Savannah

　　You must be kidding me, why isn't it opening. I keep putting the code my dad gave me, but the door won't budge. I try my best not to get emotional, and tear eyed, but it's hard.

　　My life is just a series of misfortune, sprinkled with hardship, but not even in my bleakest nightmares would I have thought that a time when my life and my father's would be in danger.

　　I suppose it all went downhill with my mom death, a freak accident they call it. I still can get my head around how they can call it a accident, when it was plain murder, but money sure can buy one's freedom. Pay enough, distort reality, and you can get away.

　　While I whish to have the power to seek vengeance, I'm just a small homeless cockroach, who at any time could become a orphan. It wasn't enough I lost my mom at the tender age of nine, now my dad is a hunted man by one of the biggest mafia heads in Louisiana.

　　Gambling debt.

　　I don't know when it started to be a problem, a addiction. After mom's death I have almost no recollection of how we managed to keep going. I'm ashamed to even admit to myself that her memory is fading, the few picture I have, are my most precious treasure.

　　I know I lost my mother, but dad lost a wife, a best friend, his rock. It definitely didn't help that soon after I got diagnosed with a rare diseases. Basically my body can retain zinc, which results in all kind of nasty side effects. Luckily I'm one of the few people that the new experimental medicine actually works, so I should be able to enjoy some normality, after five years I finally left the hospital. Only to find out that dad has been lying to me big time.

　　The house I spent my childhood is now sold, and he still is in debt out of his eyeballs. I tried so hard to find him excuses, my mom death, my expensive disease, the unfairness of them all, but I still can shake the sweet kiss of betrayal.

　　As if it wasn't enough, dad somehow managed to get entangled with the Dalton family, also known as the most ruthless influential gangster family not only in Louisiana, but in the states as well. They know dad is broke, and the debt is so huge that a lifetime of decent work would never cut it, so those awful gangster will just kill him to give him as a example.

　　To make matters worse they might come for me too, I won't put it past them. So our only alternative is to go into hiding. We packed, and moved across the world, or at least it feels like that to me.

　　Marfa, a small town in Western Texas, where apparently time forgot to pass. You know all those cowboy movies featuring the wild west, well, welcome to Marfa. The perfect town where dreams come to die, and hope abandons you. I'm not a city girl, but this place is haunted, granted is almost past midnight, and the car view can be deceiving, I so hope I'm wrong, and at least the people are friendly.

　　For someone who never got that one true friend in her entire life, to busy to stay alive, having some kind of social interaction will be great, the nurses, for the most part were lovely, but they don't count when they can only see as a patient. There were times where I would stay in coma for months, that's why I'm twenty and still in my last semester of high school, talk about being a awkward wallflower.

　　I'll be ok, I have to keep repeating, I really whish my dad was here. He just dropped me in front of the gate of his old army friend that I never knew existed, and told me it will be dangerous for him to stay as well.

　　I couldn't even react, before he was long gone. With no alternative left, I put my big girl pants, and decide to just go with it, not that I had another choice.

　　I managed to put the first pin in, the massive door opened, revealing a impressive mansion. Whoever the guy is, he sure is loaded. It's sort of pitched black, and the moonlight doesn't help, I rush to get to the main door of the house, and try to insert the next pin dad gave me, but it keeps getting declined.

　　So, just like that I'm staying in the pouring rain, like a wet rat, hoping for a miracle, while my doubts and fear are dancing on my mind. What if dad mystery man deceived him, never intending to foster me? What I'm to do then, I don't even have a way to reach father. He said is to dangerous to keep permanent contact, and will call the mansion when it will be safer. When exactly that will be, who knows?

　　I'm twenty years old, with no real education, hunted by the mafia, with only fifty bucks in her pocket, talk about being in a crisis.

　　One thing is for sure, if I don't get in soon, I'll freeze to death. I'm drenched, the wind merciless makes it ten times worse, whipping the cold wet clothes against my skin, I shake like leaf. Enough, is enough, maybe is the blasting unforgiven whether that pushes me to take a radical decision, that might put me in jail, but at least there is hot.

　　I'm breaking in.

　　I tried shouting, knocking, inserting the pin, nothing. It's safe to say nobody is home, in the morning I'll just go and wait in the garden, hopefully dad's friend will come back from wherever he had to urgently go, if not I'm in so much trouble.

　　By now I already came up with a viable breaking in plan. Rich people think that all this security will keep them safe, but they do the dumbest mistakes ever. Who lets the window on the first floor slightly open, talk about being careless.

　　It's gonna be tricky to climb the tree which branches spill over the balcony, but desperation will make up for it.

　　I fail several times, my skin feels raw, I bet I broken at least a nail the last time I slid of the tree. Now I'm securely hugging the old red maple, koala style. My anxiety levels are off the charts, not only I might go to jail, but I might break some bones in my attempt to get in. Seeing the height I reached, and the jump I have to make makes me doubt my sanity.

　　I really shouldn't have looked down.

　　The more I think about it, the more I chicken out. I take a big breath, and just plunge. I don't know what was worse, my flesh crushing against the rock like floor, or the way all the air was knocked out of my lungs. Assaulted by all this stimulus I didn't quite register the crack sound my bones made. I groan in pain, fearing every move, for it causes excruciating pain, so I lay there, in hopes it will pass.

　　I close my eyes in a weak attempt to gather my scatter mind, though without wanting, instinctively I open my eyes, only to be greeted by a mountain of creature, big and hairy, with eyes that were out for blood. All I could do was whisper.

　　'YETI.'

　　***