I'm walking through some wood, and tripping over, trying so bad not to fall. I try to push the leafage and branches, but they keep hitting my face and bruising it with their thorns.

I stop when I hear a scream. Then I start running as fastest as I can, not paying attention to the natural things hitting my face, and making it bleed. No, this time I don't care about the blood, because maybe this time I actually will have a chance to save someone's life, and try to improve the mistake I made all these years ago.

One more scream. I fall, and quickly get up, but when I do, I see a figure's back and freeze.

He... he... No.... no....

He turns around and quickly his lips curl into a grin, and I stare at him not realizing that Michael is kneeling and his face has a big bruise and blood is sipping from his wounded head.

"You came, bitch. See, I told you I'd be back. Now, it's time for all of you to pay. First, this bastard, then my brother, and I left you for the very sweet end."

I shiver, trying to wake up from this dream. Is this a dream? Please, let it be a dream. Please. I'm not prepared for this, not yet. I still need some time. Please, God, if you exist, don't do this. I swear I'll believe in you if you help me now. I'm sorry I said all those awful things about you, and that I hated you. I'm sorry, I just couldn't help it when you took my mom and didn't save her. Please, make this a dream. This can't be happening.

I'm punching the invisible wall, that only I can see. That wall is separating the world of dreams from the real world. I have to break it because this can't be happening. I'm not ready for this yet. Please, please, I beg, while punching the glass wall stronger and stronger, until my knuckles are bruised just like Michael's face.

I hear the gun clicking, so I instantly turn my face to look at Christopher who doesn't want to wipe that grin off his fucking face. He points it on Michael's forehead, and the green-eyed boy closes his eyes, but when he opens them and focuses them on me, I can see the pure hatred radiating from them. He hates me. He hates me. He doesn't love me, but he hates me.

He hates you.

"He hates you. C'mon, tell her, Michael. You never wanted to be with her."

"You ruined my life, Stella. You tried to fix it, but instead, you ruined it even more. I hate you!", he screams, and his roar echoes through the wood. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

I didn't even feel when the tears fell from my eyes on the ground covered with leafage and mud.

"If it weren't for you, I'd be living my life, and not be involved with this... this monster who is now going to blow my brain out, and all of that because of you!", he hisses, anger clear in both his voice and face.

"Yeah, I'm fucking going to blow your brain out, and that's all her fault. Do you hear us, Stella? Yours."

"No! Please...", I sob, "please, I beg you..."

"Stella!" I turn around to see Myles running to us, but he stops the moment his eyes lay on his evil twin.

"Oh, look who decided to show up. Good thing that I brought two guns." He takes the other one from his jeans, and points at Myles.

"No! No!", I cry. "Please, Christopher we will do anything you want."

"Anything?" I nod. "Well, I don't want anything. I just want you all to die because you hurt me. Hard."

"Chris...", Myles trails off.

"Don't Chris me! You are the reason why I ended up in the juvenie. How... how could you?" If I knew Christopher, and I did, I would think that he was acting. But he wasn't. He really was hurt. I remember the vulnerable Christopher whom I missed so much, who begged me to not leave him as his mother did.

"I... I..."

"You know what? I don't want to hear your poor excuse. Nothing can wash your unloyal self." Before I can do anything to stop him, he shots from both guns, and both Myles and Michael's bodies fall on the ground. Dead.

"No!", I shout, my scream filling this wood we are in, and I fall on my knees, not feeling the pain as I hit the ground with 'em. Tears fall from my eyes and my chin shivers and I feel pain spreading through my whole chest, squeezing it hard.

"No! No! Noo!" I pull my hair, and cry harder and harder, my eyes dancing between the two dead bodies, from which heads the blood is sipping, becoming hard, and staining the yellow leafage.

"Yes! Yes! Yees! You are finally going to pay for everything. For disobeying me! For telling others what I was doing to you! For not appreciating what I did to you, and being an ungrateful bitch. For letting my brother fall in love with you. Fucking bastard! Now it's your time to pay." He points a gun at me, finally, and I feel relief. I need to die, so I can stop this pain from spreading through my body to my mind.

"Yes. Kill me, Christopher. I deserve to die."

"You do. You really do, Stella!" With that he shoots me and I feel the bullet kicking my forehead and the enormous pain spreading through my head, but none can beat the one in my heart, as I fall on the cold ground, the soft leafage, welcoming me as a pillow.

I snap from the dream, and my eyes scan the hospital room. The hospital room? Oh, yeah. Okay, I'm safe.

Are you, though?

I am. He is in juvenile. Still. Breathe, breathe. I can feel the oxygen leaving my lungs once again. Remind me how many panic attacks I have had in only one month? Ten? Twenty? One hundred? God, who may not exist, only knows.

