It was Lev.

Suddenly Alex's heart was in his throat and his phone felt like a searing chunk of coal in his hands. His grip around the phone loosened and tightened over and over again as he actually considered letting the device fall to the floor. Instead he spun around quickly and tossed the phone onto his bed, watching as it bounced a few times on the comforter before settling next to his pillow.

The phone continued to ring as he stared at it. He wasn't sure why he was acting like this. It's not like he was going to agree with Ziro's ultimatum and make a decision, at least not anymore. But he knew he didn't have an exact solution for the problem yet either — his brain knew that for sure; his heart knew it'd be best to avoid Lev until he did.

The ringing finally halted, and with it the warmness and life had dissipated from his heart, and it sunk all the way down to the pit of his stomach. He wanted to hear Lev's voice; wanted to know what Lev was going to say if he'd answered; wanted to know if they were still just friends, or more than friends.

"Where's the rest of it?"

The voice sounded distant, yet it seemed so close. Alex spun around, scanning his bedroom. He was definitely alone. Did he imagine it?

"I told you Monday was the deadline, didn't I?"

There was no doubt now, the voice was real. But, where was it coming from?

Alex attempted another spin search of the room, but then his eyes instantly landed on his window at the back behind the bed. His opened window. Alex remembered leaving it open last night to let in some of the cool air to relax the fuggy heat of the night. He didn't usually have the pleasure of leaving it open for long though; the window overlooked a narrow kind of alleyway between the Prior home and a pistachio-green house to their left, and it was a common hangout space for the local vermin, especially at night when they sounded insatiably restless.

The people who lived there, a middle-aged woman and her twin eight-year old boys, were hardly ever home as the woman dropped off her twins at day camp nearly every day before heading off to work herself. Maybe the family hadn't left yet and were just bickering out in their driveway, like they usually did.

He leaped across his bed and went over to the window, peering down through the netted screen. There were only two people out there, indeed loitering in the alleyway between the houses, out of sight from the rest of the neighbourhood. Neither of them were either of the eight-year old twins nor their mother, but both looked young.

One of them had a bush of black curls that contrasted distinctly with their fair skin. They gestured wildly with their sports jacket covered arms, sounding angry as they spoke to other person. "You better not be lying. I'd hate to mess up that pretty face of yours if I found out you were holding out on me."

"I'm not lying," the other person protested.

Alex recognized that voice. As he leaned his head closer to the window screen, he realized he recognized more than just the person's voice. The elvish stature, the sandy skin, the brunette hair this time done into a single dutch braid — the mildew orange highlights discernible even under the shade of the two houses closing in the alley.

Evan.

"That's all I made," Evan went on, her voice pleading. "A lot of kids are out of town for the summer, and I don't really know any kids in the city that I can trust."

"Well then you should be getting creative, little girl. You're the one who laid it on thick before, saying you could sell out in just couple days."

The voice belonging to the black curls sounded male, Alex realized, with something of a nasally sharpness that clung to his tone, too.

"That was at the beginning of summer, though," Evan said. "No one was travelling yet and-"

Crash!

One intemperate shove from black curls had sent an adjoining green trash can belonging to the pistachio house, slamming into the concrete ground. The next thing Alex knew, black curls had taken an intimidating step closer, an arm raised against the bleached blue house wall, cornering Evan.

"I didn't come all the way to this hick town to hear excuses," black curls spat. He was saying something more, but Alex didn't catch it; he was halfway to his bedroom's exit, muscles tensing and heart pulsing with unease.

But Alex stopped just before, glancing to his right at an object leaning against his computer desk that stuck out in his peripheral vision. He marched over to it quickly, grabbing it by its metal rod body and lifting its dogwood-carved head in the air. The first ever thing he had made from wood; the first ever thing he had made together with his father: a five-iron golf club.

The weighted oblong head stared back at him, an unexpressed declaration to finally be put to use, however violent that use may be.

******************************************

"Care to explain why your supply's so low but the money ain't adding up with that?" black curls accused.

