Bailey walked out of abandoned warehouse and over to the familiar beaten up Caddy. She leaned into the passenger side window, a smirk that she had perfected from her near two years of life on the streets seductively spreading out across her face. She looked over at the driver, the same young man with slicked back dark hair and tough face with deep set wrinkles despite his young age.

"Lookin' for a date?" she asked, laughing. It was all just a game she played, she was trying to hurt him.

"I hate it when you do that," he whispered, looking down at the dashboard of his car.

"Do what?" she questioned. "My job?"

"Get in the car we need to talk."

"Talk?" She bit her bottom lip and cocked her head to the side. "I don't get paid to talk, Mercer. So I don't think that's going to work."

"I'll pay you."

For the first time since Bailey walked over to the car, Bobby looked up at her. He looked at her like a disapproving father would, which was the last thing she needed, but it worked. She pulled open the passenger side door and slid into the car without another word. Bobby pressed his foot hard on the gas and sped out onto the main road.

Bailey rested her forehead to the window, the cool glass sending a chill down her spine. She sighed and watched the breath escaping her lungs create a cloud of fog on the glass. The car ride was awkward neither one of them spoke. If he had been a trick, Bailey would have put on all her charm, innocent flutters of her eyelashes, a smirk here there, the occasional giggle. Bobby Mercer, however, wasn't a trick.

"What the fuck you still doin' on the streets, Bail?" Bobby asked, pulling into the parking lot of a local diner.

"What the fuck you still doin' out of jail, Bob?" she mocked. She looked over at him and groaned, banging her head against the window. "I'm out on the streets so that I can get paid for something I'm very talented at." She pulled her head away from the glass and looked over at him. "Ask any one of my clients, I fuck like no one else can."

"If you're trying to hurt me, you've accomplished it," he replied. He pulled into a parking space and cut the engine. "Grab the coat on the backseat and put it on, you look like a fuckin' whore."

"But I am a whore."

Bobby threw open the car door and stepped out as Bailey grabbed the coat. She opened the door and got out, throwing the coat on, covering her less than demure clothing. Without looking back to see if she was following Bobby walked into the diner instinctively knowing she would be behind him. He held the door open behind him, letting Bailey walk in before him and followed her to their usual booth.

"You look halfway decent," Bobby remarked, sliding into the seat.

"I'll take that as a compliment," she replied. She slouched down so that her she was barely visibly behind the table. Bobby swiftly kicked her and she sat up. "Could you be any less tactful?"

"Says the fifteen year old wearing two pounds of fuckin' makeup on her face," he muttered. "You know, you don't need that shit. You always…"

Bobby let his voice drift off as the waitress walked over. She was an older lady, rundown looking and Bailey couldn't help but to laugh. She glared down at the laughing teenager and threw the menus down onto the table. As she walked away, Bobby looked over at Bailey disapprovingly.

"Yak know, she's probably gonna spit in our damn food now," he muttered.

"Tell me she doesn't look like she gave one too many suck and blows for money along her path to her career goal of waitressing," Bailey whispered, leaning forward and smirking giddily.

Laughing despite himself, Bobby nodded and opened his menu. Bailey moved back in her seat and brought her feet up on the edge of bench, cradling her knees to her chest. She started to rock back and forth, turning her head to face the window, watching the cars zoom past on the main road.

"Why is it that every time you're indoors you act like you're trapped?" Bobby questioned, looking up.

"I get claustrophobic in crowded places," she replied. "I thought you of all people would have remembered that."

Bailey started to hum softly, still rocking slightly. She rested her head on her knees and closed her eyes, trying to project herself out of where she was. Bobby watched her, taking in the sight of the younger girl. Her long dark hair was tangled and dirty, her pale face covered in far too much make-up for someone her age. As sat there, eye closed and fidgeting, she looked even younger than the fifteen years that she was.

"I can feel you starin' at me asshole," she said, her eyes still closed.

"I start to think how innocent and young you are and then you remind me how fuckin' evil you are when you go and say shit like that," he muttered, shaking his head.

"I learn from the best," she replied. She opened her eyes and noticed the waitress walking back towards their table. "Queen of the B.J.'s is comin' back."

The waitress hulked back over and took their orders. Bailey resisted the urge to laugh this time and behaved herself while she was there. As soon as she walked away, however, she let out a soft laugh and continued to rock back and forth. Her humming started up again and Bobby smirked, the song familiar to him.

"Mom used to sing that to us every night, even when I protested that I was too old to be tucked in and sung to," Bobby said. He smirked and looked up at his baby sister. "I still hear her sometimes at night."

"Me, too."

"You look like her."

"I do?"

"Same damn smile and eyes, even got her hair. You'd look a hell of a lot more like her if you stopped painting your face with that shit you call make-up," he remarked.

"Do you miss her? I do. I think about her a lot of the time." Bailey slid her feet off of the bench so that she was sitting normally. "I think about how ashamed she'd be of me and how I turned out. This wasn't the future she planned for me."

"This wasn't the future she had planned out for either of us. Besides, I have more to be ashamed of than you do."

"You don't know half of the shit I've done, Bobby, how can you be so sure about that?"

"Because it's my fault you're on the street. If I hadn't fuckin' stolen that car I wouldn't have end up in juvie…You wouldn't have end up with those people…You wouldn't have ended up on the streets when you were fuckin' thirteen…"

"It's not your fault. Besides, we found each other, things could always be worse." She laughed and pulled down on the long sleeves of her coat. "I can deal the bad years as long as I know that eventually things will get better. I mean, fuck, things are already looking up. I mean, it only took a couple years for us to find each other again."

