Serendipity

Gold hair flowing behind her as she ran, Serendipity tried to outrun the mammoth behind her. The door to her safe haven was closed in front of her. Jumping up, Serendipity tried to reach the doorknob, but she was too short. No matter how high she jumped she would never be able to get away from the mammoth in time. Suddenly the floor was swept out from under her causing her to squeal. Soaring through the air, Serendipity threw her arms out like an airplane. The mammoth ran her back up the hallway, moving her about this way and that so she really felt like she was flying. Then the fun was over as the mammoth set her down in her spaceship shaped bed. Serendipity looked up at the mammoth with teary eyes, wanting to play more. However, her father had already removed his mammoth mask, play time was over. He smiled down at her and gave her a kiss before walking out of the room, turning the lights off on his way out. As soon as the lights were off and the door closed, Serendipity began to crawl her way out of bed. Early that day, she had gotten it into her head that the mammoth mask should be put on her neighbor’s dog. Her father never let her near the boxer though, so Serendipity was going on a night mission. No one would ever know it was her that snuck out of the house with her father’s mask in tow. No one would find out she visited with the boxer her father thought was so dangerous.

Running to her open window, Serendipity scrambled out and onto the ground below. She was so glad that her room was on the ground floor. She didn’t have the strength to climb out of the second floor, even though she had more muscles than most girls did at her age of 5. Without pausing at her window to make sure her father hadn’t heard her, Serendipity raced to her neighbors broken down chain-link fence and crawled through the hole that the dog had been making lately. She had to be careful not to break the mask when she crawled under, but she managed to get it through in one piece. The boxer was already waiting for her when she stood up. He loamed over her, growling and showing his teeth. Serendipity just tilted her head at him calmly before hushing him with a simple “Abajo Kilo.” He dropped to the ground and just watched her with wide eyes, no longer threatening her in anyway. Serendipity had watched Kilo’s owner enough times to know that was the down command that stopped any threatening behavior. Smiling at Kilo, Serendipity quickly tied the mask onto Kilo’s face. With one step back from the boxer, Serendipity giggled. He looked so silly with mammoth tusks sticking out of his nose. The mask was designed so the trunk could be removed, and her father never used the mammoth’s trunk. So it just had the tusks and the ears of a mammoth on it, with open holes for the eyes. Whereas most dogs that Serendipity knew would have shaken off the mask immediately, Kilo just stayed where he was, unable to see because of the placement of the eye holes.

A loud bang startled Serendipity out of her giggle fit, and she turned around to look at her house. She could see men searching her room and throwing things about. Serendipity was faintly aware of the mask dropping to the ground as Kilo began growling again. Looking down at him to see him glaring at her house, Serendipity began to feel afraid. She had already given him the down command, she shouldn’t have started acting like a guard dog again until she gave the guard command, vigilar. That was how she had seen his owner turn him from playful puppy into a mean guard dog. Arms went around Serendipity, a hand covering her mouth to prevent her from screaming, without warning. She squirmed about trying to get away, until her captor spoke. “Sere you need to stay really quiet right now,” the voice whispered in her ear. She nodded and the hand was quickly removed from her mouth and she was repositioned to rest on a hip of her captor. Her neighbor had caught her in his yard. There was a tremor in his voice as he quietly walked towards his house, Kilo following behind him. Serendipity could see Kilo looking back every few feet as they approached her neighbor’s house, keeping an eye on the strangers in her house.

Once they were inside her neighbor’s house, he took her right down to the basement and they sat in a windowless room with Kilo lying down at the door, acting the perfect guard dog without being told. “What’s going on Jer?” Serendipity quietly asked her neighbor. He just shook his head, turning on the tv in front of them and putting in one of Serendipity’s favorite movies, Mulan. He was dressed like the horrible neighbor no one would want to live next to again, with a white tank top on and his saggy pants. His bald head was shining in the light and his beard was untamed again. He had the look of a killer, especially in the room they were in. Knives and guns lined one of the walls. He seemed to have a whole arsenal with him. While Serendipity watched the movie, anxiously looking around the room every few minutes, Jer was making phone calls. Her anxiety went up with each phone call he made.

“They took him,” he told one person on the phone. “No, no, I have the girl in the panic room.” All Serendipity could hear of the other person was a panicked voice, she couldn’t make out what exactly the voice was saying. “Of course I didn’t go into their house you bloke. I’m not a complete idiot.” Serendipity tried to focus on Mulan, but she couldn’t do it. Instead she found herself creeping towards Jer, tears in her eyes. “I have to go, just tell me when to sound the alarm.” He snapped his phone shut without waiting for a reply, and slipped it into his pocket.

“I want to go home,” Serendipity stated.

Jer nodded, “How about I tell you what is going on and then we’ll take you home?” Serendipity nodded slowly. Jer picked her up and sat down on the couch in front of Mulan again, Serendipity sitting in his lap. He muted the movie before he began to talk quietly and calmly. “Do you remember your daddy telling you his job is to heal people?” he asked. All Serendipity did in response was nod, staring at him intently like she did not want to miss a single thing. “Well some very bad men want him to heal only their people and be able to help them at all times. They want him to live with them in case they have any emergencies.”

