When Michael got home from school, both his father and his mother were waiting for him. He knew that his mother wouldn't really scold him, at least, in comparison to his father, it seemed as if she never spoke a single word. He knew that Joseph was going to let him have it, whether they were being sued or not. Joseph just wanted another reason to yell at him.

"You idiot!" Joseph suddenly shouted as he shoved Michael into the nearest wall and Michael heard his mother whimper, as if she were able to feel his pain, "What the hell is wrong with you beatin' up on people and gettin' yo'self in trouble?!"

"Joe," Katherine pleaded in a soft voice, "he wasn't thinking. He didn't mean to-?!"

"Woman, I ain't talkin' to you!" he shouted, causing Katherine to cower in fear, "I'll ask you fo' yo' opinion when I wanna! Got that?"

Got that. That's what I said to her. That's what I always say to her. Got that. Got that...

"You've been protectin' dis boy eva since the day he was born! That's why he in the kind of trouble he's in now!"

Lines of worry creased Katherine's forehead as she hastily hurried out of the living room to go pray in her bedroom and silence took her place once she left. Michael knew that she was just as afraid of Joseph's rage just as much as he was. He could only depend on her protection for so long.

Joseph snapped Michael back into reality by roughly shoving him into the wall where it rumbled in response behind him and the picture that had been adorned on the wall slid down and the glass framed on it shattered into pieces on the floor. A balled up fist collided with Michael's chin and he bit back a whimper in an attempt to not dawn himself as weak.

"Why you beatin' up on kids and gettin' the whole damn school on ya case?!" Before Michael could attempt to reply, Joseph continued to babble raucously, "You cost me money, boy! If dat boy or dat girl woulda got hurt, it would have caused me a fortune! And I ain't wastin' my money on ya scrawny ass!"

Money. That's all Joseph ever cared about. Not his family, not his loved ones but material paper that would be the end of him. Michael wouldn't have been surprised if he cared about money more than himself. It was only accurate.

"Whatcha you gotta say for yourself, boy?!" he snarled.

Michael merely shrugged his shoulders and his father swung his fist deep into his stomach and Michael grunted in pain. His father had done this many times to him before and Michael had done this many times to Alex but with more force and less mercy.

"I'm sorry..." Michael murmured in a soft voice.

"Sorry!" he exclaimed and Michael winced in pain, "You sorry? Sorry ain't gonna cut shit! That's just cheap words that don't mean nothing! You'd be sorry if I sent you off to boot camp! I feel like bustin you up like you did to dat girl. Then you'd be really sorry."

"Joe, please," Katherine pleaded from down the hall and Joseph shot her a murderous, scathing glare.

"Woman, didn't I done tell you to stay outta this?!" Katherine vanished down the hall with fear and guilt weighing on her heart.

Joseph slapped Michael across the face and gave his shoulders a violent shake.

"You get in anymore trouble boy and I swear, I'll bust your scrawny ass in half!" Joseph left Michael with one final shove and stormed up the stairs to his bedroom.

Michael stood there alone in the living room, unsure of what to do with himself while he was there. All he was able to think about was Alex lying in her own blood, writhing in pain and having that stupid hopeless look that made Michael cringe with dread.

Biting hard down on his lip, he sprinted off to his room and flopped down on his silken-draped bed. He roughly wiped his eyes to fight off the tears gathering in his eyes but it was nearly impossible to do so with that guilt gnawing at him. Nearly twelve years it has been since he had really cried.

He was about four years old when it happened and it was a cold stormy night when he was home alone in his bedroom. Thunder rumbled against his window when he heard a light squeaking sound coming from under his bed and when he looked to find the source of the noise, he found a rat, later acknowledging him as "Ben". He never kept him in a cage but he was always cautious to keep him in sight. One day though, he found Ben caught in a mousetrap.

'Finally I caught it,' Joseph had bitterly said, 'That thing has been stealing food for weeks.'

