Angel closed the door behind him and stepped into the crisp morning air. He zipped his oversized jacket up to his chin and managed to push his left arm through the other strap of his backpack. Straightening his load of books on his back, he inserted his hands into the jacket's pockets. Standing still for a moment, he lifted his face up to the heavens, closed his eyes, and took a deep whiff of the smells of winter. He felt the fresh, frosty air rush into his lungs and clear his head of any remaining drowsiness the coffee hadn't dissipated. Angel opened his eyes and descended the four front steps quickly. He hunched his back and began the trek to school.

As he walked, he felt the wind whistle past his heavily moussed brown hair, stirring up not a hair. The sharpness of the wind stung his exposed face, and he tried to push his face into the warmth of his jacket. He couldn't fit anything into the tightly zipped collar of the jacket besides his chin, and so withstood the cold with little more than a grimace and tears at the corners of his eyes. While he was busy with his jacket, Angel had strayed off to the side of the street and onto a neighboring lawn, where a few last daisies of seasons past shook violently in the wind. Angel noticed a moment before his right foot trod on one of these tiny frail flowers, and he hastily pulled away back onto the sidewalk. Taking a moment to check that he'd harmed none of the flowers, he continued onward, looking about at his surroundings.

The houses were placed spaciously apart, with each house sitting in the middle of its own large plot of grassy land like a sentry overlooking its domain. The properties were almost identical - fronts of houses decorated by well-trimmed shrubs, a few trees dotting the landscape, and perfect grass, all of the same height, as if the grass was controlled by some ubiquitous deity that commanded uniform stalk lengths.

Lost in his revere, Angel was suddenly interrupted from his daydream by a group of boys from his high school, waiting in front of a house a few homes down the street. Apparently, one of their posse wasn't ready to leave for school yet.

"Damn! Jack, yer gonna make us late! Ya want allus to get detention again?" called one of boys at the doorstep.

This boy was fidgeting in the cold, despite his large puffy North Face jacket. His Fubu cap was turned backward on his long-maned head, and various piercings on his face glinted in the cold morning sun. The other boys dressed like him, with few differences, to the point that they wore even the same scowl on their face.

This was not a group Angel wished to confront this early in the morning, or simply confront at all. Normally he would have taken a shortcut around this street, but today his mind had wandered off while he admired the trim greenery around him, and this was where his feet brought him. It was too late now to turn back and go by the shortcut - they'd probably step out onto the street, see him retreating, and then pursue. This Angel wanted to avoid above all.

"Jack!" yelled another of the group on the doorstep in a grating, rough voice. Angel matched this voice to a boy by the name of Helian, a shorter, stouter, and meaner one than the others. His face was practically a pincushion of earrings, nose rings, tongue rings, tongue studs, and any other rings or studs available to defile his face.

"You want me to go in there to get you?" Helian continued in his gravelly voice. Angel could picture Helian's face upon uttering this comment. His beady black eyes, sunken into his head, would glint with viciousness; his nostrils would flare, and lastly, his mouth would twist into a malicious slit, and he would slowly lick his uneven teeth, as if considering some cruel punishment.

Angel looked around him frantically, once in a while stealing a look askance at the group of boys waiting in front of the house as if he expected them all to turn around at the same time and make a rush for his blood. At last, after what seemed to Angel like eons, his eyes came upon a pine, wider and older than the rest of the skinny short evergreens that littered the neighborhood. Making some quick estimates, Angel slowly and quietly began to edge over to that pine on his right. His eyes were glued on the boys as he increased his pace to a quick trot over the still-springy green grass. Just when Angel judged himself safe a foot from the tree, he saw Helian jerk his pincushion face in Angel's direction in what seemed like a gesture of impatience.

Instinctively, Angel dropped to the grass and held his breath. Peeping over the thin strands of grass, he sighed in relief as he saw Helian turn back toward the direction of the house, calling, "Jack, if you don't gecherass out here in five seconds, we're all gonna have to pound your face!" He said this last word with particular vehemence.

"ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR! FI-" At that moment, a red-faced, skinny boy a half head taller than the others practically flew out of the threshold of the door, slamming the door behind him. This was a boy that Angel did not think he'd seen before. He was huffing, and his Fubu cap was at a crazy Angel over his disorderly blond hair. He had his North Face jacket half on, and his butt-pack was not around his waist, but dangling from his left hand. "Sorry, Helian. I woke up real late today. Won't happen again. Promise."

Helian scoffed, obviously a sign for the others to begin a round of snickering of their own. This went on for a minute or two, and since the others showed no sign of stopping, Helian said loudly, "Okay, that's enough! Shut up, ya bunch of idiots." The laugher died down surprisingly quickly.

"Jack, how many times we told you not to be late?" Helian asked in a soft, dangerous tone. Jack obviously couldn't tell.

"Um, you've said it a couple of times this week. But you know, it's not really my fault! It's just that I got a lot of homework this week, and I had to stay up late. That's why I couldn't wake up in time! Honest!" Jack put his right hand up to demonstrate his sincerity.

Helian nodded knowingly, "Ohhhh! So that's why you couldn't wake up! You were doing homework! Well, I seem to remember that when you joined us we told you that homework isn't something we do. Aren't I right?" Helian turned to look at the various members of his group, with an inquisitive look on his face.

"Oh, yeah. Huh, man, Jack, such a stupidass!" replied one of the boys.

With a flash of his arm, Helian whipped his left hand out, lashing the face of this last speaker. "Danny, I asked a simple question! I want a one-word answer! If I want to call Jack a stupidass, I say it. You shut your hole!"

Danny painfully held his right cheek with his hands and cowered away from Helian. He tried to purse his lips, but the right side of his bottom lip was swollen red and purple, so couldn't be closed properly.

Helian then turned back to Jack, again his polite self. He noticed Jack's expression of fear and bewilderment, and said, "Oh, don't worry, Jack. I only do that to people who piss me off. But back to you, I do believe that making us all late and ending up with detention is a little irritating. If not to me, then to your good brothers here. Also, we just found out that you've been doing homework. Now those things, and the fact that you're new, triples the wrong you've done to us. I really am thinking of what could be a good punishment for such bad, bad behavior. Boys, what do you all suggest?"

Jack began to breathe harder and his eyes darted to and from the semicircle of boys beginning to enclose on him. He started backing up, pleading, "Uh, guys, I told you, I won't do it again. Really! I'll stop doing homework too! It's no big deal! A little mistake! I forgot! Honest! Please! No, no!"

Angel heard the sounds of the beating even from where he was, several houses down. He'd crawled to behind the pine, dug his nose into the dirt and closed his eyes the moment he realized what was to transpire. He heard Jack's pleas at first, and then the Sorrys and Promises shift to being mere screams of pain. After a few minutes, it became quiet. Angel looked out from behind the pine. He saw the aggressors starting to walk away from a bloody crumpled mass on Jack's front steps. The last boy, whom Angel recognized to be Tom, before walking away kicked the heap on the steps once, and twisted a smile as the red and black body jerked to the sudden impact.

Angel waited until the group was sufficiently far away before he came out from hiding back onto the sidewalk. But he didn't immediately resume his journey towards school. He looked to the direction of Jack's house uneasily. The clump of blood and torn clothing began to try to get up by grasping the handrails at the sides of the steps. Twice it failed to hold the rail firmly enough, and slipped back onto the steps. On the third try, it hoisted itself up painfully, and stood there, wavering for a second, with its face toward the bloody steps it stood on. Angel considered more than once that maybe he should help Jack, but stopped each time, telling himself that he would do better not to interfere with this business.

