Mornings around the school parking lots were generally very quiet, save for the murmur of the smokers gathered on the sidewalk, talking among themselves.  The modest two-storey building was set just a small distance from a side street, which meant most of the scant traffic sounds came from vehicles that passed the street entirely.  The majority of the traffic on the side street itself was made up of rumbling school buses and students pulling into the back parking lot.

The silence this morning was effectively broken by the roar of a red Ford Escort peeling toward the student lot, brakes squealing as it navigated the sharp turn of its entrance.  The reckless driver of the little car maneuvered it expertly into the furthest marked space from the school.  Here, the car jerked to a halt, and the morning's calm was once again restored.

The driver glanced quickly into her rearview mirror, then turned her eyes to the glowing green numbers of the dashboard clock.  Noting the time, she sighed with relief.  She had arrived with plenty of time to spare, thanks in part to her frantic driving speed.  Having overslept that morning, she had been terrified of being late to start her English exam.

She flipped down the sun guard beside the rearview mirror and slid aside the cover of the built-in mirror.  Removing a bright blue lipstick from her pocket, she uncapped it and went about applying the colour to her lips, holding her chin high so that the mirror reflected her actions.  After applying her obligatory two coats, she smacked her lips together and jolted the sun guard with her hand to snap it back into place.

As the mirror swung upward, though, she caught a flash of dark motion in the parking lot.  Curious as usual, she adjusted the mirror to focus on the image.  She was unsure of what she was seeing, but frowning nonetheless.  In the interest of certainty, she turned in her seat and peered hard through the rear window.  Despite its caked-on layer of dust and mud, the glass was clean enough to cement her suspicion.

She jerked free of her seatbelt and threw open the door of her car, without even hesitating to think about what she was doing.  Her platform sandals clapped loudly against the pavement as she tore across the parking lot at full speed.  She could hear the taunts and jeers of the three older boys growing louder as she approached.

"Stop!  Let him go!" she screamed, plowing her shoulder into the closest of the three with all the force she had gathered during her run.  The two of them tumbled hard to the ground, despite that the boy was far bulkier in size than she.  She struggled for breath, finding that it had been knocked away from her in the fall.  In her haze, she could hear the deep, churlish laughter of the other two boys.

"What's this?" the fallen male sneered, scrambling to his feet.  "Sticking up for this kid, freak?  What's he, your little brother or something?"

"Maybe her little boyfriend," teased another boy, glaring down at her with amusement dancing in his brown eyes.

"So soon?  It's only his first day here."  The boy she had tackled made this revelation, following it by spitting out a name that people applied particularly to females.

For the first time, she took a long look at the boy whose defense she had come to.  He lay flat on his back on the ground, his blue eyes fluttering open and closed.  The brownish colour of dried blood trickled in a thin line down his face and pooled among clumps of his shaggy black hair.  Upon seeing the shape he was in, her anger flared up fresh, and she, too, jumped to her feet.

"I find it hard to believe that this 'kid' could have done anything too terrible to three big guys like yourselves," she scoffed.  "You guys are cowards, picking on someone smaller than you."

"What do you care about him?" snapped the brown-eyed boy.  "Mind your own business."

" 'Cause I bet I know why you guys are beating him up.  And if you want to beat someone up without getting caught, you're pretty stupid to do it out here in the parking lot."  Her fists clenched at her sides, she faced the third boy, catching his complacent blue stare.  "Don't even try to tell me this is about lunch money.  You did this to me for a long time, J.R."

"I did what?"  J.R. feigned innocence.

"You harassed me because you thought I was gay."

J.R. snorted and waved his hand dismissively.  "I did not."

"Yes, you did.  You just think that if a person doesn't act and talk and dress exactly like you that they're gay.  And for some reason, you think you have the right to beat up anyone who's gay or anyone who you think is gay just because they're gay."

