Prologue

The four-year-old girl, humming to herself, skipped down the hallway when she heard a weeping noise. She stopped, tilted her head, and listened carefully. The noise was coming from around the corner. Without thinking, she tip-toed towards the noise. As she rounded the corner, she halted in surprise. Leaning against the balcony, stood a little boy. His tiny body shook with each quiet sob. He was bigger than her. The girl blinked, her round blue eyes growing wide in concern. 

She hurried towards him. 

“Hey,” she said softly. The boy’s sob got caught in his throat and he looked up. His silver eyes locked on her. 

“Why are you crying?” the girl asked. The boy eyed her in suspicion, meanwhile, her gaze wandered over to his injured finger. 

“Oui, you are hurty,” she exclaimed in concern. The boy glanced down at his finger, a thin trail of blood had started to trickle from the small cut. He winced as if the vision had enhanced the pain.

“You should see Mrs. Lily. She’ll take care of it,” she suggested softly. The boy scowled at the name. 

“No. Her breath smells like a dumpster,” he shuddered. 

“We shouldn’t say that,” she pouted in disapproval even though he was right.  

“You will lose all your blood and die,” she worried. 

Quick and instinctive, she reached out and grabbed his hand. Without a moment of hesitation, she brought his bleeding finger to her mouth, gently sucking on it. Her mom used to do this to her father every time he got a cut.  

“What are you doing?” the boy frowned in disapproval but didn’t pull away. She drew away a moment later, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand as if she were some vampire who just had her meal. 

He glanced down and his eyes popped out in surprise. He wasn’t bleeding or hurting any longer.  

“Are you an angel?” he asked to confirm his doubt. He also had never seen her in the school before and she indeed looked like an angel. Big round blue eyes, chubby cheeks, pouty lips- she looked like an angel his mom would tell them about at night.     

The girl doubled over with laughter, covering her mouth with her tiny hands. Without realizing it, he cracked a smile too. 

As her laughter slowly died down, she spoke, “I am not an angel, silly. I have no wings. I can’t fly.”         

The boy stepped forward. 

“You don’t need wings to fly,” he said, making her frown in confusion. 

“How?” she asked, both curious and confused. 

He bent low and lifted her by her waist. 

“You only need my hands to fly,” he answered, spinning her slowly. She opened her arms and mimicked flying. Their mingled laughter resonated in the quiet corridor. 

He put her down sometimes later. 

The girl let out a giggle and said in disbelief, “I am an angel.” 

“No, angel is my sister. You are my princess,” he innocently staked his claim over her. The girl giggled. 

“I had a fight with a boy,” he revealed in a murmur after she sobered. 

“Mom says it’s not good to fight,” she preached. 

“He said bad things about my sister,” the boy disclosed, clenching his tiny fists as if he was still mad. The girl’s thoughtful nod resembled an adult’s. 

“Whatever he said doesn’t make your sister bad. It makes him bad,” she claimed. The boy was awestruck by her.

“Friends? I am Nathaniel Serrano” the boy prompted hopefully, extending his small hand towards her. The girl smiled hard before drawing out her own. Their hands were about to meet when something crept into the girl’s line of sight. Her gaze drifted only to grow wide in horror. A little boy with a bashed head was crawling out of the classroom. 

“Who is he?” the girl asked, deadly scared. Nathaniel followed her gaze and felt annoyed at being interrupted.

“He is the one who mocked my sister,” he answered nonchalantly. He looked back at her and added with a grin, “I broke his head. He hurt me, I hurt him.” His smile dropped as she recoiled a step. The warmth in her eyes vanished, now taken over by tears of fear.

"You are mad," she quickly spun on her heels and ran away. 

Nathaniel followed after her, his eyes misting over with tears, “Princess, stop. Don’t run away from me,” he pleaded as tears of anguish trailed down his cheeks.

She quickly disappeared behind the corner, leaving him alone and crying again. 

He gazed wistfully at the spot where she stood a few moments ago. Rage filled him before he turned around and traced his angry strides back to the hurt boy. 

“Because of you she ran away,” he barked and slapped him hard. The boy sobbed in pain as he kicked him and stormed off. 

………

“He is only six and he is going around hurting other kids,” Ara was beyond distressed. Killian ran a hand down his face, sighing. He wouldn’t lie he loved his boy but he had become a pain in his ass lately.

“I’ll talk to him,” Killian assured her. Ara shook her head, tears filled her eyes. 

“I don’t want my kids to become evil,” she shared her innermost fear with him. She might have accepted his world but she wouldn’t be able to see her kids losing their conscience, losing their core in the abyss of his dark world. One doesn’t have to be evil to rule the underworld.

“He will not,” he lightly squeezed her shoulder. Ara glanced up to meet his eyes. 

“Who made the complaint?” she asked. 

“A girl from his school,” he told her. 

Nathaniel who was overhearing everything from the door, felt his heart breaking again. 

She not only rejected his friendship but also snitched on him. She was a betrayer.   

.....

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