Trigger Warning: Referenced rape.

VI

Dead Ends

Sanchez and his flunkies up in the intermediate had started wearing Comets colors, and last week Beth had seen Jimmy from Ms. Ibañez's on the street corner cutting a drug deal with a junkie with trembling hands, yellow eyes, and yellow teeth. He'd had a gun stuck in the back of his waistband.

Last week, the girl they'd brought in when Lindsay ran, Inez, had walked home alone. Except she was too pretty, pert and tiny with sparkling, black eyes and thick, dark hair that bounced as she walked, and she'd come home with bruises on her face, a torn shirt, and blood on her pants, sobbing and shaking. She'd only lost her parents three months ago. She didn't know the area, and she didn't know how to take care of herself. Mrs. Miller had been out, and Mr. Miller had looked too much like the drunks that had attacked her in the first place, judging by Inez's response, so Beth and Dwight had ended up walking her to the clinic. The nurses there had taken care of her body, but they couldn't fix what the men had done to Inez's head.

And just today, walking back to the home, Beth had recognized one of the strung-out whores on the way. Lindsay's friend Grayson's shop had proven another lie to another addict looking for a way out, and by now, Beth knew, Lindsay would be more trapped than she'd ever been in the system, on harder stuff than she'd chosen for herself when she'd had the choice, and never alone in her new flat like she'd wanted.

There were only so many options for an East Side kid with nothing. A few less for a foster kid, a few more for a girl, but those weren't the nice ones. Alice and Katie and Jen had all started wearing makeup and heels to school, and Liz had started going places with Andy afterwards. To the corner store or the movies. The girls in school were growing bodies, and Beth checked the cracked dirty mirror in the bathroom every day, terrified she'd start growing one too. A foster girl on her own had to defend her body or use it, or she'd find herself used. Like Lindsay. Like Inez. And Beth got into so many fights anyway.

She knew probably more than half of them were her fault. She couldn't stand bullies. Anytime she saw someone little being beat down by someone bigger, she just got so mad. Well, saw someone metaphorically little. Beth was still probably one of the scrawniest kids in the grade. But small didn't mean weak. The other ones that couldn't take it, when they got targeted, Beth sailed in. It was like she was fighting for all the things she couldn't beat at those times. The stupid system, the stupid school, the whole freaking town. Each punch on behalf of the little ones was a punch against every injustice and ugliness around her. Didn't mean she won. She lost, usually, just like she lost against the other stuff. And those fights she didn't start on behalf of others usually started because she couldn't keep her mouth shut, and someone had ended up feeling stupid. Those were the nasty ones, the ones where she ended up fighting five or six at once, and when it was over she was huddled on the asphalt, too bruised to move until the bus had gone once again, biting her tongue 'til the blood came so no one would see her cry.

If she didn't learn to win soon, she'd be in trouble. Big trouble. Except she needed time to learn, and teachers. Beth had some ideas about that. She didn't like them much, but she wasn't blessed with a whole lot of opportunity. So these days, when she wasn't watching Annie for the Millers, or telling Inez stories until she slept at last, or cleaning herself up from another fight, she was watching the streets. The ebb and flow of the currents, the power struggle of the neighborhood. Trying to figure where she might go to learn to win against the kids at school, and against everything else. Trying to figure who might teach her, look after her. She didn't have anybody looking out for her. So the thing was to find somebody. She had one last idea before she'd need the research, but if it didn't pan out, she'd seek the rundown shack in the snowstorm. Not a safe place, because nowhere was safe, but shelter nonetheless.

A/N: This fic will be concluding 10/4. Keep an eye out for the sequel, Part Two in The Disaster Zone, Little Beth, arriving 10/7. I hope you're enjoying reading about Beth Shepard. (Probably the wrong word. It's a pretty grim story. I hope it's powerful and effecting, anyway.)

Thanks for reading,

LMS