KEEPERS

Me and my friends from Hell's Kitchen end up being sent to reform school after almost killing a man. We are brutalize by the guards. Niall and Liam grow up to be hit men who recognize our abuser years later and kill him. Our trial is prosecuted by another member of our gang, who is the assistant District Attorney.

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"It's not gonna hold!" Niall said, the wheel slipping from his grip.

"Let it go," Louis said.

"Don't stop now!" I said. "We can't stop now!"

"Let it go, Harry," Louis urged, his voice a surrender to the inevitable. "Let it go."

Watching the cart tumble down the stairs was as painful as trying to keep it from going down. The noise was loud, numbing and eerie, two cars colliding on an empty street.

Hot dogs, onions, sodas, ice, napkins and sauerkraut jumped out in unison, splattering against the sides of the stairwell, bouncing and smacking the front of a Florida vacation poster. One of the rear wheels flew off halfway down the landing. The umbrella stand split against the base of the stair wall.

Then came the loudest noise, one that rocked the entire subway station. It was a sound no one expected to hear.

A crunching sound of wood against bone.

It is a sound I have heard every day of my life since.