Street Rats

The Bone Snapper's Help

"Hey, it's not my fault your a moron."

"Oh, that is it-"

In the next second the room was swallowed up with chaos, the hoards of teens cheering and jumping, circling two kids locked in combat. A girl, with close cropped bubble gum hair and a tall, tan boy who was having trouble holding his ground.

From up high in the rafters of the crammed warehouse, a young man watched the scene with a smirk playing on his shadowed face. He was scrawny, his bony fingers tapping on his knee in key of the chants below. Beneath the hood over his head a wild mane of dark brown hair fell past his ears and over his eyebrows. With articulate brushes of black and white paint his childish round face had become a fierce, unnerving skeleton skull. The mask of the Bone Snapper.

The Bone Snapper's eyes, circled with black paint, watched intently as the pink haired girl finished the fight with a heavy blow to the tall boy's face. It was a barbaric punch, full of stricken rage; Bone Snapper felt bad for the cheek below the girls heavy knuckles. The crowd whooped and jeered, children smothering the fallen teen and the victorious girl. Watching intently, Bone snapper made sure to catch all the emotion on the pink haired girl's face. She was smug, her thick brown eyebrows cocking in pride and her lips struggling to hide a cocky smirk.

So, she was prideful, but not as boasting as Bone Snapper had banked on.

Something shuffled from behind Bone Snapper, a figure appearing on the rafters behind the boy.

"I thought you weren't coming." Bone Snapper stated, irritation in his voice.

The figure shifted, leaning to see the scene underneath them.

"Jad you're obnoxious." The Bone Snapper muttered. "And in case your wondering, yes, I am planning on carrying out my mission. I'm not an imbecile."

The figure just moved again, the slightest sound of ruffling fabric left in their wake. Bone Snapper looked over his shoulder, only to see he was once again alone. He snorted turning back to the kids.

What a piece of trash.

Bone Snapper pulled himself up to a standing position on the rafter, stretching his legs. He leapt from his spot onto the next bar, as quiet as a cat. Dashing along the metal bar he pounced until he was at the other end of the warehouse, still unseen by the eyes below.

He took a deep breath reaching into his pocket. Pulling out a tiny remote, he flicked one of the buttons with his thumb, sending a loud, ringing alarm to echo through the massive room.

The crowd froze for half a second before suddenly scrambling fast as lighting for an exit. The Bone Snapper had to move quickly now.

Gaze like a hawk he spotted his target, the head of hot pink hair shoving through the hoards of teens. He waited until she was closer before pouncing off the rafter onto one of the towering box piles. In the corner of the room now, he gracefully jumped from box to box until landing on the floor and diving into the crowd. It was tricky, with his shorter stature but with heart pounding in determination there would be no stopping him.

The pink haired girl had almost slipped out the door when a hand clamped down on her arm. She jumped, spinning around, afraid she'd see a cop on her tail. What she saw was much worse; a boy in a black hoodie, his identity shrouded by fancy paint that made her think she was being stopped by a living skeleton.

"Stay." He commanded, just loud enough for her to hear.

She was too shocked to argue. This was the Bone Snapper. In the flesh. Not a rumor. Time seemed to fly by as the rest of the youngsters scrambles out of the room.

"Y-You're-" stammered the girl.

"Yeah." Bone Snapper spoke sharply. "Boo."

The girl frowned at the little smirk on the boy's face. All the stories about him made her a little more than uneasy, the most popular ending to the Bone Snapper's tales were that the people who got close to him didn't stay close for long. They also didn't seem to live for long.

"I've heard a lot about you." She said after a chilly moment passed. "Word on the street says your taller."

The smirk twitched, openly irritated. "Well, word on the street also promised me you'd be pleasant to look at, so I guess we're both disappointments."

The girl didn't even seem to process she had been insulted, her eyebrows creasing together in light concern. "I'm 'word on the street'?" She repeated, voice edging in worry.

The Bone Snapper nodded slowly, letting out a puff of air in a silent laugh of amusement. "If you listen hard enough, yes. And that's why I need your...assistance, Marina. I know about October fourteenth-" the girls face paled, her eyes flickering in fear and her breath hitching between her lips. "-and so I know you're going to help me with what I need."

"What do you want?!" She demanded, the moment of fear melding into anger as quickly as it had irised, her mind racing in wonder at how someone could have found out. How could someone know?!

"Follow me and find out, little girl."