Evangeline Keel Hope woke with a start on that Tuesday morning, sweat dripping from her hairline. It had been months since she had dreamed about the incidents that had taken place two years ago, the terrible year she had hoped to have erased from her mind, and now, when she had finally recovered, it was all coming back to her. The memories were enough to make her scurry out of bed and start preparing for the workday at only four o'clock in the morning.

But as the early hours past, as she showered and dressed as she did every day, the memories seemed to tick away with the time. Soon Evangeline was back to being her normal sixteen-year-old self tiredly applying makeup to her face and regretting that she had been so stupid as to get up so early.

"Oh!" Evangeline's mother cried with a start upon entering the kitchen to find her daughter eating breakfast. "Good morning Evan," she said, hurrying to prepare her morning coffee. "They can't really expect you to be in the office at six in the morning, eh love?"

Evangeline yawned with great enthusiasm, nearly slopping her mug of tea all down her front. "No," she replied, blinking profusely in the bright kitchen light. "I just had a bad dream."

"Oh dear," Ms. Hope tutted, her face contorting into a look of serious worry as she came to grasp her daughter's hand in hers. "Are you all right love? Was it about-well, you know?"

Evangeline nodded solemnly.

"Oh no, sweetie," Ms. Hope sighed, sitting across from her daughter and forgetting all about her bubbling coffee pot. "I'm sorry. When you go in the office today you can talk to Gemma about it, that might help."

"Mum," Evangeline retorted, pulling her hand away. "I don't need to talk to my counselor! It was just a dream, no harm in a dream."

Ms. Hope looked shocked. "But dear," she cried. "We don't want this dream to-erm-promote you to do anything rash, now do we? I really think you should just mention it to Gemma Watson, she'll be able to explain it to you more thoroughly."

"Mum, I'm not stupid," Evangeline replied, getting up from her seat at the kitchen counter and proceeding to wash her dishes. "I think I can interpret a dream, thank you very much. Besides, it's not like the dream's gonna make history repeat itself: the dream was just memories, and I am never, EVER going to anything like that again. You worry too much." She bent over to place her dirty mug in the dishwasher before straightening up and smiling reassuringly at her mother. "Now I've got to go to work. I want to get in early as they're finally giving me a real assignment today! No more of that preaching to little children about how drugs are bad. Today I get to start doing the real stuff!"

She grabbed her purse from the countertop before hurrying forth to kiss her mother, who was still sitting frailly at the kitchen table.

"Well I can drive you!" Ms. Hope insisted as her daughter rushed to the door.

"No, that's alright," Evangeline replied quickly, pausing at the coat rack to pull her sweater over her head and grab her hat. "I'd like to walk today."

"Well," her mother said, now sounding tired herself. "Good luck dear."

"Thanks Mum," Evangeline replied shortly, before pulling the door open and stepping out, onto the threshold. "Oh, and by the way," she added before closing the door behind her. "Your coffee's burning."

The early morning fog was still lingering about the streets as Evangeline stepped out into the chilly London air and began to walk down the icy sidewalk. Even with her sweater wrapped tightly around her torso and her cotton hat jammed low on her forehead Evangeline's innards still froze, owing to each intake of breath. She quickened her pace wishing she had accepted her mother's offer to give her a ride and wondering why she'd been so intent on walking. It wasn't as if walking a couple blocks was going to be much exercise, not that Evangeline needed it as ever since she had been helped by her councilor, Gemma Watson, a couple years ago, she'd been put on a workout program that she attended each afternoon. And, if Evangeline had been so keen and excited to find out what her job assignment was to be, then she should have realized that riding in her mother's car would have been much quicker.

But Evangeline didn't have to fret long as soon she turned a street corner to find herself facing a cluster of tall buildings, restaurants, and shops, meaning that she had only a block more to go.

Here, where the city was alert with traffic, sirens, and hordes of people hurrying off to their jobs, it was much warmer then the little isolated street Evangeline and her mother lived on and Evangeline rejoiced by releasing the tight grip of her sweater as she joined the hubbub.

The office building Evangeline worked at, The Franklin Tower, was a thirty story skyscraper in which the company Evangeline worked for (HELP, an organization specializing in rescuing the United Kingdom's youth from drugs, sex, abuse, and poverty) only occupied two floors: sixteen and seventeen. It wasn't only a nuisance that slow elevator ride took forever to get to these mid floors but also that being in the middle of the tower meant they had a lot of strange people passing through to get to their therapists on the floors above. Evangeline was used to this by now but during her first couple of days working at the office she was nearly scared out of her wits when an insane man wearing a tutu and rabbit ears came crashing into her work space singing the alphabet.

