chapter 2 Mallory

Fist met flesh with a wet smack, and the young boy toppled over, joining his cohorts in the sludge of the dirty road; his nose was bleeding, and it was clear from the strange angle that it sat on his face that it might just be broken.

The perpetrator of said broken nose stood victorious among his fallen opponents, though you wouldn't think he was the winner judging of how beat up he looked. His brown skin that spoke of his African descent was now bleeding from multiple cuts on his face and knuckles; His dreads that were bound in a ponytail had broken loose at some point during the altercation, slightly obscuring his features. Based on his looks, you could tell that he was young.

Mallory had just turned twelve a few days ago, but nothing changed for him; he still lived in the poorest part of town, he still didn't know his dad and the kids at school were more than happy to make fun of him for it.

Maybe if he went to a public school closer to the inner city, it wouldn't be so bad, since most people there were like him; poor and from a single-parent home, but that wouldn't fly, especially not with his mom.

Because, you see, Mallory was born brilliant he cold talk before he could walk and he started reading at a grade school level while others were being potty trained. Which means that his mom knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could excel and while a lot of the time the confidence she had in him was reassuring, the expectations she placed on his shoulders where also hard to live up to.

One of those expectations was to use that big brain of his to get into a good school and get good grades, so after a few years moving from school to school, word of this little genius reached the ears of those at red pastures academy the most prestigious school in this city sector.

Now, red pastures wasn't just any prey private school, no, far from that. Red pastures was a place for the elite, a school that had produced Nobel prize winners, legendary athletes, Pulitzer journalist, and revolutionary politicians it had a history going back more than a few hundred years and to get in one required a lot more than smarts and money, you needed backing, you needed upbringing but with an IQ over three hundred a few rules could be bent.

And with that, Mallory made it to the most noteworthy school in the sector. It meant that from this point it was all the way up, his future was bright and the sky was the limit. His present, though?

Not so much.

To the preppy kids of politicians and billionaires that attended red pasture, Mallory was a pauper, a riffraff, a leech who only managed to enter into their school by feed of others good graces. If it was only that they could have ignored him.

But this leech had the audacity to out do them in every class, heck he even beat them in sports, they couldn't have that, so they bullied him. Mallory thought it would get better after he skipped a couple grades. Big kids wouldn't care about him right, they had other things to do like date, party and do drugs who would pay attention to the kid in the corner.

Wrong.

It just got worse, dog shit in his locker, stink bombs in his gum shoes, and let's not even get into the fake love letter the look of disgust on Amy Turners face was burnt into his memory, which was a shame since she was the only girl that ever bothered to be nice to him.

The point is that in all this they never resorted to violence, until today. Mallory got of the bus and began his trek home, the bus driver refused to go into my neighborhood and who could blame him, people get shot here every day, he wasn't trying to be one off them.

It was getting late, Mallory spent a bit too much time at the library again, but he was in no rush his mom was working three jobs maybe four, he didn't necessarily keep track but she got home very late, which means he could get home very late.

On his way home he passed the usual route through, the clubs, the hotels and red light district, crowded places and more witnesses means less chances of being accosted by more unsavory characters. But on this usual route saw something unusual, a drunk girl being dragged into a car by some shady men okay maybe it wasn't unusual but what was is that he knew the girl an dye knew the guys.

The girl was Sarah Ladner a girl from his school and a world-class bitch who on more than one occasion treated him like trash. While the guys where the school bullies. Thomas, Ferdinand and Carlos they where all in the same class but since Mallory skipped a few grades, all the way into junior high, he just turned twelve but the rest of them where in their late teens.

Now, given that Mallory absolutely despised every member of this situation, he would be more than happy to leave Sarah to her fate and hope that the boys get caught and go to jail for it.

But, apparently that was hoping for to much because apparently Carlos had to spot him among this massive crowd.

"hey, dipshit get over here!" Carlos screamed in my direction startling me and a couple people around, once those people realized who was being yelled out they made room very quick.

'fucking cowards' Mallory thought to himself, preparing to bolt. Then he heard the gun cock.

"move and I'll blow your brains out" a familiar voice said from behind me, another bully.

People saw all this going on and still kept walking, a kid getting shot? Happens all the time. Why would they speak up, so they could get shot too? No thanks.

One of the bullies, a tall black kid by the name of Thomas, put Sarah over his shoulders like a bag of flour and led all of us into an alley. Mallory's mind was racing, these guy could kill him and there would be no consequences. They where rich and powerful their families basically ran the city! All they had to do was grease a couple palms and plant a weapon on his corpse and no one would think twice.

"fuck are you doing harry! You brought a gun!" after that git to the alley Ferdinand yelled at the short fat Asian kid that still had a gun to Mallory's head.

"shut up Andy, do you think anyone comes to this part of town without any protection? Plus if I didn't have this, the kid would have bolted and if Mr. Ladner finds out what we where going to do to Sarah.... I don't even want to think about it"

".... So what now" Ferdinand asked in a subdued voice

"Now we ice the kid and get back to this sweet thing" Thomas cut in from the back while running a finger down the side of Sarah's face.

Just going of his looks, the way his light brown hair complemented his dark brown skin and pretty pink lips, you wouldn't know he was such a scum bag.

"well, sounds good to me" Mallory didn't need to see the look on Harry's face to imagine that videos sadistic smile, he had seen enough of it at school.

"Wait!" Mallory yelled out saying his first words since coming here.

"what poor boy any last words" Harry laughed out while pressing the barrel into the back of my head.

"Your too close" Mallory said trying to stall for time his mind desperately racing thinking of a way to get out of this.

"So?" Harry replied with amused indifference.

Mallory slowly began to turn around.

"ah ah ah. Watch it poor boy" Harry warned as he presses the barrel deeper into his scalp.

"If your going to kill me the least you could do is make my life useful, by pinning the rape on me. But if you want to make it realistic you have to shot me from farther out to make it more believable." There was silence for a moment before Harry pulled the gun away from his head.

"okay poor boy ten steps forw-" Mallory heard the of sound of metal rubbing up against fabric, specifically Harry's kakis, Harry never finished his sentence.

A back spin and a right hook sent Harry to the floor, he never thought a twelve year old could hit that hard, they never do.

Mallory sprinted towards Harry's right hand and gave his weapon a kick so hard it was a miracle it didn't go off. Sending it careening out of the alley to God knows where and so began the fight of Mallory's short life.

They punched and they kicked and they got him almost every time, but he wouldn't go down and a few minutes later none of them could stand up.

Mallory didn't even really remember what happened he just remembered seeing harry scared face as he stood over him and all the bullying came flooding back then he saw red.

Mallory took a moment to catch his breath before picking up his back pack and stumbling away from the war zone.

"ugh…" and that's when Sarah decided to wake up.

Dressed in a glittery silver, low-cut, one piece mini-skirt. That complemented her dark raven hair that fell like waterfalls and hugged her sexy body tightly, showing off her curves and magazine level shape, Mallory could see why those morons where about to do the unthinkable.

To bad all these assets belonged to an absolute harpy, not willing to stick around and get blamed for the whole thing, Mallory continued his limp of shame out of the alley way.

A few minutes later he was scot free and back on the grimy streets of the slums continuing on his way home unhindered by psychotic rapists or drugged up Prima donnas .Of course he had to pay for that on Monday but for now he could bask in the bliss of beating the crap out of his school bullies and saving a pretty girl...…. Okay the last part wasn't much of a win but hey you can't have every thing right.

these where Mallories thoughts before he blacked out