“My daddy told you this?” Serendipity asked. She had always assumed her father hated Jer, even when Jer was allowed to babysit her. Her father was always telling her to stay away from Jer and Kilo and she had never seen them talking.

“Something like that,” Jer nodded. Serendipity glared at him, knowing he was about to leave something out of the story because she was just a little girl. “Okay, okay, I’m a very bad man as well. I’m not as bad as those men though. There are two groups of really bad people in this area of the city right now, both fighting over territory. This area is supposed to be my group’s territory, which is why your father has been living here. He lives right next to me for a little extra safety.”

“Why did those men come into your territory then?” Serendipity asked with a confused look.

“Because they are bad, bad people who won’t take no for an answer.”

“Your territory has to be protected by you though,” Serendipity muttered, still confused.

“Remember I’m in a group of very bad people,” he sighed. “They decided it wasn’t worth protecting your father from the other group. The other group has been trying to get to your father for the past few months now. We couldn’t stop them without giving up our territory bit by bit, so we made a deal. They could have your father if they left our territory alone.”

“They got my daddy because you gave up,” she stated calmly, comprehension dawning on her. “Why am I here then?”

“We never agreed to trade you,” Jer shrugged. “We are going to keep you safe.” Serendipity just glared at him, hopping off his lap and running to the door. Kilo jumped out of her way, not wanting to be stepped on, before trotting behind her. Jer made no move to stop her, letting her run back to her own house as he called the police to report a house fire.

The smell was what Serendipity noticed first as she ran out of Jer’s house. Horror filled her eyes as she watched her house burn. In her preschool they had all learned to never run into a burning building, but Serendipity went running towards the house. Her belongings were burning and she knew without a doubt that if she didn’t get a picture from her room of her and her father, no one would know what he looked like after tonight. Kilo jumped on her right as she was about to climb in her window, preventing her from entering the building. “Abajo,” Serendipity snapped, but Kilo refused to back down. He growled at her, putting himself between her and her burning home. “I need my pictures,” Serendipity cried, trying to get into her house again. Kilo knocked her down again before he jumped into her window. Serendipity stared in shock at the window, wondering why Kilo would jump into a burning building. He wasn’t a stupid dog. That was when a police officer grabbed her and walked her away from the fire to his car. She was told to stay in the backseat until he got a chance to talk with her. Kilo came up to her shortly after that, her box of pictures safely between his teeth.

Setting them on her lap, Kilo licked her face once before bouncing off to Jer, who was watching from his house window looking grim.

The fire fighters were unable to put out the fire soon enough and Serendipity watched it crumble to the ground. Her whole life story was destroyed by the all-consuming fire that Serendipity now felt in her very soul. The fire was eating her alive, wanting revenge on whoever took her father. The police had found a body in the house, so burned that they couldn’t identify the body. Since her father and her were the only ones that lived in the house, the body was declared to be her fathers. That was the end of it and Serendipity was shipped off to a foster home.

~*~*~*~*

The first foster home Serendipity ever stepped into was run by some of the nicest people she had ever met. They called her Dee since she refused to let anyone call her Sere again after the night of the fire. They gave treated her as if she was their daughter and would talk to her about anything. The very first day she was there they sat her down and told her exactly how living with them was going to be. Serendipity thought they were pretty strict at the time, but she quickly learned that they just wanted what was best for her. Living with them caused her to thrive. She stayed with them until high school though. Her foster parents seemed so proud of her being the perfect student and went to all the plays and concerts that she was in. All the award ceremonies where she got award after award. Serendipity was one of the smartest people in her class, which was even at a very prestigious school to get into. Serendipity never thought once about the fact that her foster parents were just that, foster parents. They were a temporary family for her even though she was with them all through elementary school and middle school. She was with them so long, she considered them to be her real family. Jer showed up one day out of the blue though. After years of not seeing him, Serendipity was surprised to find this man sitting on her doorstep waiting for her to get home. He was in his thirties now, but still had the same look as before. However he did look a lot more worn out.

“What do you want?” Serendipity had snapped at him as she unlocked the house door. She did not want her foster parents to see her hanging out with Jer. One of the rules, which she so willingly followed, was no boys were allowed over when they weren’t home. Even if they were home, Serendipity didn’t invite boys over.

“You aren’t safe here anymore Sere,” he sighed, running a hand down his face in frustration. “They found you, and we can’t protect you if you stay here.”

