Black Beauty

Chapter 1

The tires squeal.

The doors rattle.

The windows shatter. Shards of glass shower the family inside.

"Get down!" The father shouts. He had only wanted to keep them safe. His last thoughts are of his wife and his daughter, his beautiful daughter. The girl in the rearview mirror is terrified. Her hands shake as they muss up her long hair, the color and shine of it reminding him of obsidian. Under all that hair is a stunning mind, as sharp as a tack, but she's only ten.

He can't believe he did this to his family. He should never have signed up for that stupid experiment.

The man's mind runs through every moment they've ever shared. Watching fireworks together, the three of them stretched out on his Grandmother's blanket in the grass. The first birthday that she could blow out her own candles. The time she won the spelling bee in kindergarten. Her cherubic smile pointed at him when he found her in her mother's heels and makeup.

Bernadette hadn't given a damn that her favorite shade of eyeshadow was smashed to bits or that there was lipstick on her blue pumps. She just started gushing over how gorgeous their baby girl looked.

The last thing he does is look at his girl, his resourceful, wonderful girl. He hopes to God that she will be safe. It's the last thing he will ever think, the thought fading from him as quick as the bullet that rips apart his grey matter.

The woman in the passengers seat stares at their daughter, smiling as brightly as she can. Before she follows in the love of her life's footsteps, she looks at her baby. She gazes into her offspring's icy blues, taking in the curve of her nose and the soft line of her jaw. She tells her one last time that she loves her. She falls forward with the force of the projectile in her skull.

The dark haired youth sits among the slivers of glass, wide eyes darting about the car. A woman in a black suit had done something to her mother and father. They weren't waking up no matter how she screamed for them. The woman has blood spatters upon her white button-down. Her hands reach for the child, coming closer and closer.

Her cries are frenzied, this woman is evil. She hurt her mom and dad. What will she do to the child?

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"What do you see, Seven?"

"I see... a key?" The girl hates this room. She hates this place. She wants to go back home.

"Very good. Tell me what it looks like." The old man is sitting across from her. A box rests on the cold metal surface between them.

The girl is hesitant. If she's wrong, bad things happen. If she's right, good things happen. It isn't hard for her to pick the path of obedience. She is alone and she misses her family. They tell her that she never had a family in the first place. They lie to her about all sorts of things, but she knows. She won't say it to anyone, though. It will only lead to bad things.

"It's... shiny. It's really small."

"What else, Seven?"

"It says... it says something on it."

"What does the key say?"

"Um, it says... C-A-S-I-N-O."

"Good. Very good." She's too afraid to ask the man what it means. She doesn't trust him.

He wants her to call him "Papa" instead of "sir." It's something he phrases to her as a request, a favor even. She never has, but she will do what he wants eventually. He knows it, because she is afraid of him, and so she will obey him.