I know that I have 2 unfinished stories that I haven't updates in a while but I seem to have a case of writer ADD. The next chapter of Lullaby is nearly done and should hopefully be up soon but as far as Songbird is concerned I seem to have totally lose my muse. This story is a lot darker than everything I've ever written before and starts out in a slightly different style but hopefully it works. I'm taking my frustration over the way the storyline is going and turning it into my own twisted tale.

Prologue

blackbird singing in the dead of night

take these broken wings and learn to fly

Chelsea Lawson had only ever put her faith in God once before.

She was 12-years-old at the time and had been abandoned by her mother in a motel room on the edge of a small time.

"I'll just be gone a few days Baby Doll and then when I come back you and me are going to take a trip to Miami," Anita had promised her daughter as she'd dragged her suitcase out the door.

However 2 days quickly turned into 2 weeks, leaving Chelsea alone and terrified in a town where the streets all had unusual names and the faces belonged to people she didn't recognize.

The money Anita had left run out before the first week was over, leaving Chelsea living off of noodles and stale bread rolls, then as that had run out she had been left with no option but to steal. Heading to the nearest convenience store she'd tried to look as inconspicuous as possible as she'd filled her pockets with bread rolls, packets of soup and anything else that she could fit.

Walking out the door she breathed a sigh of relief as the cold, night air hit her face. It was only when she got to the end of the road that she realized she had no idea where she was or how to get back to the motel.

Wrapping her arms around herself as she began to shiver she kept looking around her, desperate to find something that looked familiar. But as the wind got colder and the streets longer she realized that she was lost, so she did the only thing she could think of to get warm, she headed for the nearest church, a place that she had always believed to be a safe haven for anyone that needed one.

And that night Chelsea Lawson needed it.

That was also the night that 12-year-old Chelsea put her faith in a higher power. As she sat huddled on the floor, letting the warmth seep into her bones and eating the food she had stolen she prayed to God.

She prayed for help finding her way back to the motel.

She prayed that when she woke up in the morning her mother would be home.

She prayed that Anita Lawson would finally get tired of living out of a suitcase and settle down, letting her daughter live a normal life with a home, friends, family and school.

She prayed that when she did settle down she would meet her father and that he would love her and protect her.

And then she prayed again for her mother's safe return because despite how angry she was with her, she was the only person that had ever been a constant in her life.

3 weeks later Anita Lawson had returned to her daughter a whirlwind of apologies and gifts, as she explained that she had finally found a way for them to make it big before whisking her daughter off to a new State and a new identity that once again would end in tears.

And that moment 18-years-ago was the last time that Chelsea had put her faith in God; until now.

Lying on the floor of her office bleeding over her designs Chelsea prayed, she prayed to a God that she wasn't even sure she believed in for the life of her unborn child. She cried and she begged and she bargained to do everything in her power to be a better person if her baby lived.

She promised to stop lying.

She promised to go to church.

She promised to tell Adam the truth.

She promised to do whatever it took to make things right.

She promised that she would spend the rest of her life making it up to Adam, Dylan and the baby if only the pain and bleeding would stop.

And then it happened, she heard the door open and foot steps approaching and as her vision finally faded and her world went black she heard the last person she expected to hear.

"It's going to be ok," he promised.

"You and the baby, you're going to be ok," and as she heard the words she could hear it in his voice that he was trying to convince himself just as much as he was trying to convince her.

Because as he picked her pale, lifeless, blood-soaked body up off of the floor they both knew that things looked bad for both mother and child.