Jack turned around on the steps slowly and painfully. He looked up at the doorknob and clean white door of his home, and reached into the pockets of his tattered black North Face jacket. Not finding what he sought for there, he looked around the ground for his butt-pack, and found it unscathed on the lawn some paces away from the steps. He moved inch by inch down the steps and toward his butt-pack. He bent down, paused, reached out, paused, and picked it up. He stood upright again and limped along toward the door. At the door, Jack fumbled around in his pack and found what he sought for - keys. He picked them out and attempted to insert it into the keyhole. His hands trembled as he tried time and time again to place the key into the slot the right way, but each time he missed the small goal. After many futile attempts, he gave a sound of defeat, something between a howl and a groan, and dropped down to the steps.

At this point, Angel began walking toward Jack's prostate form. As he got closer to Jack, he saw that the latter was now shuddering with sobs on the steps with his fists clenching and unclenching. Portions of the sobbing boy's hair lay among the drying blood on the steps. His closed eyes were both blackened, the right one swollen more severely than the left. His nose was twisted at an unnatural angle to his face, and when he opened his mouth to breathe between sobs, Angel noted that several of his teeth were missing. Yet Angel could not find these renegade teeth anywhere about the premises. His only guess was that some of the boys took them as souvenirs. The portions of Jack's body not covered by tattered, scarlet-colored garments showed but bleeding skin and flesh.

Angel walked up the steps, carefully navigating clear of the blood, bent down on one knee so that his face was level with the other's, and whispered to Jack, "Let me help you." Jack's eyes opened slowly. The more swollen right one took longer to open than the other. For a moment, his forehead was furrowed, and he asked, "Are you God?"

Angel smiled and said nothing, but stretched his hand out to the wounded boy in front of him. Jack, still with a perplexed look on his face, managed to stand up with Angel's aid. He handed his companion the keys and stood to the side, swaying in the wind as though a stronger current would sweep him away. Angel opened the door and escorted Jack in.

Angel let drop his book bag at the door. A large staircase stood immediately in front of the entrance. To the left was the living room, furnished with polished wood furniture and crystal figurines in display stands. Down further in that direction was the dining room, and down to the right was the kitchen, well lit with various appliances glimmering in the sun. Jack's parents were nowhere in sight.

Jack led the way upstairs to his room. It was as large as the living room of some houses, with his sleeping quarters on one side, and his recreational area on the other. Angel noted that Jack possessed a great many video games and a large screen TV in the recreational portion of the room.

He walked Jack out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, where Angel picked a clean towel from the closet and turned on the water in the sink. He closed the drain, and let the warm water rush and swirl around until it almost reached the rim of the sink. Angel slipped the towel into the water with Jack watching on his left, still swaying a little, like the wind had made a lasting impression on him.

Washing Jack up was a bit of a problem. His clothes were difficult to remove because of the fact that the half dried blood had seemingly welded flesh and cloth together, and with every article of clothing removed, Jack's face contorted with pain. Eventually, it was done, and the cuts and bruises were washed down with the warm water. The water in the sink was dark red at the end.

* * *

Angel left Jack's house nearly four hours after he entered. Jack's lesions were cleaned and wrapped with medicinal cloth to the best of Angel's ability, and he'd left the wounded boy sleeping like a bear in hibernation.

Jack wasn't in school for the following week. Helian's gang didn't stop at his door anymore either. News spread about Jack and his injuries, but no one knew who inflicted those injuries. Angel overheard from school gossips that Jack didn't tell anyone who beat him. Supposedly, he kept it from even his parents.

Angel never went back to Jack's house because he was afraid. Mainly, he was afraid that Helian's gang would come back and catch him with Jack, then beat them both to pulp. He would avoid Jack's street whenever possible, and on the rare occasion when he did go past Jack's home, he would rush by quickly, with his chin in his jacket collar and his eyes intent on the ground.

A week after the beating, Jack came back to school. There was obviously some commotion from the other kids, badgering Jack with questions about the scars on his face, and a few of his lost teeth. Angel tried to avoid him in the hallways. If he saw Jack coming toward him, he would lower his gaze or shield his eyes, and quickly turn to find another route, even if that meant running around the whole school.

