The Final Stand

Chapter 2

Bill

That new girl, what's her name, oh yah Daisy she seems like trouble, trouble that Mikey and I will have to deal with before she deals with us. I've made that decision before I've chosen to wait until something bad happened to us, and that didn't go so well. I grew up with two drug addicted, alcoholic parents so it was always my job to protect and take care of my little brother Mikey. He used to love being called that nickname it was probably the only reason he wouldn't complain when he smelled all the alcohol on mom and saw dad passed out on the couch he was my little trooper that would wait for me playing in the park next to my school always, waiting and never wondering why I wouldn't allow him to be home alone with father or mother. Never, when it would be me that tucked him in at night and me that would read him stories. NEVER. Not once would he complain for the life of it, not when I would go and get mad at father and mother for "leaving" us and slap them both hard if they were passed out. Never not even once, until mom died - until mom took a huge overdose of drugs and died after living a horrible life, I knew that it would break Mikey because I knew that Mikey was still a human and that he was still in his right mind so of course Mikey, me, and even Dad cried when mom passed away. But we were never the same after that Mikey was never jumping for joy when school was finally over and we could play, in fact, he never seemed to want to play at all.

I wasn't the only one to see this change in him other kids in his grade did too, and soon after school they would start bullying him at first it was nothing but a bloody nose, a little bruise every boy gets when they learn who's boss, but the people didn't stop at that.

It got worse and worse, a black eye, blood streaming out of cuts that he would have completely covering his body. But still, he told me no, he told me not to step in but after the third week of him being broken up and me getting punished by dad just for standing up for my brother, for believing in him, I had seen enough. I had left this family far to broken and dad was right this was all my fault I got this family torn apart not mom's alcohol not dad's drugs or mom dying or Mikey blocking me out of the picture this was all my fault until I was born Mom and dad had never fought never even mouthed off at each other there had been no drugs and no alcohol and how did I know.

Well, they used to be that perfect couple, the kind of people that would keep video diaries in hope that their memories would be thought of forever but look how that turned out. I know that I can't change the past and I knew it then too. So the next day I decided to help Mikey.

My friends, of course, knew who was bullying him and confronting them got it all spilling it out for everyone to hear. Then I waited and when that final bell rang I was sure to be well out of class and going to find those idiots. They were all in a group pushing Mikey against the wall right near the lunch tables in front of everyone that was watching. That might have been their biggest mistake as I pushed people around in the crowd, people started letting out little yelps as they realized whose brother they were hurting, mine. Sure it had been a year since I showed this school my dominance and it had been before these bullies had shown up, but there was surely still some fear in people's eyes as they realized Mikey was my brother since I had only gotten stronger in this last year. I started shoving as I got closer to the front, till I was able to see their faces I just kept shoving, and when I got to the front I went right for the kill. Maybe Mikey would've been mad but I hadn't cared one bit as I shoved a boy named Nick who had a brother on the football team away. He fell to the floor confused at who would dare to push him around. But I wasn't going to go along with these games, so I went up to him and picked him up by his shirt and lodged a punch right in his stomach. Next, I went up to his little friends who were already trying to scramble trying to get out of the monster's path, but I wouldn't let them. Slowly I picked up another guy and whispered in his ear clearly, "Clench your teeth," then I threw a punch right at his mouth causing blood to stream out of it. Everyone was probably yelling but I didn't really care I had been through too much to stop now I was taking all my anger all my pain all of my questioning if I was a good son, out on these kids, these bullies that had been attacking my brother day after day after day, Making him come home bloody and broken. I never felt so much rage in my life except for that day. I was just swinging punch after punch after punch and after punch, not knowing if I was hitting the bullies or those people that encouraged them finally with everyone that hadn't gotten away messed up on the floor I realized that I had started crying. Tears had been trickling down my face all through everyone's beating session. I had let my rage out and maybe some of my guilt too. The way I had been feeling up and down this week had been full of guilt - guilt at not helping my brother - guilt at not proving myself to everyone - guilt at maybe being the one that broke my parents up. I just let it all out for the first time in years, and I started crying, tears streaming down my face dripping down on some stains of red that had been planted all over the ground. I wanted to run for home, to go up in my room and just block everything out. But I knew that I couldn't do that. I had a brother that was more important to me than myself. With the tears having left marks on my face and my knuckles dripping with blood and sweat, I crouched down to my brother who was slouched against the wall after dozing off while I was fighting, "My little trooper." I woke him up and allowed him to use me as support, but just as I was turning around I felt a hand on my shoulder and it wasn't Mikey's.

It was the principal and a girl I think her name was Ashley, but I didn't want to know. The principal, Mr. Downey had his hand on my shoulder and a stone gaze planted on me. I put Mikey down and told him to try and find his way home. Then I faced Mr. Downey. I knew he was angry from the moment I looked at him and of course, he was, I had just hurt some of his students leaving them all lying on the floor, it looked like a checkerboard of the gray floor and red blood. "What is the meaning of this!" Mr. Downey was shouting into my ear, and by now I knew what was coming, and then it came. His voice like a serpent's in my ear until he said it, "I'm calling your school, you and your brother will be expelled." It felt like it had been said in slow motion, but I still didn't react, I just slowly walked out the door like a mindless zombie.

It was only on the way home that it hit me, like a bullet to the chest, Mikey wouldn't want this and he didn't deserve this, as far as he probably knew, he was the new king of his grade the bullies would be scared of him and he would be the star. But I still had to tell him, he just couldn't sit in a puddle of my lies, so that night I told both him and dad.

That was a year ago and now I am determined to make sure that nothing ever happens to Mikey.

As the bell rang for the end of the day I caught up to Mikey and told him the plan, as we were walking we got around to finding Daisy's locker and sure enough there she was that little vermin, bag slung over her shoulder ready to leave. As we walked towards her groups of people cleared a path for us. We were high school royalty because if you didn't treat us well then you made the list and that was nowhere to be. I slammed my fist making a dent in the locker next to her, and Mikey was next coming from the other side of her whispering like a snake in her ear, "Hey girly, would you like a rose," and he pulled out the reddest rose I've seen and shoved it in her face. Then together we each grabbed a shoulder of her sweater and shoved her into the lockers. By that time she was kicking out at us so we called our friend Dan over, and there he was grabbing her legs as we started swinging her ready to jam her into the lockers again, she started shaking her head vigorously, probably to get us to stop but we wouldn't dare with a final swing we shoved her into a locker. She coughed up blood then when we knew that no teachers would stop us. Dan dropped her feet and pushed her against a locker and Mikey and I started throwing punches to her face, to her gut, her mouth, everywhere. By now there was no denying that she was bleeding, blood was spilling out of her mouth, and gushing out of her nose, so we stopped punching, and instead, we got Dan to grab her and pick her up by her hair. This got her screaming and kicking again, so picking up her legs, Dan and I tossed her up in the air shoving her down the corridor, making a big bloody streak where she slid. Picking up her bag which was covered in speckles of her blood she looked frightened back at us before she raced off, a girl I think to be Anna running after her glaring at us. Of course, it was Anna the only one who would stand up to us. But still, I couldn't help but notice that Daisy's eyes had seemed to glow.