Chapter 1
Angel stared into the mirror, seeing a reflection far different to the one she’d had a year ago. Her nose was straight now, leaner, the bumps and crookedness gone. Her cheekbones were the same as before but without the scars that had covered them previously. Turning her face to the left, she saw her honey brown eyes surrounded by smooth skin, not the scar tissue that used to be there. Thinking back to a year ago, she remembered how the slightest touch would send an ache deep into the broken bones under her skin. Her jaw had been so broken that her face was misshapen. She could remember the blood, the pain, and the bruising that took months to go away.
That was all gone now thanks to a charity for battered people operating out of New England called ROSE. An organization dedicated to helping people, who were victims of domestic violence, regain their self-esteem by repairing cosmetic damage to their bodies, even going so far as to repair dental injuries for these battered people. ROSE had paid for all of her surgeries and the therapy she’d needed after her husband, Michael, tried to kill her. He’d almost succeeded too.
Angel looked in the mirror, losing focus on her eyes as her brain replayed that night in her mind. She had married Michael when she was nineteen, and totally oblivious to the ways of the world. He’d virtually kept her a prisoner, only allowing her to leave their home if he went with her. She wasn’t allowed visitors and he never brought anyone home with him. Angel wasn’t even allowed to see her father, a widower who was in frail health.
A year into their marriage the abuse had begun, first with just a slap when she broke his favorite coffee mug, then escalating to full on assaults that saw her knocked to the floor and kicked until she screamed piteously. He broke her ribs after he found out she was pregnant. She wasn’t pregnant long around Michael. He’d kicked her until she lost both of the babies that she’d conceived.
That final night, Michael snapped when he found out that instead of being left millions in her father’s will, Angel was only left a few hundred thousand dollars unless she divorced him. If she divorced Michael she’d get all of the money, otherwise it was going to a shelter for battered women. Michael had accused her of conspiring with her father to humiliate him, whom she hadn’t spoken to since her wedding day nine years ago. He told her that the only reason he’d married her was because of the money, that he’d always had a mistress who had his children, and that he was only waiting for the money so he could get rid of her. His verbal humiliation included telling her how useless she was, how she wasn’t any good in bed, how she disgusted him because she’d become overweight and ugly over time. Then he’d picked up the forks they’d received as wedding presents off of the kitchen table, and held her down as he used them to shred her face.
In anger, fueled by his violence against her, Michael had beaten her until every bone in her face was shattered, and both of her arms were broken in several places. Despite Angel’s obvious need for medical care, Michael left her to visit his mistress, telling Angel that if she had any kind of decency in her she’d die before he got back so he wouldn’t have to live with her anymore. He then left her in their home, deep in the woods of Maine, to die on her own.
Choking up blood, beyond feeling anything but pain and a desperate will to live, Angel waited for Michael to leave, waited until she couldn’t hear his truck on the gravel of their long driveway anymore. Then she slipped on her shoes, prized the door open with numb fingers, and walked out of the house and into town. She walked until someone in the street shouted when they saw Angel’s appearance. She then collapsed, waking up two weeks later in a hospital bed, covered in bandages and plaster casts.
Angel asked for a mirror when the nurse came in to change her bandages and wept as she saw her face bloody and bruised, covered in stitches and looking misshapen. A guard stood at her door, but no visitors came. Michael was in jail; apparently she’d told the doctors that treated her when she was admitted into hospital that Michael was the one who’d assaulted her. Angel didn’t remember anything but the beating, the words Michael spoke, and every single thing he’d done to her. She remembered it every single day of her life now.
Angel was learning to deal with it though. The newly smooth texture of her face no longer revealed the horrific scarring or damaged bones that it once had. She had a new face now, and it was much better than the one she’d had. The doctors had had to reshape her nose, jaw, and cheekbones, but the effect was attractive and not as horrifying as she thought it might be. Her old appearance; a tangled web of scars, had frightened small children and even adults. Now, now she could go out in public again without being stared at. Soon, she would be leaving the complex network of safe houses and secured buildings that she’d lived in for the last year.
