The Gangster's Angel

Jess — It was another cold night. Every night was pretty much the same, my step father would come home drunk and yell at me for a few moments before passing out on the couch. Since my mother passed away, our once warm and welcoming home has turned into a place of hell for me. Occasionally my step brother, Alex, would show up and they would have a yelling match between the two of them. Alex cared in his own way, but his life was too mess up to be of any real help. He got caught up in the wrong crowd when he graduated high school. The kind of crowd that you didn’t mess with if you wanted to stay alive. He would come home beat up with a black eye or a busted lip, and then eventually he stopped coming home at all. Now it is just the occasional visit. I was going to be eighteen in a couple of months and then I would be out of here as well. I worked a part time job at the library and would babysit a couple of the neighborhood kids. My step father would take most of the money, but I was able to tuck away a pretty good sum of money. Right now I had about three thousand saved up. Alex has tried to convince me to come away with him. That there was a room where he was staying that I could have. But honestly the men that Alex hangs out with scares me more than my step father. After my stepfather crashed this evening I went to my room and grabbed my hoodie and my backpack. I was going to be babysitting a couple of kids tonight while their mom worked. My stepfather never minded me staying out, he just liked to know how much money I was going to be making. So I always preferred to leave when he was out cold. I walked out the front door and headed out. Their house was just a few blocks down from ours, so it was an easy walk. It was past seven and there wasn’t a whole lot of people out and about right now. It wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods, but I had lived here most of my life, so I had gotten used to it. Mostly just keep your head down and don’t make eye contact with anyone. “What’s up kitten?” I heard a man shout at me. I just kept walking. It wasn’t that much further to their house. “Aww, ya going to ignore me?” He hollered again. “She’s not worth it man, it looks like she is just a kid anyways,” said his friend. “Whatever, let’s head to the club, there will be some real women there, who are actually worth looking at,” he said angrily. Loud enough so that I would hear him. I was thankful that ended up going no where. Although I had been taking self defense classes since I was twelve, I don’t think it would have ended well, me against three men. A couple minutes later I arrived on the doorstep of the family I would be babysitting for. Nia was the sweetest thing ever, she was a single mom who had lost her husband a couple years ago. A drunk driver had slammed into his car and he didn’t make it. Nia had two of the sweetest little kids as well. I always enjoyed being a part of their family when Nia needed a babysitter. “Thanks so much Jess for coming on such short notice! I shouldn’t be too long, my mother just needs some help with paperwork, she is planning on moving and wanted to make sure she wasn’t being taken advantage of,” Nia told me. “Not a problem! I love Josh and Nelle, they are so sweet!” I said giving them some candy that I had brought with me. “They are like the younger siblings I never had.” “Well, maybe not too much candy Jess, they will be bouncing off the walls for you this evening,” she laughed and put on her jacket. Giving both the kids a hug and gave me one as well. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours,” she said as she left. “Hopefully the kids will be asleep before nine.” She winked at us and then left. I had played with them for an hour and then they started to get tired, so I read them a book and they both passed out. After I tucked them in I headed to the living room to sit on the couch. I pulled out my phone and started to scroll for some more part time jobs. I wanted to get some things lined up for when I moved out. The few thousand I had saved up was a good start, but wouldn’t last me for long. My phone lit up and I got a text from Alex. “Hey, when you get a chance can you give me a call. It’s too much to text. Sooner rather than later, it’s important.” Usually when Alex sent me “important texts” he was in need of some money. Usually owed the wrong kind of person. I didn’t really feel like calling him so I decided to just text him back. “I’m busy right now. Can you just text me?” I saw the three dots appear, he was typing up something for me. He must really need some money if he is getting back so quickly. “Don’t go home tonight. Dad got into some trouble. It isn’t safe for you.” He texted me. “What do you mean? I just left home a couple hour ago and he was passed out on the couch. What trouble could he have gotten into?” I asked him. “I can come pick you up later, you can stay with me or I can drop you off somewhere, but going home isn’t an option for you tonight,” he texted me. Even though my stepfather and I didn’t get along, I didn’t really wish harm on him. At least not the kind of harm that Alex was implying. I looked at the time and was wondering when Nia was going to get back. I kept glancing at the time every couple minutes, and finally I heard Nia’s car pull up. When she came in she thanked me again for watching the kids and handed me thirty dollars. After I thanked her I grabbed my coat and backpack and headed home. I’m not sure what was going to be waiting for me, but everything inside of me was telling me to go home. Luckily I hadn’t run into any more drunk or creepy men on my way back. I was only a couple of houses down and I could see some black cars parked in front of our house. I don’t know what possessed me, but I kept walking towards the house. I could hear some yelling and glass shattering inside the house. I pulled out my phone, I was going to call the police, when someone grabbed my arm. I looked up and it was some man, who was wearing all black, and his hair slicked back. You could see a tattoo going down his neck. You could tell that he was trouble. “I’ve got her,” Said a familiar voice. I looked behind me and it was Alex. I was surprised to see him here and that he knew this man. The man with the tattoo on his neck looked at Alex and then released my hand, shoving me at Alex. “Get her out of here,” he grunted and then he walked into the house. “Alex, what is going on?” I asked while I frantically tried to see what was going on inside the house. “I need it get you out of here, there’s people here that you don’t want to meet,” he said while pulling me away. “Are they going to..” I stopped, I couldn’t even finish my sentence. “Dad betrayed the wrong person. It wasn’t too big of a thing, so he will live, but they can’t just let him go, it wouldn’t look good,” Alex said. As we were walking away, a man stepped out of the front door of our house. He was tall, hair perfectly messed up falling in front of his face. His eyes were dark and he had a scowl on his face. Two more men walked out after him and then made their way back to their cars. “You have no idea how close you were to meeting him,” Alex said