Alex could hear everything again; he was right around the corner of the house, one cautionary foot after the other across the driveway as he drew closer to the alley. The golf club was braced in his hands, held at head-level, ready to be swung at a moment's notice. He reached the edge of the wall of the driveway and slowly peeked past it. Evan was scarcely visible behind black curls, whose rangy figure was still shutting her in against the wall.

"I don't know!" Evan said. "Maybe you just didn't give me enough-Ahh!" She'd been shoved into the wall, hard. Her wrist and shoulder scraped against the craggy bleached blue bricks, and she stumbled back a few steps away from black curls.

"Now you're saying I'm the one holding out, huh?" black curls shouted. "You'd better watch that mouth of yours before-"

Thwack!

The dogwood iron collided with the back of his skull, sending black curls tumbling forward all the way down to the ground. Evan had dodged him just in time, her eyes going wide at black curls bumbling below her and cradling his head, then to his attacker: Alex stood there before them both, club clutched and upraised to a height just above his hair, stunned by his own actions and not quite sure what to do next.

"A-Alex?" Evan stammered, "what are you-?" She paused and her head swiveled around the alleyway frantically as she realized where she was. "Oh my god...this is your house...Of course you live here..."

"Evan!" Alex cried, lowering the club to his side and reaching out a hand. "Come on! We have to g-"

"What the hell?"

Skin impacted with the concrete in muted scrapes, as Alex was tackled to the ground by a befuddled black curls. The back of his head, the curves of his elbows, the blades of his shoulders — Alex could feel that his skin had been ripped open. He only had less than five seconds to make sense of what had just happened before noticing the looming long-limbed figure now overhead, glaring down at him.

"Now who's this little punk? Eavesdropping, are we?"

A kick to the ribs; Alex cursed at the sharp pain stabbing his side. Something damp and a bit sticky was forming thin puddles beneath his head, his shoulders, his elbows — blood, he guessed, his exposed flesh feeling like it was both drowning and suffocating from being squashed over the concrete. Another kick to his ribs, then a rapid second one to his thigh. Alex choked out a few strained coughs.

"Stop! Stop it! Just leave him alone!" Evan yelled from somewhere just out of Alex's vision. "I'll get you the rest of the money, so just stop!"

"What? This your little sidekick or something?" black curls chuckled, the sound noxious and shrill. "Is this where all that unpaid-for supply ended up? Some boy-toy junkie?" He bent forward, tilting himself so that his upper body hung over Alex. A deranged smile taking shape on his face. "That was some swing though, boy. I'll give you that."

On his right hand, Alex clenched his fingers into his palm, expecting the golf club to still be there. But he hadn't realized till then that the object had come loose from his grip, likely when he'd been plowed down. He lifted his head an inch off the ground — the bloodied skin on his scalp stinging as the pressure was gone — and twisted his head to one side and then the other before his eyes landed on the dogwood iron lying ditched by the fallen green trash can.

Alex outstretched his arm for it as much as he could, but black curls stepped over him and kicked it away just as his fingers were mere breaths from reaching it. A third kick to the ribs, this time on Alex's other side, and he gritted out another curse at the affliction and rolled onto his left side to cradle himself.

More desperate cries from Evan, but it sounded fuzzy to Alex now. The weight of his head felt unusual too, like an unstable pendulum teetering from side to side. His vision was getting bleary now, everything appearing to him in shaky doubles.

"Hey! What's all the commotion out here?"

A new voice. Alex felt like he recognized it, but it was so hard to focus on it right now to be sure.

"Oh my... W-what the hell is goin' on here? Young man — who're you? You stay right there, I'm gonna- Hey! Hey don't even think about it!"

The next thing Alex heard were footsteps, fast and blundering, someone taking off in a sprint. They had sounded so close to his head, so Alex figured the hostile boy must have finally deserted the scene.

More distressed voices, belonging to Evan and the other familiar voice, both of which getting closer and closer to Alex. Someone was holding his head up now for support, but his eyesight had blurred past facial recognition by now. Someone else had their hands clasping his arm and then the right side of his ribs, trying to assess for damages.

"Alex? Alex! Can you hear me? Alex!"

They were both right beside him, yet Alex couldn't tell which one of them was talking now. And then, everything went completely black.