Kacey limped down the alley that cold, dark night. The wind whipped against her cheeks furiously, turning them a bright pink. She was only twelve years old and running away from her life.

It was hard to resist the urge to fall to the ground and sleep on the hard concrete.

She had nothing.

No family or friends to take her in. Nowhere to run to without being sent back home. Nothing else to live for, perhaps. Just her all by herself.

She let out a sputtering cough and fell to the ground. There was the taste of metal flecked about her tongue and she wiped at her mouth. A dark red stain was left on her hand as she pulled it away. She shivered against the wind and squeezed her eyes shut, the sight of blood always made her stomach churn.

"Get out of my house, NOW!" Kacey took the slap and kick from her father as she stumbled to the ground.

"Please daddy, please don't!" she begged as her mother stood in the kitchen, watching.

She always watched.

"Out on the streets you little rat, out of my sight!" he picked her up underneath her arms and carried the kicking girl to the door.

She screamed and sobbed and felt the cold snow hit her face as her father tossed her out the front door. The cold, New York winter's air wrapped around her as she sat up. Her father took one last swig from his bottle and threw it at the ground in front of her. It shattered to pieces, shards of glass splintering her forearm. . .

"DADDY!"

The door slammed shut, and the girl was left alone in the cold outside.

She closed her eyes and cringed at the horrible memory that had only occurred an hour ago. The glass in her arm stung every time she moved, a cruel reminder of who her father was.

Her eyes slowly slid shut for a little while and she hoped she was dying.

She had never wished for death before.

"I don't see no goil, Race-"

"Just a little farther—there!"

The three boys started for a run towards the limp figure under the candle-lit lamp. Indeed there was a dead girl laying on the sidewalk and they wished it wasn't true.

Kid Blink knelt down next to her and brushed the hair from her face wearily. He gasped and fell back when the girl let out a quiet, near-silent moan.

"That's no dead girl!" He cried out, poking her shoulder.

Jack Kelly pushed the other boy out of the way turned the girl on her back to get a better look at her. From the looks of it, she didn't have much longer left and she was in desperate need of stitches.

"Gimme your knife, Blink." He ordered quietly.

The blonde boy did not hesitate and handed him his newly-sharpened blade. Immediately Jack went to work at cutting her long, mouse blonde locks. She made no sound nor movement as he tugged at her scalp.

"Cap, Race."

The smaller Italian boy said nothing and handed Jack his cap. He heaved the girl up with his arms hooked under hers and snuggly fastened the cap to her head.

"Blink I need you to get a change of clothes from the Lodge."

Kid Blink was gone in a second, running back to his home, the Newsboys Lodgehouse. It didn't take long to find some dirty and unused clothes in the pile behind the washroom door. As quick as his feet could carry him, and as quietly, he sprinted back to the sidewalk just down the block from the Lodge.

Jack nodded to him and motioned with his head to the boys to follow him. He lead them to a nearby alley and set her down, beginning to exchange her tattered, torn nightgown for the change of clothes Blink had attained.

"Kloppman'll know, Jack." Racetrack said quietly, "He'll know and she'll be tossed back out here!"

"No she won't, not if I 'ave anything to say about it," Jack said as he heaved the pants up her legs.

Kid Blink slipped a new pair of socks over her small feet, "There goes my first pair of clean socks." He sighed.

Once they had finished changing her they threw her raggedy nightgown in the dumpster and retrieved the locks of hair they had cut from her head. They threw that in the dumpster as well, feeling slightly pleased with their work.

"We do not speak of this, got it?"

Blink and Race nodded vigorously as Jack heaved the limo girl over his shoulder. She groaned quietly and opened her eyes lazily, not even bothering to panic as her bones were too stiff and her mind seemed to be frozen from the cold.

"Don't you worry, miss, we got ya all takin' care of and we'll keep ya safe." Kid Blink reassured her as he walked behind Jack. He could have sworn she saw a faint smile cross her lips.

With all of her strength, she took a deep, staggering breath and uttered three words.

"Thank you, strangers."