She’d asked her father’s lawyer to donate the bulk of the money that she wasn’t going to receive to ROSE, or a similar non-profit organization. Michael refused to sign the divorce papers, so she wasn’t going to get the money but she hoped she could at least influence how it was used, in that small way. The organization had kept her safe, had helped her to heal, and now Michael was in jail. She was safe but she still wasn’t prepared to return to her home. She was taking her money and heading to Mexico, far away from Michael. She knew how the justice system in America worked; he was probably out of jail already, despite being imprisoned for five years for what he’d done to her. And he’d be coming for vengeance, if the letters he sent to the house via his mistress were any indication.
Angel put the mirror away, gathered up the few bags she had, and walked out of the room that had been her home for the last three months. She’d moved every few months, following doctors and hospitals to reclaim some of her dignity. She’d done that, and now she was going to live her life without the fear of her face making life harder. Now if she could just erase the emotional and mental scars Michael left her with, her life might be perfect.
A year later, Angel found herself emerging from the pool at her apartment, brushing her honey brown hair out of her eyes. Her hair tended to float around her head as she swam because it only came to her chin, which she thought must make a funny picture, but the heat of Mexico demanded that she either suffer with long hair or cut it. She’d lasted three months before she took a pair of scissors to it herself and cut it all off.
Looking around the complex in the moonlight, she couldn’t believe how unbelievably content she was. She’d come to Mexico and found an apartment for rent that was really just one big house turned into apartments. Angel still hadn’t seen anyone else in the other apartments, and that was just fine with her.
Her bad memories were starting to fade as well now. She wasn’t tormented nightly with the night terrors that left her as immobile as she’d been that last night with Michael, terrified to even make a sound in case it set off even more violence. Feeling too petrified to even fend off his attack, as the brutality of it increased. Her dreams were returning to a semblance of normalcy now, and she spent more time asleep at night, rather than showering to remove the sheen of sweat and fear from her body, while wishing the nightmares would wash away as easily as the sweat did. She’d even stopped thinking about suicide now; the will to live once sapped by the depression she suffered during the course of healing, surgeries, and worst of all; the night terrors that replayed the violence nightly. That depression was slowly fading now, replaced with the optimism and will to live that had gotten Angel this far.
Angel was losing weight now, becoming fit from her swimming and bike rides into the nearest town for supplies. She was busy painting artworks of the desert area she now lived in. Her therapy was starting to work, and the self-defense classes she’d taken gave her more confidence. She still wasn’t sure she could fend off Michael in psychotic rage mode, but she had more confidence she could get away from him at least. Being small and delicate had its disadvantages, but it also meant she could be wily when cornered.
Walking out of the pool, Angel wrapped her small frame with a towel that almost swallowed her. She was only one inch off five feet tall; towels could serve as blankets for her. Brushing aside thoughts of Michael, she looked around when she heard a noise. She didn’t have her contacts in because she was swimming, but she could see someone moving boxes into the other apartment next to hers. Curious but not wanting to disturb the new neighbor as they were moving in, she crept behind one of the trees that surrounded the pool. Squinting, she watched as a man moved a box from a truck, stepping under the porch light before stepping into the apartment.
Angel’s breath caught in her chest, her heart pounding as her body prepared to flee in response to her fear. She couldn’t see the man well but he looked just like Michael! Oh, please, don’t let him be here now! Angel couldn’t think after seeing the man go into the apartment, she just ran into her own apartment, locking the door as the man shouted a hello to the sound of locks clicking.
Angel turned to the door, falling against it, as her reaction to the adrenaline rushing through her system left her limp and too weak to stand straight up. She was shaking, panicking, and wondering if she should call the police. There really wasn’t a police department in this part of Mexico that she could call, and she hadn’t really learned enough Spanish yet to make it worth her time to call them.
“Alright,” she said to herself, “calm down Angel. Maybe it’s not Michael. It could be anybody; lots of men have dark hair, and are that tall. Loads of men wear jeans and t-shirts. Loads of them. Come on, now, calm down.” She stepped away from the door, peering out from behind her curtain but unable to see anything. Apparently the man had finished unloading the truck and had turned off the porch light. She wasn’t going to get another glimpse of him tonight, it seemed.
Turning off her own lights, Angel walked into her bedroom, then the bathroom, to turn the shower on. So much for being better; her first urge was to take a shower; not to remove the chlorine from the pool but to wash away the smell of her own fear. Sighing, Angel stepped under the hot water, closing her eyes as the water relaxed her. She’d just have to wait and see. There was no reason to panic. Yet.
