Seizing the Day

Chapter Two: When Facing Brooklyn

JACK KELLY

After seeing the results the next day, Jack was glad he hadn't witnessed the actual fight itself. The Delanceys looked fine- one had a bruised eye, the other was flaunting a swollen nose, but all in all, their damage intake was minimal.

Brooklyn had other things to say.

When Jack had first seen the kid, he'd had to force himself to look away- it was like a bad car wreck. Something you didn't want to see, but couldn't stop staring at. The boy's face was black and blue around a split lip and a heavily bandaged left eye. One of his arms was in a sling, and he limped as he walked- almost as bad as Crutchie. Worst of all was the fact that while the two bullies were easily past eighteen years of age, the mangled child from Brooklyn looked as though he couldn't be any older than fifteen.

He was slight for a Brooklyn member; wearing a jacket that looked as though it had been borrowed from someone older, taller, broader across the shoulders, and his jeans were frayed at the hems. His hands couldn't seem to stop fidgeting in such a startlingly childish way; knotting into the over-washed blue fabric of his t-shirt, and playing with the cuffs on his coat, and fiddling with the buttons pierced through the leather that were supposed to be used to snap up the front. He looked so disbelievingly young that for a moment, Jack felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. He felt a pang of sympathy for the boy as he lurched down the hallway, but upon seeing the Delanceys' leering faces, and grins of triumph as their gaze raked at the boy down the hallway, he considered whether or not his sympathy should have been turned toward the two brothers.

They thought they'd won, but man- they had another thing coming.

Still, as the boy passed the two brothers, his stooped posture straightened defiantly, and he raised his chin, his good eye blazing with everything he had. The nervous fidgeting stopped, his face lost it's boyish innocence, and suddenly, Jack saw it. The kid had some definite fire in him, and it blazed in the courage he protruded as he stared the bullies down, hefting his ratty backpack higher on his shoulder, his gaze daring them to come any closer than they already were.

'There's the Brooklyn in him.' Jack thought, surprised at how smug he felt upon seeing some of the confidence fade in Oscar Delancey's eyes. If he'd been hoping the smaller boy would cower away, and take his beating with any kind of shame, he'd been horribly wrong.

Visibly angered by the boy's reaction, Oscar overcame his initial moment of hesitation, and stepped forward with a snarl, only for his brother to quickly yank him back as another figure stepped in behind the young boy with a look that could kill. Jack vaguely recognized the newcomer; a tall boy around Morris Delancey's height, with hair that was close-cropped on the sides, and such a dark brown, it could have passed for black, while he left the middle section longer and bleached a pale blond. Faint lines from a hidden tattoo scrawled ever so slightly past the collar of his shirt, which, when paired with the numerous scars on his hands, and one across his left forearm, made him look more menacing than anyone Jack would have been comfortable to approach.

Wordlessly, the older Brooklyn boy rested a hand on the younger's shoulder, and propelled him away from the Delancey's, his eyes as cold as steel the whole time. Though he made no move to fight either of them or accuse them of what they'd done, Jack could tell it was like a physical strain not to. The boy's jaw was clenched tight, his entire frame seeming tense like a livewire, scowling the whole way.

Oscar and Morris waited for the two boys to leave their line of sight, before starting to snicker, gesturing towards where the two had walked off. It was obvious that neither one of them was overly bright if they hadn't realized they'd made a crucial mistake.