There were three of them. Not one or two. Smiles wide and white in dark faces. I thought it made them look happy. That was before I knew that demons walked among us wearing masks of human skin. I was walking and it was cold. Midnight was late for a fifteen-year-old girl to walk home from work, but when you live on your own, you do what needs done.
They were so polite, to stop and offer me a ride home. Raised to believe, in God, in the God in people; I believed. I believed their kindness. It was the first time I would be so devastatingly wrong. When they finished their lie … their destruction of my belief, they left me back where they found me. I told myself that I wouldn’t let the actions of a few mold my opinion of many; but maybe I was wrong. Because now a white crescent smiling from darkness always gives me pause. Before I lean into the fear with an answering grin and a jerky grab at innocence lost.