"Goo' morning Evan!"

Evangeline had just exited off the elevator onto the sixteenth floor to be greeted by Rory, a tall, cheerful boy of seventeen whose main task at HELP was to fetch everyone's coffee.

"Will it be coffee for you today?" he asked her, offering her a steaming paper cup from the tray he carried every morning.

"No thanks," Evangeline replied briskly, walking quickly through the rows of cubicles with Rory at her heels. "Do you have hot chocolate?" she asked.

"Daring today, I see," Rory said sarcastically, handing her a cup. "So," he said, a grin spreading across his face. "Excited about finally gettin' a job reserved for the big boys?"

Evangeline returned his grin, her quick pace almost turning into a prance with her anticipation. "Of coarse!" she replied. "It's what I've been waiting for ever since I realized that all I was good for around here was passing out anti-violence stickers at elementary schools." She turned into her own cubicle where she set her purse down, pulled her hat and sweater off, and bustled about trying to make herself look presentable.

"Don't get too cocky though," Rory advised, leaning over the cubicle wall to continue their conversation. "This kind of work is serious and dangerous, especially for a young girl like you. You want to have your wits about you when you go to help people like that."

Evangeline glared at him. "Please Rory, I think if anyone knows how those people act it would be me," she said, her every word tinged with menace.

Rory frowned. "I'm sorry," he said, acting as if he'd spoken ill in front of his mother. "I didn't mean it like that-I-I wasn't trying to drag you into it-"

"It's alright," Evangeline replied sweetly. "I was only joking. I just don't want everyone to worry about me. I'll be fine, really!"

Rory grinned again, like a dog happy that his master hadn't beaten him.

"Now," Evangeline continued, straightening out her shirt. "How do I look?"

"Amazing," Rory replied, smiling.

"You think I'll make a good impression on the boss?"

Rory shrugged his shoulders at this. "Well, if our boss was a guy then he would probably want to sleep with you but since she's no guy I'm not sure she'll get the message."

"Oh shut up!" Evangeline cried, brushing past Rory with a playful shove as she proceeded down to her employer's office.

She gave a slight knock at the door before stepping slowly inside to find her boss, a surely woman by the name of Patsy Stone, talking to one of her many employees, Gemma Watson. When Evangeline poked her head shyly about the doorframe, their conversation ended abruptly and Gemma turned curiously to see who had interrupted.

"Excuse me," Evangeline said apologetically as she beckoned herself back out of the room.

"Oh! Come in Miss Hope! Come in!" Ms. Stone cried in her boom of a voice. "Miss Watson and I were just talking about you, come in!"

Meekly, Evangeline entered the room again and sat down in an empty chair before Ms. Stone's desk.

"Hello Evan," Gemma said smiling. "A bit early for work today aren't you?"

"Oh-erm-yes," Evangeline replied sheepishly, she still wasn't certain about mentioning her dream to her young councilor, as she was sure it would worry Gemma just as it had her mother.

"Well that's good!" Ms. Stone said happily. "I like exuberance in my young employees as you know well Miss Watson! They're just so much more lively don't you think? Like that errand boy--he's always got a smile on his face you know! Oh, what was his name..?"

"Rory?" Evangeline replied daringly.

"Oh yes! That's the one! I've always liked him you know but I can never remember his bloody name-"

"I think," Gemma said loudly. "Miss Hope is here to discuss her new assignment."

"Oh! Yes, yes, of coarse, dear, of coarse," Ms. Stone said promptly. She sat up straight in her chair and furrowed her brow, eyeing Evangeline seriously. "But she looks so young!" she cried suddenly. "We can't just send her out there were she could get hurt-"

"If you forget, dear Patsy," Gemma interrupted once more. "I was sixteen when I was given my first assignment like this."

Ms. Stone looked drained of color and lost for words as she sat there, beaten in the argument. "Yes, yes," she muttered to herself. "I was only eighteen and everything worked out but-"

Gemma gave her a demeaning stare.

