Prologue.

On my knees in the dirt, I held my breath while pounding on his chest with all of the fury that I could muster. Tears that burned behind my eyelids were building faster than I even realized, and rolled off of my face quickly, barely leaving a trace.

I don't think I had enough obscenities in my vocabulary to scream while I watched the blood pour faster from his gaping wound.

When he went still in my arms, I couldn't hold back the rage any longer. Seeing red, my teeth clenched so tightly that it hurt, I leapt from the ground and whipped around to face my adversary.

"I don't want to hurt you, but I will," he said, glaring hesitantly. His gun was already drawn; pointed at me.

"You've ruined everything for me!" I yelled, my throat already sore from the strain on my vocal cords. The harder I tried to display my anger, the more tears that poured out of my eyes. "You think I'm even afraid of death anymore!?"


***


Chapter One.


It was October.

I was having one of those ominous falling dreams; the ones that they say if you ever hit the ground, you die in the waking world. I wasn't scared though. Passing through clouds, then vast amounts of open, blue sky. The wind was whipping over my face, and the ground beneath me was zooming in to the point that I could make out individual blades of grass.

And as usual, just when I was about to hit, I woke up with a start and shot up into a sitting position. My vision hazy, I peered around, startled to find that I wasn't in my bed, but was actually in the back of my third period English classroom. And hovering above me with a menacing scowl on her face, was Mrs. Moore, my English III teacher. I looked up at her with a grimace and sighed, peering back down to my desk.

My neck hurt, and I had a headache; the remnants of a pretty nasty hangover. I glared up at the woman above me, who had just slammed her giant text book onto my desk.

"Good morning, Mr. Heitzer," she said with an almost unnoticeable smirk. "Glad to see that you've joined us."

I could have come up with some kind of smart-assed response, but I wasn't in the mood to bicker with Mrs. Moore, who would probably just end up sending me to the principal's office if I had. I "bit my tongue", so to speak, and just stared at her, hoping that she was finished humiliating me and would walk away. She seemed to be waiting for me to mouth off at her, though. It took her a moment to decide I wasn't going to humor her. Then she raised one eyebrow, and stalked away through the rows of desks.

"I suggest that you don't doze off again, Jason," she said in measured tones as I gazed around to see several grinning students staring in my direction. It only took them a second to lose interest in the situation and turn away, but the damage was done. I could feel my cheeks begin to burn in embarassment, and I wish that I would have said something to Mrs. Moore that would have redeemed myself. Instead, I tried to convince myself that it wouldn't have helped anything anyway.

When she reached the front of the classroom, a smirk planted across her face, she opened her book and sighed, sounding annoyed.

She began reading from her book; or continued. I couldn't tell you. Trying to relax, I leaned back against the wall of the classroom and stretched my arms out with a yawn. Then I let them drop to my desk and ran my eyes sleepily over the text on the work sheet in front of me. I couldn't even begin to comprehend any of the directions at the moment. I was just too tired.

When I had gotten off of work the night before, a few of my friends had coerced me into going to a party instead of going home. I ended up not going home at all that night, and I still smelled like beer and cigarettes, and God knows what else. I felt disgusting and tired, and all I wanted to do was take a shower and go to bed.

But alas, school. I already had way too many absences, and if I missed any more days I would probably be denied my credits. Which is pretty much bullshit - pardon my language - because I had an outstanding GPA. Supposedly I was some sort of academic genius. A lot of good that did me; I was still treated like the scum of the earth by just about every faculty member of Bakersfield High School. Except for maybe the janitor, Frank. But that was only because I'd caught him smoking pot in his closet and didn't rat him out. Now I use my amazing IQ to decide whether or not I'm getting ripped off by dealers, have enough money for my rent, and finding geometric points in the house to avoid attracting the attention of Sharon, The Step Bitch.

Not that I didn't deserve it, don't get me wrong. I was a pretty fucked up kid.

There was no air conditioning on in the classroom, and the front of my dress - yes, you heard me correctly; dress - was sticking to my chest. The back of my neck felt sticky and wet with sweat underneath my black dreadlocks, which seemed to absorb heat, and make me wonder why I didn't just chop them off living in such a frequently sweltering part of the world.

My eyes were drooping closed again; the warmth clouded my brain and was lulling me into a slumber as I sat propped up against the wall.

I took a deep breath, and just listened to the assorted noises around me. Mrs. Moore's drawling voice, some very light snoring, the shuffling of papers. Maybe a bit of whispering. But the sounds were fading out, and I was on the verge of falling back to sleep. My head started to fall forward, and my chin rested against my chest. I was only a few seconds away from being out cold again when it happened.

There was a tiny metallic noise like a coin being flipped from not too far away from me; I wasn't sure from which direction; and a sharp, stabbing pain spread through the side of my face. Instantly my eyes flew open once more and I hissed an obscenity a little bit too loudly, clutching my hand to my face.

Instinctively, I examined my hand and saw a few shining drops of blood on the ends of my fingers. Irritated already, I became enraged to look down at the floor beside my boot to find the object that had struck me.