That night, Michael laid in his bed for hours, painting images of his pet rat writhing in pain once the metal had snapped down on it's ribcage and how it had weakly squeaked for help to come, for Michael to come to his rescue. That had been the last time Michael had really cried and it was all over a dirty rat that everyone but him were disgusted by.

Pushing the memory into the back of his mind, he threw his arms across his chest and decided not to let himself cry like that again. Although he was alone, he still felt embarrassed to how childish he was back then over a rat that never showed him the slightest response to his voice.

He hated that weak sensation, for being so sensitive. He hated how his father had never toughened him up like he had done with his brothers. He hated how his mother never stood up against Joseph whenever he was in trouble. He hated how Alex for always made him feel the way he did, the guilt and the affection. And for the first time in a long time, he hated himself.

A soft knock came at his door and he merely flickered his gaze up to his mother who was now standing by the doorway with a look of relief on her delicate, aging features.

"I called her house," Katherine began softly and Michael's head perked up in response.

"How is she?" he asked, blushing slightly at how desperate and elated his voice had sounded.

"Her aunt says that she'll be going to school in a few days." Michael nodded at her as an overwhelming sensation of relief washed over him, "Why do you do this to her, Michael?" she suddenly asked.

Michael's face burned with shame before he coldly said, "I don't know what your talking about."

"Yes you do. Michael, you're really hurting the girl."

"I bet her aunt is drunk," Michael said as he inwardly struggled to maintain the few strips of pride he had left in his system, "She's just telling you lies so you can get off her case. She's all talk."

"A family doctor visited her. He said that if she would have landed any harder, she could have died. You could have killed her, Michael. You really could have-?!"

"Shut up!" he shouted. He clamped his hands over his ears to block out the sound of her voice and those unforgivable words. He struggled to calm his racing heart as images of Alex lying in her pool of blood raced in his mind and the sounds of her faint breathing came to his mind and thrown into the air was the sound of his father's brutal scolding. In the background, he could also hear Ben squeaking for air, for life and he couldn't help but think of Alex in the same predicament.

Katherine stared at him with a mixture of sheer concern and pity. Glancing over at her made him feel all the more worse about himself. He felt as if the entire world were angered with him, like they didn't care that he was suffering just as much as his victims.

Without a single word of farewell, he bolted out of the room with the distant voice of his mother following him out. The only thing that kept his feet moving, the only thing that kept him momentarily sane was knowing that Alex was under no threat of losing her life because of his actions.

The bar was crowded, as most were during long nights like these and the air inside smelt of thick, intoxicating smoke with several other stenches associated along with it. All of the lights had been dimmed down except for the one that was focused directly on the stage which drew the attention of those inside towards the band performing for the night, singing passionately about some sort of strange subject that no one seemed to care about. Lurking beneath that was the incessant murmuring of gossip and the occasional sound of a pool stick clacking against a cue ball.

Michael emerged into the bar and didn't receive any acknowledgement, for everyone knew who he was so looking his way was typically unnecessary since everyone could feel his heavy presence weigh on them. He walked in with his shoulders out behind him and his head held high, as if he were proud of some sort of self-worthy accomplishment, giving him a kingly visage of his dark demeanor. The countless voices inside the bar seemed to conglomerate into a low rumble as he sauntered deeper into the bar.

A man with bloodshot eyes stumbled into his direction and Michael quickly stepped aside to avoid being bumped into and instantly following after him was a woman who carried a tray of alcoholic drinks and she winked at him as she strutted past him. He smirked and laughed under his breath.

The bitch doesn't even realize how much younger I am than her. What a slut.

Michael took a seat on one of the many stools by the bar and the volume in the room picked up as the tension dimmed down. He signaled the bartender for a drink and the burly man nodded at him before rushing off down to the cellar.

"Hey there, honey," a deep, sensual voice greeted from behind him. He didn't turn to face them but he could feel their burning gaze linger his body.

