They Called Her Angel

Darkness and Regret

2008

"What are you?" Angel had to ask.

"In the old days I wasn't much of anything." He took a drink from a glass of bourbon he created out of thin air.

Angel snorted. "Thanks for being so informative."

Riley shot her a look. "Let me finish."

"In the beginning I was darkness."

"I'm as old as God himself, perhaps we're even brothers. He certainly liked to think so. Always an optimist, that guy. I guess it comes from the all knowing thing he has going on."

"I watched as he spawned the universe. Watched stars and suns live and die. Watched him bring light."

"Being the mostly primitive thing I was. I didn't like this very much. Being the man with the plan God was, he didn't like me trying to stop him."

"I was trapped by his archangels and spent a long time in a prison."

"Then one day I found myself on Earth in a vessel. Years passed. I grew and learned. I started to appreciate humans and their free will."

"Then I met you."

"Never did get you out of my head after that."

"What was your original name? Riley has got to be an alias."

"Riley is the name I've chosen for myself. The big man upstairs called me Braedan."

1994

Rosalie Harrison looked at her sleeping children. Her girls.

They looked so innocent. So perfect. Her beautiful children.

Then she looked around at their home. No, not home. It was a shitty apartment infested with rats and bugs. The hallways were filled with dirty needles and used condoms. The walls were paper thin, always allowing a crying baby or a beating to bleed through from any direction.

For the first time in a long time Rosalie felt regret.

She prayed to a God she hadn't spoken to in a years that her daughters would be happy one day.

Then she limped to her bedroom to get dressed for work. It wouldn't do to make Paul mad.

She didn't notice the tears until she looked in a mirror.