CASPAR'S POV

I didn't go back to the safe house until late that night and when I returned, Bear, an older boy with scruffy brown hair, dark skin and an animal-like glare in his eyes, stood in the foyer. He turned and went down the hall into the main room. I followed him but stopped in the doorway to the main room. Nearly every boy in the house was perched on a chair, the edge of one or standing behind one.

"She's not coming back." Manny spoke softly, I could tell he was worried I would lose my temper again. All of the boys looked at me with a mix of fear, concern and confusion on their faces. They didn't know what was happening to me, not a single one of them had ever felt the way about someone that I had about Birdie.

"It's only been one day. You don't know that." I had never known Manny to be wrong before, but I refused to believe him.

"One of our own saw her in a night gangs house." He held his hands out with palms facing the ceiling in a gesture of sympathy. I noticed that he left out which gang the safe house belonged to.

"I don't need your pity." I hissed, and spat on the floor. Boys gasped. Outside, you could spit all you wanted, but in the house? That was the ultimate form of disrespect. Even we gangs had our rules, and there were some that you just didn't break. I had broken one of them. I turned and left the house again, but not before grabbing my worn and faded brown leather jacket off of the wall. Outside, I walked around to the back of the house and charged the locked door of an old shed. The hinges broke and the door fell inward, I surveyed the objects in the shed and selected two smaller guns off of the racks on the wall, checked the safety and slid each one into a special pocket on either side in the lining of my jacket. Every boy in the house had a specialized jacket to hold weapons whenever we were having a dispute with another gang.

On the way out as I was snagging a butterfly knife out of a carefully arranged drawer, a shadow fell across my feet. I glanced up with the knife in hand, and then slowly let it fall to my side.

"Did Manny send you out?" I asked, placing the knife in my pocket.

"No."

"Then why are you here?" I turned to fully face Kelly, the short, skinny boy standing in my way. His grey cap was falling over his eyes and messing up his bright red hair that seemed out of place above his tan, freckle-free face and dark brown eyes.

"I'm going with you." He stepped past me to grab a pistol and slip it into his own dark jacket, then pulled two long, curved daggers out of the same drawer I had just been in. He also took out two sheaths and attached them to his belt loops before sliding a knife into each.

"You're of no help to me." I told him and began to leave.

"Why not?" He followed me. As we passed the front of the house, I wondered why Manny hadn't sent someone to stop me yet.

"You're young, inexperienced and above all, you're small." I could have gone on, but I had never been a big talker.

"Exactly! I'm small! I'll blend in." He insisted.

"No."

"You can't stop me from following you."

I didn't reply. He was right. I was just going to have to put up with the little pest. At least, until I found Birdie.

BIRDIE'S POV

"Hey, doll."

My eyes snapped open to see a tall thin boy standing in the doorway. I quickly recognized his grease covered hands as they hung at his sides and I fought back a grimace.

"Who are you?" I asked flatly.

"My name is Keegan. You're now the top girl in the Northwest Night Gang."

"Top girl?" My hands gripped the armrests until my knuckles turned white, top girls were always kept under lock and key so other gangs couldn't get them.

"Yeah, Boss is your boy now. Get used to it, girly. You ain't going nowhere." A sly grin slid onto Keegan's smug face. I wanted to punch that kid so hard that he couldn't be able to smile anymore. Instead, I gripped the chair even tighter as I began to realize just how much trouble I was really in.

CASPAR'S POV-PRESENT DAY

"Caspar," A head poked into the doorway. Birdie was still on the floor, and her mouth was frozen halfway open in the middle of a word. She quickly shut it and looked down. I now sat in a chair on the farthest side of the room where I had been listening to her side of the story from.

"What?" I replied flatly.

"There's someone here," The boy said. I didn't remember his name, he was new. "I think you might have to take care of some business."

"Bidness?" I asked. In the gangs, there was a distinct difference between business and bidness. Business was legitimate and there was no way we could get in trouble from it, while bidness was usually some underground operation or a feud with another gang.

"Yessir." I nodded. The boy left but I didn't move.

"Why is he telling you?" Birdie asked, a confused look mixed with her mask of worry. I'd forgotten how much Birdie had missed while she was gone.

"Manny is dead. So are a few others. I'm the head of the house now." My voice was still flat. If I changed it, I would probably start yelling. There was a long pause, and Birdie finally asked it.

"What happened to them?"

"They died," I sighed, "Getting you back."

Her shoulders only slumped even further.

"Caspar!" A voice called from downstairs. I stood and headed for the door, pausing with my hand on the knob. I looked at Birdie for a moment, she had changed so much.

Her once thick, shining hair was dull, tangled and dirty. Her once glowing complexion had become pale and ruddy. Her eyes, that used to be so big and bright, now watered constantly and rarely left the floor. She used to stand so straight and proud, but she had shrunken and slouched as if she hoped that she might just slink away from the world.

They had broken her, and I despised them for it.

Her hands came up to her face and she started to cry.

"I'm still here." I said, figuring she'd thought I was gone.

"I don't care." She sobbed with shoulders shaking as she sunk even closer to the floor. I didn't know what to do other than leave, so I did. I remember how she used to always make me leave the room when she thought she might cry, until now I had never seen Birdie like this.

She didn't care anymore.