift joint and took a long breath. I had stolen the stub of weed from a guy walking down the street and stuck it in the roof of my mouth when the cops searched me before they stuck me in jail. I had to air it out before I got to use it, or else it would lose its potency.

Now I probably shouldn't get high in the mental ward of a prison, but they think I'm crazy and since when did crazy people follow the rules?

p.s. Matchbox 20- Unwell, fits the first few chapters very well :]

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NOTE: Technically, you can read this book before you finish reading my KNIGHT saga (4 books total, under my profile). But, I highly recommend reading this book AFTER you have completed the saga. This novel is written in Harry's POV and it recaps many events in the saga, therefore it will give away many details that aren't displayed so bluntly in the saga. Thanks! :]

-Mariam Xx