“Don’t call me that,” she hissed at him and slammed the door in his face. That was the last she saw of him, but then one day without warning, Serendipity was removed from that home, leaving everything they had given her behind. All she took with her with a small bag of clothes and her box of pictures. A few weeks after leaving that foster home, Serendipity saw the remains of their house after it had been burned to the ground. Her foster parents were safe, but she wasn’t allowed to talk to them. Her new foster parents were horrible. They drank too much and were rarely home. They didn’t care if she went to school or not as long as the house stayed clean. Her foster siblings and her were the ones that had to do the cleaning. Serendipity still managed to keep her straight As and perfect attendance at a dirty public school instead of the prestigious one that she loved so much, but that couldn’t be said about her foster siblings. They never went to school unless DHS was forcing the foster parents to get them there. She stayed with them for a few months before being transferred somewhere else. That was just the beginning. Young and naïve Serendipity quickly became very aware that the world wasn’t a fair place as she went from one crappy foster home to the next until the day she turned 18. With no money and only her small bag of clothes and box of pictures, Serendipity was kicked out of her final foster home, life on the streets being the only option for her now.

Her week being homeless, she slept on a park bench. That was the night Kilo found her. He just curled up on the ground of  the park bench and kept watch while she slept. She didn’t even know he was there until she woke up the next morning with a cop yelling at her. It was funny that it took a whole week before the cops even noticed that she had been sleeping there. Kilo looked like he was ready to attack the cop and Serendipity had to give the command she had learned so many years ago, “Abajo.”

“Can you not read the no loitering sign?” the cop snapped at her once it was clear Kilo was under control. “And put your dog on a leash!”

“He’s not my dog,” Serendipity muttered, walking away from the cop with Kilo trotting happily behind her. For the rest of the day, she tried everything to get Kilo to leave her alone. She locked him in a dog park as a last resort, but a few minutes later he was trotting behind her again. When the sun was about to set again, Serendipity was starving, having not eaten all day, but she had no food. “Comida,” she muttered at Kilo, knowing he could find his own food and if he was going to stay with her he might as well stay fed. That was the first time she got him to leave her and without him around, she began asking people on the streets if they would give her food. She was in the bad part of the city by then and eventually gave up looking for food, instead looking for a seemingly safe place to sleep. Kilo found her shortly after she found an empty alley that had fire escape stairs on it. She climbed up to the roof of the building and fell asleep. Serendipity never questioned how Kilo managed to get on the roof with her, figuring he had jumped from object to object until he could jump high enough to get on the stairs.

This time it was in the middle of the night when Serendipity was awoken by Kilo’s growling. When she raised her head, a flashlight shone in her eyes, preventing her from seeing who stood before her. “Lady call off your dog,” a male voice snapped at her.

“Why should I?” she replied groggily, rubbing her eyes in confusion.

“Do you want to eat?” he snapped back at her.

“Are you willing to feed me?” Serendipity inquired. She began to pet Kilo, who wasn’t even growling anymore. He had stopped almost as soon as Serendipity had woken up, just growling long enough to warn her someone was here and keep them from coming any closer.

“Why would I climb onto this rooftop if I wasn’t going to feed you?”

“If looked like a good place to sleep to me. You probably came up here to sleep as well.” With a frustrated sigh, he plopped down on the ground about 10 feet away from her and set the flashlight down so it was shining on neither of them. With that dim light, Serendipity could see him more clearly. He was in a business suit, with his hair slicked back. Almost immediately she could tell that his hair would look better if it wasn’t slicked back, but she wouldn’t tell him that. He looked like a perfect gentleman, ready to go to a business dinner or something. “Why are you here?” she asked, really confused now.

“To feed you,” he stated as if it was obvious. In his hands, Serendipity could see that he had a large Papa John’s pizza. She could smell the goey deliciousness of the pizza from where she sat and scooted slightly closer to the man unconsciously.

“How did you know I was up here?” she suspiciously asked, eyeing the pizza when he opened the box up.

“I watched you climb up the side of my building. Oh and there are video cameras up here,” he smiled, waiting for her to reply. It was too dark for Serendipity to see if what he was saying was the truth. She hadn’t seen any cameras when she had climbed up here, but then again the sun had been almost all the way down by the time she had climbed up here.

“Fine you can feed me,” Serendipity sighed, glaring at him. She figured she might as well accept the meal that was being offered, since her stomach was growling so loudly anyway. He probably could hear it even though he was sitting 10 feet away. “Kilo fetch,” she whispered so the man couldn’t hear. Kilo trotted over to him and took the pizza box right out of his hands, growling when the man tried to keep a hold of it.

“Not the nicest way to accept food being offered to you,” the man tsked, but released the food. While Kilo trotted back to Serendipity, she watched the man scoot closer while Kilo’s back was turned. She smiled in amusement when he stopped moving soon as Kilo sat down facing him again.

“Scared of my dog?” she teased, taking a big bite of pizza. She moaned when the taste hit her taste buds. The pizza was probably the  best thing she had ever eaten in a long time. Then again, she hadn’t eaten a real meal in almost a week.

“Haven’t eaten recently?” the man chuckled, again moving slightly closer. He was close enough now that he could grab a slice of pizza from the box. Kilo growled at him, but made no move to stop him from taking a slice.