Resting on the polished, generic white tile floor beside the heel of my boot was a red and silver bottle cap that I recognized as belonging to a Budweiser beer. I glared around the room with narrowed eyes to see who my attacker could have been, figuring that they would still be watching to see what my reaction would be. I was surprised to see that more than half of the room was staring in my direction, grinning. Again.

"Jason, is there any real reason that you just cursed loud enough to wake the dead in the middle of my lecture?" Mrs. Moore fumed in my direction. With my hand still pressed against the side of my face, I clenched my jaw to keep my temper in check, and shook my head. She sighed angrily. "I think that a trip to see Mr. Strickland would do you some good," she growled, placing her book down on her podium and heading to her desk to get a referral for me. My heart sank in my chest. I had been doing good for the past two weeks; I really did not need any type of after-school punishment to interfere with my schedule right now.

As the teacher was writing out my offense, Carson Jones, a member of the football team and one of my least favorite people on Earth -or at the very least, in this city- snickered and whispered something to his girlfriend, Holly Murphy, who was sitting in front of him. She giggled and looked in my direction. I fumed and couldn't hold my tongue any longer.

"What the fuck are you laughing at?" I snapped, snatching my messenger bag up from beside me. Holly just smiled devilishly and turned to face the front of the classroom.

"She's laughing at the fucking faggot sitting next to me," Carson answered maliciously, leaning in close so that Mrs. Moore wouldn't hear him. By then I'd had enough. Faster than I even thought I could move, my fingers wrapped themselves into the collar of Carson's tee shirt.

"Listen, fucker-" I didn't get to finish my threat, which was probably a good thing because I was a foot shorter and a fourth the muscle mass of the the stereotypical, bleach blond line backer in my grasp. Mrs. Moore was shrieking like a banshee because I was "assaulting and threatening" one of her favorite students. I couldn't even make out what it was that she was going on about except for a few select words, including, "OUT!", "OFFICE!", and "DELINQUENT!"

I took a deep breath through my nose, gave Carson one last glare, and got up to leave. Carson just stared me down with an evil smirk on his face, and I knew that he was plotting on having the entire football team pay me back for grabbing him. I pushed my way through the aisles of desks to get to the front of the classroom, and yanked the referral from the batty old teacher's claw-like hands, nearly ripping it in half.

After sitting in the office for almost a half hour, I was finally lectured, yelled at, argued with, and punished. Three days of detention after school, starting with today. It could have been worse; at least it wasn't any type of suspension. But I was still very disappointed that I'd gone two weeks -two whole fucking weeks- without a referral, and I get detention for being hit with a bottle cap.

I trudged out of the office, dragging my feet as slowly as possible through the halls to the remainder of third period. When I was almost there, the bell calling for A lunch rang, and, deciding to skip fourth period, I headed for the nearly deserted area behind the cafeteria; my usual hangout. There I met up with a few of the people in Bakersfield that wouldn't prefer that I was lynched.

Amber Perkins was my best friend. A girl notorious for her promiscuous behavior, and subsequently the most popular outcast you could ever come across, greeted me with a smile and a puff from her cigarette. I smiled back, and she flipped her shoulder length blond curls. It wasn't long before she skipped along to probably blow Carson Jones or something while his girlfriend waited outside the bathroom.

Then there was Justin, a nearly eccentric guitarist who insisted that everyone called him "Bug" because he did this stupid little thing with his hair to make it look like he had antennae. He was cool, at least to me. We'd known each other for a few years, and had gone through some pretty rough stuff together, but his habits just made him seem so much less intelligent than he actually was. Sometimes, it was hard to stand.

After that was Derek. In a nutshell, he was a drug dealer. Dressed like a punk from the seventies that was suddenly thrown into the two thousands, he didn't go to school here, -he was twenty six- but all of his friends, and a lot of his clients did. He was a constant presence wherever I went since I was about fourteen, and I'd become quite attached to him. Mostly because I started out feeling sorry for him and showing compassion because he had a wife that left him and took his daughter, he confided a lot of things in me that he told me he couldn't tell anyone else. Obviously, his display of favoritism had somehow caused me to develop a half-assed admiration for the guy. He'd send me to be a delivery boy for him sometimes. I guess I was a kind of protege to him.

I waited out all three lunch periods with these people, smoking cigarettes and dodging teachers. A few more goth and punk kids I wasn't very close to joined in and dropped out of the group as the bells rang. When everything was clear and it was just me and Derek, I let him know that I wouldn't be stopping by his apartment that night because I had gotten detention. He frowned and left without saying a word. I assumed it was because he was disappointed. That place was pretty much my life, so I was also pretty depressed about it.

Stomping the butt of the cigarette I'd been smoking into the asphalt, I headed off to my prison cell, no doubt air conditioning free, just like every other building here in the middle of a heat wave.

When I ran into Carson and his buddy Chris Greene standing next to a campus security guard, they gave me a matching pair of devious grins. They took their places at the bottom of the stairwell, waiting for me to be released from detention. I knew I was dead meat.

I began to wonder if I really was in hell.