Wings

Captured

I sat back down, I thought I may aswell stay for a bit, have a little time to think, otherwise I would get home and my Mother would be hounding me with questions about school and homework. The problem was with not having a Dad, my Mum was stuck at home all day trying to sell her paintings and taking the occasional art class. She never really had good friends to talk to, just me, so as soon as I got home, I was bombarded with enquiries. Not that much was really going right for me. I opened my bag and pulled out a half eaten mars bar which I had bought at break and eaten small bites of. It bit into it and heard a scream. A girl's scream. I stood up to see what the noise was about, I saw four dark figures on the horizon holding a girl by the arm. I ran over to the car park fence and climbed up onto it. I dropped my Mars bar in shock. "Let her go Bryce!!!" I scrambled over the fence and ran up the path. "You have no right to put your hands on her!" Franny reached out to me as I came close to them. I lashed out and punched Bryce square in the face, Paddy was there, I just gave him a solid look but no contact and then there was a guy I'd never seen before. Bryce looked me in the eye and dropped Franny, she fell to the floor. "This is Joss, I don't believe you've met." I shook my head and held out my hand to Franny she grabbed it and pulled herself up. We turned away and Bryce shouted something at me. "Stay safe!" I don't really know what he meant by that, whether he was being sarcastic or not. I didn't know for sure whether Franny was hurt, but I thought she was. "You ok?" She pressed her hand to her knee and brought it away, her hand was all bloody, from touching her knee. There was a public toilet in the car park which I took her into, it wasn't the most hygienic place to clean a wound but she needed attention. I grabbed the last paper towel from the dispenser and dampened it, well tried to, the tap only gave a tiny trickle of water, slightly murky, I dabbed her knee and she winced. "Does that sting?" She clenched her teeth and tried to bare the stinging, her knee was bleeding badly and quite grubby from the gravely path where she fell. "Just a little, does it look bad, I don't want to see, I hate blood." I looked at her. "Yeah it'll be fine, I just need to get one or two little stones out is all." She nodded and pulled her leg away as I picked out one of the stones. "Careful, just two more." I flicked the next two out quickly then carried on dabbing at the blood. "I'm sure the bleeding will stop soon." She looked around the walls in sought of a first aid kit, no chance in this dump. I dove into my football kit and dug around a bit, I found an old bandage I had used when I twisted my knee, it wasn't dirty. I stretched it out and started winding it round her knee. "This should ease it a little." She reached out and put a hand on my shoulder and pushed down for support as she stood up. "I don't want to go home." Just as she said that the door swung open and a big fat drunken man stumbled in. "Come on let's go." I took her hand avoiding the man, it was dark now and I was slightly nervous about walking home. "What d'you mean, I would have thought you've had enough of the streets by now." I smiled, slightly jokingly, I nudged her for a response. "My uncle and cousin arrived today, they're staying in town, because Henry, my cousin has a horse race down at the tracks on Saturday, they're keeping his horse in the stables up town." I frowned, I didn't really know why she wouldn't want to spend time with family. "Don't you like them?" She shook her head and combed her fingers through her hair."They don't like me, my uncle's not very nice to my mum either, and when they come to town she isn't herself, she shies away and does whatever they say, Henry is 16 so a little older than us, and he thinks he owns the world. They never say anything nice about me and my mother or their stay at our house and they never seem grateful for our hospitality. Their isn't one woman in that family either, so they're particularly bossy towards girls and women, like me Celeste and my mum. I hate them, and I mean it. If only I didn't have to face Henry alone... You could come over! And then he'd see that I DO have friends! Please." I sighed haplessly. "Fine, I'll come, but you have to stand up to them someday... Alone." She smiled at me, I did say I wanted to meet her uncle and cousin. "Deal."