"Hey." A blonde girl appeared at his right, her round mounds partially exposed due to her extremely low-cut shirt and Michael restrained himself from staring at them.

"So, what are you doing out here at this time?" the girl asked him once Michael received his drink.

"Just looking for a good time," he replied taking a long swig from his beverage.

"Me too." Michael smirked. Him and this girl seemed to be riding the same wave, both wanting sexual contact to ease their worries and stress.

He gave a curt laugh to her agreement, "If you're offering to show me, I ain't gonna say no."

The girl smiled somewhat triumphantly at the remark, "I thought it would take me a few more drinks to agree to that but I don't mind making sure that you have a fun time."

The gap in between them closed as Michael scooted closer to her and his face nuzzled her slender neck as his hands roamed her tense body.

"Maybe you'd like to show me how fun you are underneath those clothes..." he whispered against her and she moaned softly.

"I could never be able to pass out on that offer," she murmured more to herself than to him and she bit back a moan as he planted a trail of light kisses along the crook of her neck.

"I know this place where we can go to 'handle things'," Michael informed her in between his kiss-planting, "We can go over there."

She smirked as he pulled away from her, "Lead the way."

The little slut of a student had wanted him bad, every slut did and he needed some sort of distraction to take his mind off of things. It had been a long night which was wasted with going to clubs, drinking, and watching girls practically throw themselves at him, knowing full and well that they were underage. It wasn't uncommon for him to throw some random girl onto his bed and give them what they wanted and this girl was no different from the rest.

I need something to distract me from thinking of her anyway...

"That was amazing..." the girl panted trembling involuntarily, allowing the sheets to partially cover her exposed body.

Michael didn't even glance back at the nameless girl but only continued to shove his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, "Get out."

"What?" she murmured, still stuck in a daze.

"I said get out and I swear, if you leave anything behind, I'll punch you into next week." He began to strode towards the bathroom, "I don't want your shit lying around here." The girl nodded at him.

"Okay," she said, too overwhelmed with ecstasy to have been fazed by his demanding, hasty demeanor, "Do I have to go now?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said?!" Before she could reply, he slammed the door in front of her pouting face.

Clutching hard onto the sides of the porcelain sink, he rose his head and stared back at his pale reflection through his bleary vision.

The awkward sex didn't solve a single thing for him. Usually, it would have solved his problems when he was stressed or pissed off about something after becoming satisfied by hearing the girls begging for more of him, listening to the sweet sound of them moaning his name, and feeling their hands frantically grope his body but tonight, it seemed to make everything worse. Even though it all felt the same, doing "it" with the same type of girl when most of the time, he didn't even care about the girl's name, was getting boring. Sometimes, he didn't know how they looked like, whether they were black or white, blonde or brunette, blue eyes or green... It was like solving a puzzle without the needed pieces to be put together.

He didn't even know the girl's name and yet he was screaming another's. But out of all of the names that he knew, he had to scream hers.

He shoved a hand through his damp, disheveled hair.

Dammit. Dammit. Dammit!

He clutched the edges of the sink until his knuckles turned white.

Why can't she just leave me alone?!

The guilt still gnawed at him. If he didn't solve it now, the guilt would tear him up limb from limb and he wouldn't be able to live with himself knowing that he was the reason for her absence just like right now, with the guilt pounding at his chest, all because he watched her in her pain as him and his friends pummeled her to the ground.

Get out of my mind already! Leave me the hell alone!

He didn't want to do it but it was something that he had felt compelled to do, beating her up, humiliating her both in private and public, make her cry until she wasn't able to cry anymore. Why did he treat her this way?

Because I care. Why do I fucking care about her?! She means nothing to me! Nothing!

No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that it wasn't true, that he didn't care about her, it would always come crawling back into his mind and gnaw at him until he was bold enough to acknowledge it.

"Alex..." he breathed crumbling down onto the floor and holding his flushed face in his trembling hands.

"I'm sorry, gurl... I'm so sorry..."