"Oh, yes, alright then," Ms. Stone muttered before finally pulling open a file cabinet on her desk and retrieving a mountain of large file folders. "Alright," she said, straightening up and forcing a smile. "Let's see what we have for you, dear." She began to prod through the different file folders, mumbling things to Gemma now and then as she went.

"The Thompson case, no, I already gave that one away to Daniel. The Petrillins. no, no, of coarse not. they're much too dangerous. The Kelley, Drake, and McKenzie case. Hmm. not for her first time. The Rogers-"

"Wait!" Gemma cried. "What did you just say?"

"The Rogers," Ms. Stone replied, looking baffled.

"No, no, the one before that," Gemma asked.

Ms. Stone shuffled back through the file folders she'd already past. "Kelley, Drake, and McKenzie," she said slowly, raising her eyebrow reproachfully.

"Well Evan could handle them," Gemma said, an air of excitement about her words. "They're those three blokes from Bristol, ey?"

Ms. Stone nodded, looking even more bewildered.

"Give her that job! She'd transform 'em in seconds!" Gemma smiled contently at Evangeline who was also completely dumbstruck.

"Well," Ms. Stone said shakily, as if just emerging from a rough fight. "Do you want the job Ms. Hope?"

"Um." Evangeline looked from the grinning face of her councilor to the heavy file on Ms. Stone's desk. At the top of the file she could read the names Kelley, Drake, and McKenzie written in thick lettering, but that was all that she could see. "Sure." she said, completely unsure of what she had just submitted herself into.

Gemma patted her on the shoulder. "This is gonna be a piece of cake for you!" she reassured.

"Alright," Ms. Stone sighed, opening the folder and beginning to explain its contents. "They're three boys living alone together in Bristol," she said, a bit grimly. "They live in what you might call the Hell's Kitchen of Bristol."

"It's this really dumpy part of the city," Gemma said fervently, her excitement only adding to Evangeline's anxiety.

"Yes," Ms. Stone agreed, casting a disapproving glare over Gemma, which she didn't seem to notice. "Anyway, about the boys." she cleared her throat before removing a stack of papers from the file folder: clearly this was a very detailed case. "First there's eighteen-year-old Vincent Drake," Ms. Stone said in an important tone. "He's the conniving type, you see, very popular amongst drug dealers and thieves. His father was a drug dealer who disappeared when Vincent was thirteen and apparently Vincent has since taken up daddy's hobbies. The police have suspected him for many crimes in the past but he's a tricky one and they've never been able to find enough evidence to put him away." Ms. Stone sighed and Evangeline was suddenly reminded of her mother.

"Then," Evangeline's boss continued. "There's Noah 'Bade' Kelley: a pitiful boy of sixteen whose mother died when he was just a tyke. His father wasn't exactly what you'd call a pleasant person though, and we believe he must have abused Noah pretty badly for at the mere age of ten, Noah ran away to the dank city."

Evangeline looked from Ms. Stone's surely expression to Gemma's sorrowful one and wondered with horror just what she was getting herself into.

"Noah is now a complete drug addict who takes heroin shots, smokes marijuana, drinks till he can't remember his name, you name it! Any drug he can get his hands on and he'll take a lot of it."

"It's disgusting," Gemma muttered, but her hand was gripping Evangeline's in a motherly way, as if to keep Evangeline from crying. Evangeline wondered if she should tell her councilor about the dream, now that she knew her promotion was going to be much tougher then she'd previously thought.

"And, finally," Ms. Stone said, her nose suddenly wrinkling in disgust as she continued to skim over the paper in her large hands. "There's Reed Tate McKenzie, one of the most foulest of young men if I might say so!" She looked up at Gemma and Evangeline as if it was too horrible to tell them. Then, with a deep breath, she continued. "Mr. McKenzie is what one might call a male prostitute. Or at least that's what all his filthy customers have dubbed him as. He's a seventeen-year-old who'll have sex with any woman, any age, just so long as there's money involved. Both his parents are still alive and well although after their son ran away to become--well, you know, they moved to Germany where they had another child and seem to have forgotten all about Reed. It's quite sad really but just look what the boy does!

"Apparently he has a reputation for being the best, and with that sort of an attitude I'm quite certain he'll be very tough to help."

"Well they'll all be tough to crack!" Gemma cried. "And that's why you should give the job to Evan! She'd be the most qualified person to handle this and you know it!"