Eventually, however, it was inevitable that he would meet Jack. One day when Angel was leaving a classroom, Jack ran up behind him and grasped his shoulder. Caught completely unawares, Angel spun around and faced Jack eye to eye for the first time since he saw last saw Jack on the steps. Angel didn't know what to say; his mouth opened and closed and he started to back away slowly. Jack, however, did not release his grip on Angel's shoulder. The corners of his mouth curved upwards in a smile, revealing three of his missing teeth. Not knowing what else to do, and since Jack didn't seem to feel like letting go of his shoulder any time soon, Angel awkwardly smiled back and said, "Hi again."

"I finally found you! I've been meaning to find a chance to talk to you ever since, last week, when I, uh, you know. But at that time, my eye was pretty banged up, so I only had a blurry memory of how you looked. And isn't that strange! Every time I think I see you, or someone that looks like you, he walks off in the other direction! So I couldn't get a chance to really thank you for what you did for me that day. Oh, that's what I meant to say all along, you know. If it weren't for you, I probably would have been outside my house until my parents came home that evening! And by then who knows what could have happened!" gasped Jack in one breath.

Angel's eyes boggled at that long stream of speech, and he finally managed to mutter a "Uh, don't mention it." His eye strayed off to a corner of the hallway down some ways, and he saw Helian and his usual group of lackeys saunter around it. Jerking free of Jack's hold, he took a few steps back, and realized that Helian stared straight at him. He hastily turned and ran, calling behind him to a befuddled Jack, "I'll have to see you later! I have a class now!"

Jack with his hand still half-raised from holding Angel's shoulder, mumbled, "Strange.a class? But that was just the end of the last period! Shoot, forgot to get his name."

He jumped when Helian laid a chubby dirty hand on his arm, and spun around to meet the short ringleader of the rough group. "Hey! Lookit who it is! Jack! We haven't seen you since more than a week ago! Well, we were just talkin' about you, and we agreed that we'd still accept you back if you wanted," said Helian, with a manner not unlike that of someone who'd met some long lost friend.

"Hey, I thought you said that we were gonna ditch him. That's what you said several days ago, 'member?" mumbled a boy into Helian's ear. The boy just happened to be Danny.

"Hey! Shut your mouth! Damn fool! I've told you time and time again not to talk unless I say it's okay!" spat Helian as he raised his right hand to smack Danny in the face, but then he remembered Jack, and lowered his hand slowly. Danny was in a defensive position, with his arms guarding his face and his eyes squeezed shut. Only when Helian began speaking did he open his eyes again.

"So Jack. What do ya say? Come back to us. Long as you don't do anything stupid, you won't get hurt!"

Jack hesitated, and Helian, seeing his hesitation, reinforced, "I think you should probably come back to us. You know, if you know what's good for you." Helian brought his face close to Jack's so that Jack was forced to turn away slightly. Helian's eyes shown with the ferocity he'd shown those moments before Jack had taken his last lesson from this gang. Tugging at his collar with one hand, Jack stuttered a "W-well, Helian, I'll uh, joi-, ahem, join you guys again, I guess, ahem, yeah, I guess."

Immediately Helian withdrew, and clapped Jack on the shoulder. "Great! You made the right decision there, Jack. Come with us now. We're gonna go rent a few pool tables at the pool hall."

Jack, as he followed the gang down the hall and around the corner, looked over his shoulder and saw Angel, in a recess of the hall, eyeing him with a saddened look on his face.

* * *

Months passed without much event. Jack dressed and acted accordingly with the gang, and they moved as one. However, whenever Jack saw Angel pass by, or Angel looking at them from a distance, he felt uncomfortable, like needles pricking at his stomach, and usually became quieter, less vulgar.

One day, as the group was walking down the street toward the pool hall, Helian dropped behind the others to walk beside Jack. The clouds were gathering in the sky in darkening clumps, as harbinger of some great storm in store. Helian asked Jack in a quiet whisper, "Hey Jack. I was wondering for some time now. You know that day when we got you back with us? Well I saw this nerdy-lookin' boy talkin to ya beforehand. Who was he? I saw you with your hand on his shoulder, and then him running' away. Should we go beat him up for ya? Seems like he was bugging' you or something'."

