Reese

“If we can find their bodies, we’ll bring them home. And if we can’t, we fight for the justice they all deserve. We make sure they’re not forgotten.”

We all look at each other, and a silent pact is made. All that’s missing from the moment is a secret handshake.

“We won’t let them down, Malice,” Blink adds, sitting on the edge of the desk.

“I know. Because honestly, we’re all they’ve got.”

* * *

“Yeah, but you were a pig. You would say shit like that. You don’t know what it’s like,” one of the newer kids, Dwayne, I think, spits out at Law as he talks to the class.

“For someone who hates to be pigeonholed, you sure do like to make assumptions,” Law tells him, looking around the room at the others.

“My dad died when I was four, leaving just me and my mom. We lived in a shitty neighborhood, and she had to work three jobs just to make ends meet, thanks to my dad’s medical bills. I was angry and left unsupervised a lot. I fell in with the wrong crowd, which led me to do things that would shock the shit out of all of you. I was a little bastard. I cared about nothing and no one until the leader of the gang we wanted in gave us our initiation tasks. Want to know what it was? I’ll give you a hint. It starts with an R and ends with karma giving it back to you tenfold by a man twice your size in an eight-by-ten cell. I didn’t have much of a conscience left, but I was raised by a woman, and if I knew anything, it was that real men protect their women. They do not persecute them. Only weak-ass bullies do that shit. I refused, spent eight weeks in the hospital eating through a straw, after being left for dead in the gutter.”

Silence reigns around the room, the kids looking at him with shock and horror on their faces.

“Yeah, now you see it. But here’s the kicker: my mom was one of the other members’ targets. Nearly killing me wasn’t enough. They wanted to rape my mother, break her in a way she might never recover from.”

“Did they?” a small female voice asks with a quiver.

I can’t see the asker from here, but Law turns to them and shakes his head.

“Louis, an off-duty cop, happened to be passing by and heard her scream. He saved her before they could do any real damage. They went on to get married, and Louis, he taught me what it is to be a real man.”

Silence rings out once more, but this time it’s filled with something other than aggression. Dare I say it, it’s filled with the possibilities of what if?

“They come here?” Dwayne asks, trying to play it cool, but I can see the curiosity on his face.

“They died a few years ago in a car accident. But I can tell you this, if Louis had come here and seen all of you…” He shakes his head and points at them.

“He wouldn’t have taken your shit for a single second. He wouldn’t have listened to you bitch and moan about how unfair life is. He’d have told you to stop playing the victim and fight back. This world owes you nothing. You get one life, one shot to leave a legacy you’ll be proud of. Believe in something. Believe in yourselves. Know when to stand the fuck up and when to back the fuck down and, most of all, know when to ask for help. No man is an island. We can’t do it all alone.”

“That’s easy for you to say when you had parents that gave a shit about you. Not all of us have that. Half of us here won’t make it out alive.”

“Nobody makes it out alive,” I interject as I walk to the front of the room to join Law.

“You did?”

“Did I? Because I’m here, aren’t I? Standing in front of you as if I never left. From where I’m standing, it looks like I’ve come full circle.”

I look around them and know that what I say now will have the power to change these kids if I can just find a way through their defenses.

“I’m you in ten, fifteen years if you don’t give up. If you don’t let the bastards that want to break you win.”

“You had shitty parents?” Sarah asks from the front row. I nod.

“Least you had parents,” someone else calls out.

“The grass isn’t always greener on the other side. Remember that when you’re judging someone next to you. I had a mom, dad, and sister. The perfect little wholesome family on the outside, but Daddy used his fists instead of his words to raise us, and Mama loved the bottle more than her kids.”

I pull my t-shirt off, leaving me standing in my sports bra as I turn to reveal my back. I know they can see the scars just above my waistband where I was hit with a belt. And when I twist a little more, they get a glimpse of the circular cigarette burns that sit high up on my shoulder.

“He hurt you?” Mazie whispers, hugging herself as I turn back to face them.

“Every day of my life. When I was twelve, my sister Amanda left home and married a man just like my daddy. She was eighteen and so damn beautiful.”

“What happened to her?”