Snitch stared up at the doors of the bus station. They were glass, transparent, and somehow frightening. It was as if they were the doorway to his new life on his own, and he didn't feel quite ready to open them yet, to start anew.

"You okay, fella?"

Snitch jumped. "What?" he cried, his voice shrill.

The man behind him looked over the rim of his sunglasses. "No need to shout, son." he said, sounding surprised. "I just wanted to know if you were okay."

Snitch swallowed. "Um…yeah." he said meekly. "Sorry."

The man smiled. "Don't be sorry." He said as he walked past Snitch and into the bus station. Snitch watched him enviously, then decided that if that man with the sunglasses could go into the building, then he could too.

He hesitated before taking a cautious step onto the stairway that led to the door. He paused again, then continued, gradually getting faster as he got more confident. Finally he stood before the glass doors, looking inside at the hustle and bustle of people. His breathing quickened.

(daddy what are you doing daddy no no daddy it hurts)

So many people! He'd never seen so many people in one place. Agoraphobia, something he never even knew he had, began to set in, and sweat broke out over his forehead and back. He used the back of his hand to wipe the sweat away, but it quickly replaced itself in a heat.

A young woman in sunglasses shoved past him with a glare, nearly knocking him over as her shoulder met his stomach. He let out a short gust of wind , and fell to his knees, shocked. He looked over his shoulder at the retreating woman, who never even glanced back at the sweaty young man in the middle of the doorway.

He looked back into the crowded bus station and sighed, catching his breath, then stood and started to wander around. He gasped at every touch and flinched at every look someone threw his way. There was once an encounter with a big broad man that looked so like Ken Riccio that Snitch had to clench his fists tight-tight to keep from screaming, and the clenching itself almost made him scream; he went so tight that his fingernails cut painfully into his skin.

He felt very alone. Very lost. Very scared. He'd never been on his own before. He didn't know quite what to do with himself.

So he sat down at a table by the food area and put his head in his hands and sobbed.

(stop crying boy men don't cry don't you wanna be a man, dan, dan the man, don't you wanna be a man)

Quietly, of course. Unmovingly. That was the only way to cry when you grew up in Ken Riccio's household.

After what seemed like hours, but was really barely even fifteen minutes, Snitch raised his head, and wiped his eyes on the back of his hands. He'd gotten this far; he could make it farther. He stood up, cringing at the noise the chair made when it scraped against the tile floor, certain everyone was looking at him, and someone would say 'Hey, that's Ken Riccio's boy! What are you doing out here?' and take him home where his father would slam him, slam him, slam him into fucking oblivion…

But no one noticed. No one even glanced up. He breathed slowly, deeply, and tried to keep himself from sweating so much as he walked to the center of the room and pulled his money and his father's card from his pocket. Studying the card, he realized with a gasp that this wasn't a credit card, but his father's bank card. He looked around the room and saw two ATM machines, side by side. Dare he use them?

Don't! cried Whiney from inside his head. Your dad will find you that way! He'll know, he'll know!

Snitch started to put the bank card back in his pocket, then decided no. He was turning over a new leaf. He was no longer Dan Riccio, Ken Riccio's son, the kid who'd been slammed so many times he should be a pancake instead of the oddly tall 18 year-old he was. He was now Danny 'Snitch' Riccio, and he was going to be everything his father wasn't, and even though he didn't know this, that meant he was going to be a man. He clutched the bank card and marched stiffly to the ATM, punched in his father's code, and took $200 cash from the machine. As he walked to the ticket booths, he noticed a young woman in black with a half-ring through her eyebrow shuffling cards at a table.

"Find the ace of spades, mister?" she asked him, and he jumped. She stared at him, and put three cards face down on her table. "Find the ace of spades, win a prize, mister." she said, studying him. She had a lazy eye, which didn't help Snitch's paranoia at all. Screw the new me, I'm scared shitless, he though as he shook his head stiffly at her and continued on his way to the ticket booth.

Which is the next bus leaving… that's where I'm going… he thought, studying the bus schedule as he stood in line. There was a bus leaving at 11:40 am, to a city some 800 miles away. Snitch nodded to himself as he stepped up for his turn.

"11:40 bus, please." he said softly. The old man behind the counter stared at him.

"Pardon, son?"

"11:40 bus. Please, sir." For a horrid moment, he thought the old man was going to turn him away, but no, the old man just nodded and asked if this would be cash or charge. Snitch told him it would be cash, and gave him the money asked for as the old man gave him his ticket. There was a quiet 'thank you' before Snitch left the line. His bus was leaving in a half hour, so he sat in the waiting area until the announcement was made over the intercom that his bus had arrived. As he walked to the boarding area, he paused by a trashcan. He took the bankcard from his pocket, studied it, then dropped it in the garbage. If he used it in this new city, his father could find him for sure. Better safe then sorry.

He got on the bus without looking back.

If he had looked back, he may have seen the card woman with the stocky build and the lazy eye rooting through the garbage for what the strange young boy with the slumped back had dropped in there.

You never knew when you might just get lucky.

Snitch arrived in this new town without problem. He'd spent most of his time on the bus ride sitting in his seat, clutching the armrests until his knuckles turned snow white. He'd felt very stiff when it came time to get off the bus, and had trouble standing, but he'd managed. Now he stood in this even stranger bus station, in a city that he knew absolutely nothing about except that it was Ken Riccio-free, and thus it was a better city.

He stared around, soaking in his new surroundings and trying not to let them leak back out in his certainty that someone here would grab him, shout "You don't belong!" and put him on the next bus back home.

A bald man running lankly up to a booth labeled "Traveler's Assistance" caught his attention. There was a young brown haired woman behind the booth and she listened intently as the man told her something, his bald head shining from the overhead lights. She nodded slightly, and gave him a sheet of paper and a sweet smile. He smiled back, thanked her, and took off again, practically throwing himself out the bus station doors.

Snitch studied the young woman for a few moments, then decided she was his best chance. He approached her tentatively.

She looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, can I help you?" she asked, her voice pleasant.

Snitch hesitated, then words fell out of his mouth a little at a time, then a stream, until finally they were flooding out of him, complete with tears and sobs. The young woman listened intently, toying with a silver Star of David around her neck as she listened to this sobbing young man tell the story of how his father had beat him, killed his mother and unborn sister, then kept his son under house arrest until this morning.

Finally the flood of words ceased, and Snitch looked hopefully at the young woman, who thought for a moment, then smiled.

"I think I can help you." she said, her voice kind as she took a business card from the stack by the computer. On the front, she wrote an address (704 S. Didew Street), and on the back she signed her name in an oddly large fashion. Snitch took the card when she handed it to him, and noticed her name to be Reesie Whitman. He smiled hesitantly at her.

"What's this for?" he asked softly.

"Go to this address by taking the orange bus." Reesie instructed. "When you get there, they'll ask for my signature. Show them this. Keep it in your pocket and make sure you don't lose it."

"Where are you sending me?"

Reesie smiled again. "One of my friends is the founder of a place called Sons & Daughters, a shelter for abused teenagers. They only take special cases, and, well… I think you're a special case."

Snitch looked at the card, then at Reesie, and gave her a smile filled with such relief that Reesie could almost see the weight lifting from his shoulders.

"Thank you." he said, his voice so soft his words almost missed her ears, but she heard it, and her heart lifted. His words were filled with such honest gratitude that she turned away as he left the building, just so no one could see her cry.

***AUTHOR'S NOTE***

Well… um… tada? Reesie and Ruin are introduced? Um, I'm trying to group RP with some members of the NJL and it's chaos, so I'm gonna help straighten that out now before Rosie kills someone, bye!