Jack immediately replied, "Oh, no, no. He's a friend of mine! He helped me that time I was laying' on the steps." He quickly shut up at realization of the last sentence he uttered.

Helian's expression was a mix of anger and disbelief. His eyebrows bristled as he narrowed his little black eyes and ground his teeth. Jack could practically see the gears turning faster and faster in Helian's head, and suddenly, Helian's face lit up.

"Why, that's great! We just simply need to thank this ner-, uh, friend of yours! What'd you say his name was?"

Jack cautiously chose his words and replied, "I never got to ask him his name. He never told me when we talked."

This statement seemed to send Helian into a renewed state of eye narrowing and teeth-grinding. He ordered Jack to stay while he strutted over to the other boys and called them over to one side. Jack strained his ears to try and hear the conversation, but he could pick up little. Finally, the discussion ended and Helian walked over to Jack, beaming.

"We discussed it! We want to meet this friend of yours! We should thank him for helping you that day! But we don't know what his name is! So Jack, why don't you describe this friend of yours to us, huh? Let your brothers hear about your good friend! We can find him then and thank him for the service he did for you! Come on, don't be shy!" Helian's eyes glinted dangerously at Jack again.

Hesitantly, Jack described what he knew of Angel. His large rim glasses, his orderly brown hair, his usual attire of a collar shirt with sweatshirt and jeans. When he was finished, his eyes were frightened, and his breathing was quick and had a wheeze to it.

"So, that's it! Now let's go look for him!" Helian declared, to loud cheers from his followers. Jack went along. They scoured the neighborhood for Angel. They looked up and down streets, around bends, behind bushes, trees, and some more dull-whitted boys even checked the undersides of rocks. Jack just hovered about, hoping that Angel wouldn't show up arbitrarily. Unfortunately, just as the posse was about to give up and try again another day, Angel walked down the street with two gallon of milk in grocery bags and some boxes of cereal.

Tom was the first to notice. "It's HIM!" he cried. The other boys turned from their searching to join Tom in rushing toward Angel. Angel was daydreaming again, staring at the yellowing grass on the sides of the street. He heard and saw the swarm of boys too late. He tried to turn and run, but gave a cry of dismay as he was bowled over by the first boy that reached him. The groceries flew from his hands as he was covered over in a matter of seconds by boys, kicking, punching, scratching, and even biting. Jack stood to the side of the human pile and cried for the gang to leave his friend alone. He tried to yank some off, but in vain, and so he finally just resorted to kicking any arbitrary body that gave him a chance, and that he could identify was not Angel. Helian also stood to the side, but cheering for the other side, giving cries of "Get him! Punch him! Rip his clothes!" When he noticed that muffled yells of pain from his group were caused by Jack's repeated kicking frenzy, he ran over to him and punched him in the stomach, then gave Jack a kick in the side that made the latter crumple into a gasping heap.

At last, the boys left Angel on the side of the street. They were all gasping for breath and a few had torn North Face jackets. Most had lost their caps in the fray. Helian was overcome with delight. "Ha, ha! Great job boys! That taught him! Interfere with our gang, will he? Come, two of you come and gather this pathetic fool of a member, Jack." With that, two members of the gang came and gathered the wheezing Jack up from the ground and followed the others down the street and away from the little heap of blood and ripped cloth that was Angel. The sky darkened more and thunderclaps were heard, far and distant.

Angel woke up to hard raindrops beating on his face, washing away some of the congealed blood on his face. His left eye couldn't be voluntarily opened. He could open his right eye a slit, and with it he looked at his surroundings. He was lying on some grass on the curb of the street. His left hand was soaking in a puddle of muddy water on the street. He had no feeling of his right hand. Angel felt the cold winter night air fly through the apertures of his clothes, and hear the loud thunder, directly overhead. He listened for a while, and then slipped back into unconsciousness.