I feel my hands shaking, and tears streaming down my cheeks, while I try to shake those disturbing imagines from my dream. Christopher. Christopher killing Michael. Christopher killing Myles. Christopher killing me. And to be honest, the last one hurt me the less. No, it didn't hurt me at all. If I won't feel the pain, then better he kills me. I rub my eyes aggressively to shake those images, but they keep flashing in front of me, making me blind.

"Stella? Stella?" I turn to see a nurse whom I haven't seen yet. I try to focus on her features, on her hair, anything, but all I see is his face. His beard. His ginger hair. His three tattoos which meaning I will never know since he asked me not to question him about them. But I don't want to know about them anymore.

"Stella, what is happening, sweety?" I try to say something, but I can't. I'm choking. Dying. I wish that this was easy, and I could just fall on the ground with leafage just how I did when the gun shot me. When he shot me.

I feel my hands being wrapped around something cold.

A glass of water.

"Drink this." I try to balance the plastic cup, with my shaky hands, but they keep trembling, making it impossible, so the nurse holds it for me, while I drink from it.

"You better?", she asks me when I finished drinking it. I try to nod, but it comes more like an unwilling shake.

"You have a visit. Someone came to see you. Do you want me to tell them to come in?" I nod again, unable to speak, still gathering the air in my lungs, waiting for it to fill it, as usually, it is. "You sure you are okay?"

No. I'm never going to be okay. Never. Not even in my sleep, I can be okay, let alone in the real life.

"Okay." She leaves the room, and I begin to wonder who came to see me.

What if Myles is already back? I kinda wish he isn't because he'd just remind me of his brother, and I need some time to recover from the dream and forget about him. Yet I need to see if he is okay. And I need to see Michael, as well.

I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. It echoes in my head, which is still disturbed by the dream.

Does he? Does he hate really me? He said he didn't love me. So, that probably means that he hates me.

But before I can think more of him, the person whom I really like, and consider family, though I don't have any, enters the room and enlightens it just as she enlightens my day, as well.

"Son of a bitch, what have I told you about being with that whore?" Scott punches me with his belt and it burns my skin. But it does not burn me more than the fact that he called her a whore.

"She is not a whore!", I yell, and I do not regret when the next punch burns through my whole body. No one can call her like that. Not even Scott.

"She is! And you are son of a bitch!" I whine but close my eyes, trying not to shrill, not to show him that this hurts.

I should be used to this, but I am not. I cannot ever be used to being beaten. I am just happy that he is not punching my face, so Stella will not be sad, and she will not be able to see my bruises. No, I just hope he will not touch it. I can hide bruises on my back. But I cannot hide them if they are on my face. And I cannot leave her alone, tonight. I promised her that I would be back. And I will. No matter what happens.

I wince. Again. And again.

"What have I told you about being with her?"

"I-I am... n-not with h-her", I manage to say, between punches.

"Then why were you feeding her? Huh?" He hits me again.

"Sh-he was weak to e-eat by her-rself."

"Huh, sure. She did drugs and ended up in a hospital, and you were feeding her, idiot!"

"I-I sw-e-a-r."

"Martin, give me water. This is exhausting." Even without looking, I can hear how he is gulping water and how Martin scurried back after he took the empty glass from Scott's hands.

"Turn around, son of a bitch!" He hits my hip with his leg, and I wince again, frowning from the pain while turning around and lying on the back. When the fresh bruises collide with the cold floor, they scream, but I shut my eyes, to not let the roar that is climbing up my throat.

Just please do not touch my face, Stella is going to be so sad.

And I do not want to see her emerald eyes watering again, they cried enough, more than they should have, instead.

"Promise me that you are not going to be next to her again." I cannot promise him that. I have to be next to her. She needs me. She needs to feel love and experience being happy because she believes that this life is miserable and not worth trying.

But it is not miserable, I do believe that it is not. Even if I am laying beaten, now, I believe that one day we are going to be happy. Together or not. It does not matter unless she is happy and not hurting, not in that pain that hurts both her and me more than this one I am feeling right now.

"S-she needs me. I am like a brother to her. I cannot leave her. I..." Punch. "I have to help her..." Punch.

"Promise me that you are going to stop being with her!"

"I am not with her!", I shout, feeling some kind of anger, that is trying to possess me, but I know better. I can control it. I am not my brother. He could not control it. And my dad, neither.

"Shut up, and say I promise!" He hits me with his legs and I crumble, clenching my teeth to not scream from the pain.

"I love her", I whisper and open my eyes realizing what I have said. I am waiting for another punch, but when I open my eyes, I see Scott's confused face and parted lips.

"Finish him, Justin." He nods at him, and Scott leaves. Justin stands in front of me, looking at me with an amused grin, crossing his arms.

"Justin, please. I...." Punch. Punch. Punch.

"Please, Justin", I beg again. "If Chris was here..."