Ms. Stone looked pitifully down her long, pointed nose at Evangeline, who could tell her boss was thinking of her rough past and how it compared so miserably to the case she was being presented with.

"I know," Ms. Stone agreed solemnly. Then, to Evangeline she said, "Well, if you do choose to stick with this case then we'll be sending a notice to these boys as soon as possible. You'll be flying to Bristol by the end of next week as I'm sure it's in everyone's best interest that we save these boys as soon as possible.

"If you do wish to try and help these particular boys then we will be supplying you with absolutely anything you'd need: provisions, money, air fair, etceteras. You can stay with the boys at their-erm-shack or we'll buy you a hotel room and rent you a car. If you agree to comply with all this then you'll be using everything you've learned here from psychological tactics to therapeutic procedures. You know, anything that will help you tackle those boy's-er-problems." At this she straightened up and adjusted the bodice of her fine shirt, as if to close the conversation.

Gemma let go of Evangeline's hand as her grin expanded to the full extent of her face. "Well," she said standing up and gesturing for Evangeline to do the same. "We'll be off now, let Evan think it all over a bit before she make her final decision." She began to move toward the door.

"Erm-yeah," Evangeline agreed. "I just need a few minutes to-yeah."

Gemma had grabbed Evangeline and pulled her out the door before she'd even had a chance to finish her sentence.

"So?" Gemma asked, reeking of excitement as she closed the door with a soft snap behind them.

"So?" Evangeline replied in a confused manner.

"So what do you think?" Gemma cried. "Are you gonna take the job?"

"I dunno." Evangeline said slowly. She really had no intentions to go and branch out to a thieve, a drug addict, and a sex-craving lunatic but the way Gemma had recommended her for the case made it seem like Gemma had the utmost faith in her young pupil. Evangeline didn't really want to let Gemma down.

"I really think you can do it," Gemma said, lowering her voice so no one but Evangeline could hear. "I mean, I wasn't sure you'd be able to do a job like this when you first started working here, after I helped you out, but look how far you've come! You could probably take on our toughest assignment if you were really willing. I'm sure you'll do fine with these boys. They'll probably be reinvented in a week with you around there to whip them into shape! So what do you say? Are you gonna try it and see if it all works out? If you feel like you can't handle it we can always send someone else to take care of them? What do you think?"

Evangeline looked down at her feet but they certainly weren't going to guide her through her decision. "Yeah," she replied, surprised that her voice sounded so strong. "Yeah, I'll do it."

Gemma grinned from ear to ear. "That's the tough Evan we all know and love!" she said, pushing Evangeline's hair away from her face. "Now, first thing's first: are you going to want to be staying with the boys? Or living in a hotel?"

If Evangeline had remembered this small detail before she had agreed to try and reinvent three older boys then she wouldn't have said yes. Here she was, a sixteen-year-old girl just recently revived from a terrible year, now holding the decision to go to an unfamiliar place by herself and live either with a trio of rather unscrupulous characters or a bunch of people staying at an old motel-all of whom she'd know absolutely nothing about.

Gemma seemed to notice the tension in her pupil as she then made a suggestion. "If it were up to me," she said slowly. "Then I would choose to live with my target group. That way you get to know the people better. You learn their weaknesses, or how severe their problems are. That's how I was able to help you."

Evangeline remembered it well. She had been very disgruntled upon being forced to share her life with a complete stranger, but all in all the constant attention she had received from Gemma had helped her surface above her problems immensely.

But these were boys. Unknown boys! All three of them regularly getting intoxicated and dangerous. And being a female about the same age as them living in the same house sounded a bit risky. Yet it was all just as risky to choose to move into a hotel for as long as it took to 'save' three rowdy teenagers.

"I'll stay with the guys," Evangeline said, still sounding completely unsure of herself.

Gemma nodded but did not smile. It seemed like the seriousness of what Evangeline was to be doing was finally weighing down on Gemma's thoughts and as she turned to reenter Ms. Stone's office to tell Ms. Stone the news, Evangeline at her heels, her smile did not return.

Evangeline mind still raked over her dream and whether or not to mention it to Gemma. But even after they had made the final preparations for Evangeline's assignment there in Ms. Stone's office Evangeline still refused to make things sound worse then they really were. She wouldn't admit things weren't all right, she wouldn't reveal her dream: the dream where Evangeline had been a fourteen-year-old girl again, sticking syringes into her arm.