The three exchanged looks, and one by one rolled their eyes.  "Get lost, Kat.  Take your gay little friend with you, why don't you, if you love him so much."  With that, J.R. gave the injured boy a sharp kick in the ribs, which forced a strangled, gurgling moan from deep in the victim's throat.

The three sauntered away with varying degrees of arrogance.  Kat glared at their backs, gritting her teeth and still clenching her fists, breathing hard.  For a long moment she was lost in the raging sea of her own anger, until a long, low note from the wounded boy jerked her back to reality.

Refusing to let herself feel the awkwardness of the situation, she inched closer to the boy as though he were an angry animal to which she had to give a vaccination.  "Hey, are you gonna be alright?" she asked him softly, eyeing closer the line of dried blood that streaked his face.

A slight, pained nod from him was the response, but Kat was doubtful.  "Do you want me to—"  Her second question was cut off by a gasp when her patient rolled suddenly onto his side and coughed out a mouthful of blood.  She thought of calling the hospital, but she hardly dared to leave him lying on the concrete alone; she desperately wished for her cell phone, but she always left it at home during school hours.

"Are you gonna be alright?" she inquired again, more to waste away the time than anything.  Her eyes darted back and forth across the parking lot, but nothing moved.  "Hey, I'll stay with you here, okay?  And then I'm going to call the hospital.  And the police.  You can't let them get away with doing this."  There were tears swimming in the boy's eyes, which for some reason frightened Kat more than the blood did.

Minutes passed in silence, and still nobody came.  Despairing, Kat crouched at the boy's side and begged to let her help him stand.  She hoisted the boy against her shoulder, which was still sore from its impact with J.R.'s goon.  Slowly, the two made their way to Kat's vehicle, whose driver's-side door was still open wide and whose warning alarm was repeatedly beeping.  She fully reclined the passenger seat before easing him into it, then strapped herself into the driver's seat.

Again, her gaze brushed over the clock; ten minutes were left until the morning bell.  Sighing, she fired up the engine and floored the accelerator, blowing out of the parking lot in a cloud of dust.

When asked if she was accompanying Spark Thomas, Kat could only stare blankly; then she honestly confessed that she did not know the name of the person she had brought in and gave a short description of him.  The nurse confirmed that Spark was that boy's name and informed her of his injuries.  He had escaped the brutal fight with two broken ribs and a broken nose.

"Spark wants to see you."

Kat glanced up from the women's magazine she had been perusing.  A plump young woman in a blue jumpsuit was smiling down at her.  "Me?" she blurted stupidly.  The nurse nodded; Kat dropped the magazine in with the modest stack of others she had finished reading and followed her.

"How come you stayed?" was the first question to burst from the young man's lips.  His nose had been splintered, and the greater part of his face was hidden behind the white gauze-and-cardboard square.  His voice was muffled slightly.

Feeling a bit nervous, Kat shrugged.  "I don't know," she admitted.  "Just curious, I guess."

A weak smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.  "I, uh," he began, then he paused.  "I don't really know what to—"

"Don't mention it."

The smile grew.  "It's just that I've never been bailed out by a girl before."

Deciding to ignore the probably-accidental hint of sexism, she folded her arms across her chest and leaned against the doorjamb.  "If it's any reassurance, I've never been that brash before."

"I'm grateful for the change."

Kat smirked.  "I really amazed myself, actually.  I'm just so tired of those guys.  I think they're really just threatened by anything different than them.  Oh, you do know that you'll be 'the Goth new kid' at school for about a month, right?  And you'll probably be called a wuss because of what I did."

"If I cared what people thought of me, do you think I'd dress like this?"  Quickly recalling that his clothes had been swapped for a standard-issue hospital gown, he sheepishly bit his lip.  "Well, you know what I mean."

"Yeah."  She snickered.  "So why'd you want to see me?"

His grin broadened, and the next line out of his mouth seared her cheeks with a crimson blush.

"I just never believed in angels before."