Ignorance Is Bliss

"Where's Daddy goin' Moma?" a girl's tiny hand tugged on the fabric of her mother's shirt. Her hands so small and fragile, the nutritious blood pumping just under the thin layer of skin. Deep brown, nearly black, locks laid thick over her skull, sheltering the sensitive skin.

"Just to meet with his boss, honey, he'll be back soon," eyes locked on her husband, fearing for his life. Even at a young age the child could sense her mother’s lies. Coursing through the truth of her life she knew better then to believe that. Her father, a gang leader in one of the worst neighborhoods in New York, yeah right. A boss, her father was a gang leader. Did that not mean anything anymore?

Once her father had closed the door the nine year old made her way to her room. She knew her mother expected to be going to bed, an easy time to sneak out.
Her room on the third floor of an old apartment complex was connected to the fire escape, it was like the building was begging for child to escape.

She quickly slid from her window frame onto the rickety metal outside. Scaling the steps and ladder she planted her sandaled feet on the dirty alley ground. No matter how many times her feet were cut by the broken bottles and coated in the unnamable liquid below her, she wouldn't wear tennis shoes. She hated them, they made her feel constricted.

She ran silently along the alleyway to the edge of the building, spotting her father about a block away. She began her pursuit. Determined to find out why her father always left to meet with his boss and came back with a look of fear plastered under his grin. She could see it in his eyes, read it in his soul. He knew something he wasn't supposed to.

They roads and alleyways began to blur together she followed him into an area unknown to her. Her legs were beginning to burn, her body's muscles not yet fully developed for this. Yet she followed him fiercely.

He stopped in a hardly lit alley. She hid her small body behind a trash can halfway in. As she watched a young man in his late twenties early thirties stepped out from the darkness. He was lanky, yet muscled. His dark blond hair cropped short had near stripes in it causing it to appear as though it flowed.

A thin layer of hair coated his chin, almost like stubble. He wore a thin leather jacket. She couldn't tell if there was anything beneath it. A pair of ripped and dirty jeans covered his long legs. All together he screamed of danger, but his most distinguished feature were the blood red irises the sat in his eyes that seemed to glow. The same eyes that seemed to stare directly at her.

"I was starting to think I was going to get a few extra snacks courtesy of you tonight, that is if you didn't show," His smile oozed the kind of deadliness you couldn't see but could feel. Even though her body froze, she was intrigued, she just couldn't let her body fulfill its desire to flee.

"No, I would never-" Her father's usually strong, deep voice was now that of a frightened child, he squirmed under the man’s heated gaze. "Shut up," his rough voice sounded like velvet being torn to shreds. Soft but again dangerous. "Come on I'm hungry, let's get moving."

For some reason she felt like laughing. This strangers words mixed with impatience and sarcasm swirled in her head. The two men began to walk from the alley, she was careful not to be seen. After exiting the alley they walked farther from her home. She thought to return but something in her mind told her follow, she was addicted.

Soon they came to a rundown park in the center of the neighborhood; she had been here once or twice but did not truthfully know the park. Slowly the three walked down the path, one skittering quickly, another walking relaxed, the third winding from tree to tree.

Once in the center of the park, she saw a man she could recognize. He was a man from a rival gang of her dads. He was young not even twenty- five. Maybe twenty at the most. He was jumpy, to say the least. His eyes jumped at every noise he heard. He had a soft heart- shaped face. His skin was tanned and dark, his eye's set back, most likely from lack of sleep. A mop of unnaturally colored hair blew about in the cold wind.

His body was small; he was not only short but skinny and hardly built. He was not fit for the life of a gang member. He was most likely a rat, as her father called them, people who move from gang to gang selling information. The one lamp on the far side of the field could not reach past were he stood, keeping the other three in secret.

"Now, go get me some dinner," The stranger smiled at her father handing him a small switch blade. Instead of running or crying out the little girl stayed were she was, it was like watching a movie. As her father sauntered forward, the blade in his back pocket, the stranger slid back farther into the dark shadows of the trees. Closer to her.

One foot into the halo created by the street lamp her father's body was tense. The boy jumped and nearly screamed, "O-oh it's just you Mr. K," his hand slowly loosened his grip on the fabric that covered his chest.

"Do you have the info?" she could hear how hard her father was straining to sound normal. "Yes," as the boy gave her father a small folder her father's hand reached around and started to slide the blade from his pocket. "Okay I- I'll be going now Mr. K," the boy turned his back and started to walk away.

"Oh, bad move little boy," the ripping velvet voice sounded almost next to her. She looked up quickly her wide eyes catching the red eyes of the stranger next to her. He smiled widely at her, almost like a brother?

Her father lunged, the sound of the boy's scream choked out by the overwhelming amount of blood let loose to flow and drip through his throat caught her attention. By the time she had looked up the boy was dead, her father on his knees starring at his blood coated hands, and the stranger was by their side.