"Yeah, only seven years," he muttered. He looked over at her, his expression serious. "You know, things could be a lot better than how they are now very soon."

"How so?" Bailey asked, looking at him, no longer fidgeting.

"Remember that lady I was telling you about last week? The one that took me in when I got outta juvie? I told her about you, she wants you to come visit and-"

"No."

"Bail, you didn't even let me finish."

"I am not gonna be some other person's burden. Never again."

"You wouldn't be a burden. Fuck, she took me in, can you think of anyone worse than me?" he questioned. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table between the two of them. "She's a great person, Bail, just fuckin' meet with her."

"No. I refuse to hurt anyone else by exposin' them to me. I'm like fuckin' fire, Bobby, people get too close to me and they get hurt."

Bailey placed her hand on the side of her face, exasperated by her brother's continuous attempts to help her. She was going to help herself and no one was going to aide her in anyway. In her eyes she had brought her fate upon herself and if she had to go through hell to be reborn, so be it.

Bobby saw so much of their mother in her as she tried to push him away. Their mother was stubborn and persistent just like that. However, Bobby knew that no matter how much Bailey idolized their mother, she was too young to know the whole truth about her when she died, how she died. He was trying to prevent her from going down that same road, but he had to be delicate with her. One push too hard and she would be lost to him. She had just found his little sister again merely months ago, he wasn't prepared to lose her again.

"I hate the idea of some fuckin' pervert pawin' you," Bobby admitted. "I don't want you gettin' hurt."

"I'll be fine." She smiled and pushed her hair behind her ears, leaning closer to her brother. "I haven't even shot up since you helped me kick it. I fuckin' hated you that week, but I feel better." Bailey eagerly rolled up the jacket's sleeves and exposed her arms to Bobby. "See? No new track marks."

"Proud of ya, Bail."

Bobby closed his eyes, hating the reminder that his sister was pretty far gone when he found her. She had seen and done more things than any fifteen year old should have when he came across her, so she had been using to numb herself. The image of his baby sister, the one he held in his arms when she was first born, with a needle sticking out of her arm, as she laid in a corner strung out flashed into his mind. He rubbed his eyes furiously, as if it would help to make the image dissipate. It had been three months since he found her like that. He had rented a hotel room the next day and taken her there, trying his best for a week to help her detox. It was a week full of Bailey screaming in pain and throwing up from the withdrawals of the poison she regularly injected herself with. Heroin wasn't something to fuck with, Bobby learned it first hand while he spent that week wide awake, watching his sister, afraid that if he didn't watch her she would die, or worse, sneak out and feed her need for it.

"Bobby?"

Hearing Bailey's voice brought him back to reality. She smirked, waving a greasy french fry in front of his face, the smell wafting in front of his nose. During his daydream their food must have arrived as his plate was before him.

"You okay?" Bailey asked, crunching on a pickle spear.

"I'm fine," he replied, shaking his head dismissively.

"I was just saying that this kid showed up on the corner tonight," she said. She looked down at her plate and swirled a fry through a puddle of ketchup. "He's as old as I was when I first showed up."

"He looking to hook up one with someone?"

"No. He ran away from home. Something about him just tells me that he had it rough wherever he's from. He had all these fuckin' cuts and bruises on him. When I started to help him he acted like no one had ever shown him the smallest bit of kindness. Kid damn near broke my heart."

"Kid? He's, what, two years younger than you?" Bobby took a big bite out of his burger and chewed, spiting out pieces of food as he spoke. "You're still a fuckin' kid."

"Damn it, close your mouth," Bailey said, laughing and throwing a balled up napkin at him. She looked down at the table and shrugged. "This boy, Jack, he's just got this air about him Bobby, I'm tellin' ya, he's been fucked with."

"You think he's gonna be one of you?"

"He's got the look. Handsome as hell, but I ain't gonna let him. As long as he listens to me he is not goin' out there sellin' himself. I don't want anyone else that age endin' up like me. I got enough shit to feel guilty about."

"Then why don 't you just send him home?"

"I can't do that either, he ran away for a reason. I told ya, all the cuts and bruises, home ain't where he needs to be," she replied. She sighed and looked up at her brother. "I just gotta keep my eye on him for the time bein'."

"Your heart's too fuckin' big, Bail."

"Yours is too, you just got a lock on it."

"I guess."

Bailey nodded and went back to her food. Bobby watched his sister, happy that he even got to see her. He shoved his hands in his pocket and felt his fingertips brush against something he had shoved in there earlier.

"Oh, fuck, I almost forgot," he said, pulling the long scarf out of his pocket. "Evelyn knitted that for you. Told me to tell you that a sweater's comin' your way next week."

"Tell her thanks for the scarf," Bailey told him, wrapping the long black thing around her neck.

"She's a good person, Bail…"

"And I don't need her help, Bob. Thanks anyway."

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Thank You:

Bigamericanflirt
LaLaLover (Yeah, it's Bobby, lol, it was kind of obvious, but I just love Bobby, he's fun to write and the second best Mercer brother. And you're not annoying, lol, I'm glad that you liked the other story so much that you decided to give this one a chance!)
sadvirtue
Verona sage (I'm definitely trying to make this story different in comparison to my other one...Less sappy and more dramatic...Hopefully it works out as well as the other story did though...lol.)

Also, thanks to Nabila, who thinks reviewing is IM'ing me...lol...At least you read it you bitch...lol, jk!

BTW, still looking for a beta/editor person...Anyone interested?

Please review! Feedback very much appreciated!