The next morning Angel woke up early, put her contacts in, had a light breakfast, and took up a post at her window, staring through the curtain at the door to the other apartment. She munched on some granola she’d put in a bowl and watched. She quickly grew bored when nothing happened. The man didn’t leave, didn’t open the door, and didn’t come out with a big sign that announced his name in block letters. Growing frustrated, Angel went to grab a banana but thought better of it. Eating her way through the stress was not going to work.
As Angel eased back over to her perch by the window and settled herself onto the bar stool she’d placed there, she saw the other door open and the man came out into the light. With her contacts in, she saw that the man was completely different. Much taller than Michael, with a darker hair color, this man was very different from Michael. Michael wouldn’t have worn shorts like those either, he was strictly a pants kind of man. This man was much more muscular and tanned as well. Actually, he was pretty damn hot, Angel, thought, but not for me. Nope.
Her fear and curiosity relieved, Angel started to move but stopped as the man went out to the pool and took his shirt off. Oh, definitely much more muscular than Michael, there wasn’t an ounce of fat on this man, just brawn and muscle. Certainly out of her league, in any case. Angel finally tore herself away from the window when the man disappeared under the water, determined to get back to her painting.
As she painted, she told herself dozens of reasons why she should stay away from men, why she didn’t want another relationship; even if it was only sex. Sure the guy was hot, but was it worth more pain? She’d had enough of that to last a lifetime and Angel told herself she wasn’t ready for any of it, even after two years. She just wasn’t ready yet. Then Angel lost herself in her work and forgot about the world outside of her tiny little studio.
She watched the man for a month, noting that he also had no visitors, rarely left the complex, and spent most of his time either in the pool or in his home. He was also a quiet man, Angel never heard him moving around the apartment, never heard noise coming from the place, and never heard him on the phone; something easily done with walls as thin as theirs were. She considered speaking to him, to see if he was alright, running from the law, anything to have a conversation with him. He seemed lonely and Angel was lonely too, maybe they could just be friends? Friends wasn’t hard to do. She hadn’t had a friend in a long time, but she remembered that it wasn’t too hard to be friends with people.
Stepping out onto her upstairs patio, she looked out towards the cactus grove when she heard strange noises coming from that direction. The wind was blowing and it carried the sound with it. A snuffling sound, with the occasional crash as something large moved through the underbrush. Angel moved closer to the ledge, looking down as the animal moved out into the light.
A bear! What was a bear doing out here? Angel didn’t even think Mexico had bears but maybe they did, after all, there was one downstairs now. What could she do to get rid of it? She didn’t see any lights on at the neighbor’s place so she couldn’t call out to him and she had no other way to contact him. She looked around and saw a wine bottle she’d left out from dinner and thought maybe she could scare it off by throwing the bottle at it. She’d have to go down and clean up the glass but…
Her thoughts broke off as the bear started to take on the shape of a man, a very naked man, and the wine bottle slipped from her hand. It shattered as it hit the ground below and the man looked up to see her. It was the neighbor! Holy cow, erm, bear! The neighbor was some kind of werewolf, werebear! Holy cow! Angel’s mind spun in circles as she tried to decide what to do. Staring right into his eyes, Angel panicked and did the only thing she knew how to do as a wide smile spread across his face, and that was to run. She ran straight into the apartment and did not look back. She closed all of her curtains, locked the door, turned the television up loud and hid in her bed for the rest of the night, wondering if she was going crazy or if she’d really seen what she knew good and well she’d seen.
Angel spent the next few days convincing herself she had not actually seen the neighbor go from bear to super-stud. It was a trick of the moonlight that was all, just a trick of the light. She kept telling herself that but still avoided him when she saw he was outside. She almost managed to convince herself of that until three days later when she bumped into him as she was running out of her door to go to the store before it closed.
Angel ran straight into his chest and was shocked when she suddenly came to a complete stop. Looking up, she wasn’t sure whether to laugh, faint, or run back into the safety of her apartment as the man grinned down at her and growled, opening his eyes wide playfully.
“Don’t eat me,” was all she managed to get out before she actually, really truly fainted. Like some sappy heroine from an old movie, she just sagged against the man as her mind simply refused to take any more in. Luckily he caught her before she fell.