Compass Rose Pt. 2 – WIP
This story takes place in the same universe as X Marks the Spot and will be my own take on a super hero universe. It will owe a little bit to the Wild Cards series of books. This is a WIP and is covered by the Creative Commons License below.
Ben flinched.
Jackson balled up his fist. “Nah. We were just hanging out and this little queer got too nosy for its own good.”
I drew back at the smell of cigarette smoke on his breath. “Sneaking a smoke out behind the school and you got caught. No reason to beat up a little kid.”
“She was going to tell the teachers. Things got out of hand.” Jackson bent down as though to help Dawn up.
“You leave her alone and get the hell out of here, before I finish what she started. I saw Mr. Reed out by the shop class. He could be here in two minutes and you two would be out of school for the rest of the year.”
“No. You can’t do that. I won’t be able to run track and we’re doing good this year.” As handsome as Ben was, his world was all about that asphalt oval. “You can’t tell on us. She’ll be okay.”
“I won’t tell if you just get lost.”
Jackson punched Ben in the chest. “Come on big guy, let’s leave these two queers alone.” He looked down at me. “I’ll talk with you later.”
The boys turned and left the yard, and I stooped down again.
“Can you stand up, buddy?” I rested one hand on her shoulder.
“I… I think so. If you help.”
I could tell that she was going to have a black eye at least. The nose bleed wasn’t bad. The way she winced when I got her to her feet meant that she had a few bruises around her ribs. Together we eased to the building.
Dawn stopped us halfway. “You’re not gonna tell are you?”
“Do you want me to?”
“No. I think that would just make things worse.”
There was a lot of wisdom there. Even then I realized that and how horrible that truth was. Both of us had seen movies and heard talks about bullying, but on the schoolyard tattletales always paid double. If I told then she would get another beating whether she did or not. “I’ll leave that up to you. If you tell then I’ll say that I saw everything. If you decide not to then mum’s the word.”
Mr. Reed was still talking to the Robotics teacher. When they saw us come in, Mr. Reed said something I’d never heard him say in class. We were whisked to the office in short order. Dawn claimed that she had fallen from the monkey bars. That was plausible, but I would know later in life that the look Ms. Mayhew had given her was called incredulous. We would all know by the summer of our Sophomore year that her previous husband had beaten her more than once. That’s why she was a Ms. now.
Once everything was calm, I excused myself.
“Are you sure that you don’t want one of us to take you home?”
I shook my head. “No, thank you, Mr. Reed. I only live a couple of blocks away and there’s still plenty of light.”
“Okay. But be careful.”
I nodded solemnly. In a world where you could get a beating for being in the wrong place at the wrong time though, no amount of care was capable of protecting you from getting hurt eventually.
I left by the back way again. There was a shortcut to my house through the woods at the edge of the school property. I could get there in around eight minutes. Four minutes into my walk I hit the thicket and smelled smoke. That was when I felt something hit me between the shoulder blades. I blacked out before I even felt my face hit the thorn bush.
Compass Rose by Scott Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.scottroche.com.