Jamie Lou (beginning) (Patreon)

I missed the bus my second day of high school and had to walk more than two miles to reach the campus. It’s always hot in September in Boudreau County, even at 8:30 in the morning, and by the time I got near enough to hear the tardy bell ring, I was soaked in sweat with my clothes sticking to me.

Already late now, I slowed my pace to a discouraged trudge but continued. I’d probably get detention and miss my bus after school and have to walk home too, so I really wasn’t in a hurry.

The four guys waiting on the corner didn’t surprise me. I’d been warned about them on the bus yesterday. I didn’t have any money for them, and I didn’t feel like taking the beating they would want to give me, so I gathered what energy I could find and ran for it. I angled across the street, aiming for the opening of an alley I had spotted, I might be able to avoid them there, and it was probably at least worth trying.

I’m not tall, even though I’m a year older than most other tenth graders, but I am very skinny, and I can get into places, and through openings that bigger people can’t manage, so there was hope of avoiding their gift.

“Hey! He’s getting away!” one of the bullies shouted, followed by the sound of running. I didn’t look back. They were either chasing me, or they weren’t, and I would either get away, or they would catch me and give me that beating when they found that I had no money. Unless they would accept the hard-boiled egg I had buttoned into my shirt pocket.

I didn’t have to look back to hear the motorcycle bearing down on me. Someone snatched me off my feet and pulled me across the frame of the bike, “Hold on!” they yelled in my ear.

The impact had knocked the wind out of me, and I made some sort of sound. But I tried to wrap my arms around a muscular body clad in a leather jacket worn over a t-shirt. I looked up to see a face I recognized but didn’t actually know. One of the bad boy seniors who ran in a motorcycle gang.

Had I gone from the frying pan into the fire?