"You are not Christopher", he cuts me off. And no, he would leave you like this, he would not help you. Especially after you have said that you loved her. He is smarter than you. If you cannot have it, punch it. Then it is going to be yours. That was his motto.

I close my eyes trying to focus on something that will help me not to think about the pain. On her. Her green eyes which hold the pain. Her messy hair with pink highlights. Her head laying on my chest. She caressing my cheek. She thought that I was asleep when she touched me and caressed my cheek this morning. But I was not. Just like I was not asleep when she told me about her mother and how her suicide was the reason she is so terrified of the blood. Blood that is streaming down my back. The warm blood on cold concrete. Such a contrast.

"Justin! We have a problem! Come fast!", someone says, and the punches stop, but I still feel the belt vibrating on my back. I recognize the voice as the voice of Jimmy's dad.

"Don't think that I finished", he deadpans, and hits me with his leg one more time, and I cough blood. Stella would be so petrified now. Thank God she cannot see this.

"Myles!" I open my eyes to see Jimmy's Chinese features, but in foggy sight, since I start feeling how dizzy my head is.

"Jimmy... Go... boy..."

"No, I'm not leave you. Dad did that on purpose, so I can help ya."

"You made so many grammar mistakes, kid", I chuckle, but my back hurts, even more, when I do that. "But I'm too weak to correct any of them."

"It not matters. I'll learn the language at the end."

"Yeah, you will." My lips brush the ground, and I taste blood from the cold concrete.

"I'll help you get up."

"No, leave me, boy. I do not want them to hurt you."

"They aren't! Come on!" He takes my hand and I slowly lift my head from the pull of the blood. "Come on slow." He puts my hand around his shoulder, so I can use him as a support.

"No, you are not strong enough to hold me, Jimmy."

"I am! I am!", he squeaks, proudly, and I weakly smile, as I kneel, slowly trying to get up.

"Okay."

I start coughing, trying to stand on my wobbly legs. Jimmy is strongly holding my hand and I realize that this little boy cares about and me and Stella so much. It must be because we are showing him love, too. And that is rarely a case in the gangs, or in any case that consists of being an immigrant.

People disrespect you when your skin is a different color. And I know that Jimmy and his father experienced this, and they are probably going to experience it again.

"Are we going to your house?", the little boy looks at me with his tiny eyes through his glasses.

I want to say that place is not my home, but I do not have enough strength to say that, and I assume that would confuse Jimmy, so instead, I tell him, "Yes."

When we get out of the warehouse, my body hurting like hell, burning as my wounds scream, even though I managed to cover them with my torn shirt, I see no car.

"He taken the car", Jimmy sadly, remarks, and I look down at him, trying not to lean on him too much because my weight must be too much for him to handle. I have to walk on my own, no matter the pain each step gives me.

"Took", I correct him. "Yeah, he took it."

"What are we going to do now? You can walk?"

"I have to", I inhale a sharp breath. "I have to. For her."

"For Stella?" I nod. "Is she okay? I haven't seen her."

"She is going to be", I console not only the thirteen-year-old boy, but myself as well.

"My dad said that she is in hospital." I nod again, not being able to talk from the pain, but trying not to show it and to act strong in front of this boy. I hate seeing him worried. He has one hundred things going on, so he should not be worried about me, at least.

"Why?"

"She is going to be okay. Trust me", I whisper, losing my breath, trying to assure him, unable to come up with a lie right now.

"Are you?"

"I am. I cannot surrender, because I cannot leave her alone." Her face with pink highlights falling on it pops in my head, and I immediately feel better, the pain almost vanishing. Almost.

"Do you really love her like you said?" I look at him, confused.

"I was standing there", his little finger points on the gray wall, "hidden, so I hear." I nod one more time.

"I do", I whisper.

"I love her, too. She is so beautiful and good."

"Hey, man", I chuckle, frowning as well, because of the pain, but trying to forget about it. It's only temporary. It always goes away. Eventually, it does. "Do not steal her away, okay?" I touch his little nose and he giggles. "Come on we have a lot to walk."

And with that his tiny arm grips mine, and we start walking to the place I should be calling home. One beaten boy, who gave his heart to a person who may does not like him back, but even if that is true, he will still do anything for her. And one boy of yellow skin, who has to fight for himself in this world full of disrespectful people, to fight for his dad, and their own well-being.

The two of them are going on a road, while the blood is sipping from the beaten boy, leaving the mark, as if it was the bread which Hansel left so he could remember the way back. But, this boy does not need to know his way back. Because he will not be coming back. And just in this exact moment, he has decided that. It is the end of this torture. It has to stop. He has to fight. But first, he has to escape from the violence. And he is going to take his love with himself. Only is she agrees to that, of course. He will not force her on anything she does not want to do. He will stay there if she wants to stay, as well. He is going to get used to punches if that means that he is going to see her beautiful face every day. Being beaten or not, he has to be near her.