le misanthrope
Madison MacAdam passed people easily on the streets. She wasn't dressed to kill, her looks didn't catch anyone's fancy, and she was small enough to get between carts and bikes that others moved to avoid. The girl also didn't care if she got bumped into or pushed. In fact, the moments she was bumped, pushed, trodden on, she took advantage of, her nimble and dirty fingers finding inside pockets and out, slips of bills or change, and eventually her own were filled enough. She knew she always had to be careful, though. Sometimes the cops put people on the streets with fat pockets looking for people like her, other pick-pockets and urchins, and they knew enough of their trade to catch them.
That's why she only took what she needed and she made sure to spend it all in the same day, too. Today her pockets were filled as she ducked down the right back alley and growled at a man wrapped in a blanket who gave her an appraising eye. It wasn't easy to be a lone girl on the streets, but after the first few nights of being beaten or having what remained of her personal possessions stolen in the shelters, she'd decided that at least on the streets she had a fighting chance -- or room to run.
Running was Maddie's specialty. In school she'd been on the track team, been good enough that her teacher's had spoken of scholarships, but they didn't know her. Her mom was a drug addict, had strange men in and out of the house all the time leering at anything with tits and two legs, and her dad had been murdered years back. These white-collar preps didn't know what Maddie's world was like, and she sure as hell wasn't going to start explaining to them that she wasn't planning on sticking around long enough to fill out a college application.
When she was fifteen her mother's current boyfriend made a move on her, but she'd been ready. The pimp had made enough comments that Maddie would have been stupid to not pick up on the ideas he had in his head. That night she had enough firecrackers shoved into his pants while he was on top of her that he'd gone to the hospital with second degree burns all over his precious "jewels." Of course that was the night her mom had kicked her out, too, blaming her for encouraging 'her man' and she'd left.
That was a year and a half ago and now Maddie was a full-fledged highschool drop out, s**t-eating scum bag leeching off the rest of hard-working society. At least, that's what she knew people thought of her. There were enough people who thought they were safe enough in their restaurants, behind their booths, thinking that they were righteous and rich enough to say whatever they wanted to say about other people. Walking by her telling her to 'get a job' before she'd even asked for a hand out.
Maddie didn't ask for hand outs, she took them.
She had to climb up a window sill to get to the fire escape, but she preferred it that way. The front steps of this particular apartment building usually served as a perch for gang members, all of whom had plenty to say that Maddie preferred not to hear, and the inside was worse. If they could promise you something outside the gang members would make good on those promises and threads if you were stupid enough to go inside. Maddie was a drop-out, but she wasn't stupid. The fire escape took her up the side of the ability to the third floor and the window she needed, and slipping through was always easy - the latch was purposely broken for Maddies (and other urchin's) needs.
Frank Gaspetti figured himself a gangster, hence the fake italian name that he figured would get people thinking he was some sort of mobster or made man, but he didn't live like one. Empty pizza boxes crumpled and shifted under her feet as Maddie swung in through the window and she cursed, swearing Frank's name, and she skidded onto the floor on her elbows. "<******** Frank... really?"
The room was too dark for her to see, but she glared anyways. Bottles clinked together and pop cans scraped along as she righted herself noisily, swearing the entire way, and spit. Something off the floor clung to her wetly and she grimaced - she was never clean in the streets, but she didn't like to be outright filthy.
That's when the smell hit her and she gagged, covering her mouth before she could vomit, and she stumbled to the wall looking for a switch. She could feel whatever filth from the floor leaving her hands and spreading to the wall and her face, wherever she touched, but she was losing concern for it. Her gut ran cold and suddenly she felt so vulnerable in the unnatural darkness. Why's there no goddamn sun in here, anyways? She thought, her heart racing almost as fast as her thoughts.
When she finally located the switch she flicked it on, whirling as she did to face the room, and she froze. Frank Gaspettie, the fat, bloated pimp that dealt drugs to those that could afford it and food to those that couldn't, was sprawled beside the same window she'd come in. Shot once in the head and twice in the chest, if she was any judge based on the hole between his eyes and the deep, crimson pool that seemed to still be pumping out of his chest. His blood had spilled out and as she followed it she saw footprints -- hers. <********>" She whispered, realizing that it was blood she'd fallen into, blood she'd gotten all over her jacket, her hands, her face and the walls. "<********>" Maddie continued frantically, practically ripping her jacket off and turning back to the wall. Using it to wipe her hands quickly she threw it up onto the wall and ran it over the hand prints, trying to smear away her prints, before dropping the jacket in a mess with the rest of the filth on the floor. Her heart was pounding so hard she couldn't hear the sounds of the street anymore and she couldn't breathe, "Oh god.." She wheezed, putting a hand to her throat before remembering the blood there, too. "Oh Frank.." She whispered, feeling the first pangs of sympathy she'd felt in over a year for another human being.
