Chapter 1
The sirens wailed at me as I ran down the sidewalk. My feet made a slapping sound each time they hit the hard concrete. I had to get away or I was done for. I spotted an alley not far ahead and dove for it. I could see the street it cut across to and had almost made it when- Wham! I ran into someone and nearly fell over. The police were almost on top of us. I grabbed whoever it was and drug them into a sheltered doorway.
I peered over at the human roadblock and my eyebrows involuntarily shot up. He had golden hair and peircing green eyes- and he was staring right back at me. I could have punched his lights out.
The patrol car sped right past the alley and I jumped down from the step in the doorway. The boy just kept staring at me.
"What?," I said, irritated.
"Why were you running from the cops?"
I just shook my head and started walking back towards the busy street of Manhattan.
"You never answered my question," he told me. I shrugged and brushed back some burgandy hairs that had escaped from my braid. I heard quick footsteps. Lots of them. I turned and saw my little band of misfits running towards me, safe and sound.
"Danny, come on!," Blaire shouted. He was my second in command, I guess you could say. With one last look towards the blonde kid, I jogged over to my semi-family and we ran off to our hideaway for that day.
I should explain more of our predicament. You see, we're street kids. We do what we can to survive. It's been that way for years. After I ran away from te horror that was my life, I met Blaire. He was in rehab for drug abuse. I sprung him from the place and we hid together. I was thirteen at the time and had only been on the streets for a year. Then , we met Pip. We're still not sure what's with her. All we know is that her parents were wealthy and thought Pip was actually insane. They were going to send her to an asylum, seeing as they were high placed in the towns social standings and didn't want to deal with the embarassment of having a crazy daughter. She ran away and joined up with me and Blaire.
Tommy was a different case from the rest of us. His parents would beat him. Punch him, dig their ciggarettes into his skin. I hated seeing that and convinced him to come with us. I was fouteen by that time. So was Blair. Tommy was thirteen and Pip was twelve. But, the saddest story out of my family was Nadia. Her mother had died when she was ten. Her father hadn't handled the loss well. He… abused Nadia. It had gone on for a year when for two years when I'd found her. I can't say I was sorry for what I did to that man. Knocked him clean out and maybe had broken a few of his ribs.
Nadia had been unresponsive to anyone. She didn't talk, just ate, breathed, and sleeped. It took us a while to even get a name out of her. But, she started warming up to the gang after that and has been our little ball of sunshine ever since. Three years have passed since then. Me and Blaire are seventeen. Tommy's sixteen and Nadia and Pip are fifteen. We still live on the streets- sort of. Last week, an elderly woman- Nora- let us stay with her. The others are happy here, having an actual roof over their heads. Nora wouldn't hear of us leaving and insisted we stay. She also has us call her Granny. For some reason, it just seemed more right. So, the days stretch on.