CHAPTER ONE: MY STORY'S SELDOM TOLD

It was a dark, dreary day in October, and David Jones, a poor young man of nineteen, was finally discovering that he had squandered all his resistance for a pocketful of mumbles; so-called "promises".

Everything he'd been told were lies, and he'd been made a laughing-stock. But still, being stubborn as he was, he heard what he had wanted to and disregarded the rest.

Here is his story---- It had been almost five years ago he'd left his family to come to America at the age of fourteen.

He was placed in a home with others like him, too young to really live on their own.

But one night, he became fed up with the confinement of the cold stone walls; so he decided to run. Run like the devil himself had posessed him.

He made his escape and ran to the railway station. Using the last of his pocket money, he bought a ticket that could take him ten miles to nowhere. He seeked out the nearest shelter he could find; unfortunately for him, there was a dangerous crowd he had to contend with....

It was th claimed territory of a gang of boys. Sure, they weren't much older than he, but at the time, David was only 4'6...

"Hey kid, ya might as well mosey along, 'cause you ain't stayin' here," one particuarly threatening-looking fellow said.

"Please? I 'aven't got anywheah else t' stay!" young David begged.

"Didn't you hear me, kid?!" the fellow yelled, grabbing David by the collar and slamming his back against the wall of the alley they inhabited, "Maybe if you get a good ol' fashioned ass-kickin' you'll learn...."

"McGuire! That's enough!" an unknown voice growled from the end of the alley; a tall young man, at least sixteen, with long, dark-blonde hair emerged.....

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