Avenging Angel

The steps of the guards rang through the hall as they made their way to my cell. I shivered in the cold, wrapping myself up in a thin blanket one of them gave me out of sheer kindness. Their voices echoed.

“Man, this seems so wrong. She’s younger than my daughter. And in deathrow!”

“I know, but it’s our job. She confessed to the murders and so, she is punished for it. Sentenced to death.”

I listened.

“You really think a ten-year-old girl killed seventy-two people?”

“No, but she confessed and all evidence found leads to her.”

“Evidence! There was pictures and her confession! There were never witnesses to testify against her! It’s wrong! She needs to be let free!”

They stopped.

“I know.”

But death will be freedom.

One of the guards, the one who gave me the blanket came into view and smiled at me.

“Hello sweetpea. How are you?

“I’m scared.” I murmur.

He nods and the other guard watches. “I know. What do you want to eat today?”

That’s when I realize, today is the day they kill me. Just like the other inmates warned. They only asked what we wanted to eat before they killed us. Shivers travel throughout my body.

“Crawfish.” I answer finally.

“It’s not crawfish season.”

“Oh.” I think long and hard. I want my last meal to be decent, even though there’s no point in having one. “shrimp alfredo, like a professional one... And those tiny french cookies from thayt American Girl movie... Where she’s in France.”

“Macaroons?”

I nod.

The other guard walks off to go put in my order.

He stares at me, sorrow in his eyes. “Why did you confess to those murders? I know it wasn’t you.”

“It was me.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Those people I killed... They ruined me. Death would be freedom.”

“You are ten! You didn’t kill anyone!”

He doesn’t believe me and I understand why.

“I did. I can tell you exactly how I did. I can tell you what they had in common and who they were.” All were pedophiles. All were elitists. And many, were the reason why I didn’t care whether I lived or died, because I’d once been their victim.

“Then tell me, why did you?” He asked.

“Because, someone needed to avenge the children they harmed, such as myself... But no one else would be their avenging angel. So I was.”

~A few hours later~

They had finally brought me my food. It was warm still... Most likely courtesy of the guards who’d grown fond of me over the past several months.

I began eating, thinking of all my victims. They’d only ever found seventy-two but there were many more than that. Lesser known people who no one would notice if they disappeared.

If reincarnation is real, I hope to come back as a child again, and be the avenging angel again. Kill more; save more. I’d go through deathrow a billion times, just to save my brethren who need me.

“Sir,” I ask, “I want you to know, I don’t regret the murders... I’d do it all over again if I could.”

He nods and says, “I know, little avenging angel, I know.”

And somehow, I know, he’ll find a way to carry out my work, one way, or another.