~Just a warning: there is a pretty good amount of violence in this chapter. Skip it if you must.~

"Excuse me, what did you just call us?" I let the door to the polar bear exhibit slam shut. I took a step towards the voice, not daring to let go of Kurt's hand, which had gotten suddenly cold. It turned out that there wasn't just one voice, but three. One of which, I'd recognize anywhere.

"Blaine, just let it go. We don't want to cause trouble," Kurt's voice quivered. He was scared, I could tell. Truth is, I was, too.

"Miss me, Blaine?" Memories from a terrifying night in eighth grade flashed through my mind. No, this was a face that I most definitely did not miss.

"Blaine, what's going on?" Kurt's voice was panicked. I wanted to reply to him. I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him that it would be alright. I wanted to tell him to have courage. But I couldn't. I was speechless.

Before I could do anything about it, the three teenage boys surrounded us, and we were pressed up against the wall, Kurt clinging to my arm like a lifeline.

"Is this your little boyfriend, Blaine?" said the largest of the three, the one who I knew all too well. Luke.

Courage.

"Yeah, as a matter of fact, he is. What are you doing here, Luke?" Luke and his friends stepped closer to us, and Kurt's grip tightened even tighter to mine.

"Who are these people?" Kurt's voice quavered even more than before, his hand shaking. I couldn't deny that mine was starting to shake as well. Courage.

"I knew Luke at my old high school. He was one of those kids I told you about. The ones that beat me up at that dance," I said it louder, so Luke and his friends could hear the words perfectly clear. Kurt let go of my hand, and gripped his own and pressed them against his chin. His mouth hung open in... in terror and I didn't know what to do. Luke and his friend closed in even more.

"Yeah, fags, and we'll do it again," growled one of Luke's companions. I'd recognized him from my old school, but couldn't remember his name. He lifted up his bulk arm to show off his fists. Courage.

"Don't you dare touch Kurt. I don't care what you do to me, but if you so much as lay a finger on Kurt, you'll be sorry."

"And what are you going to do about it? Send your little private school fairies over to spray us with pixie dust?" to prove their point, Luke reached out his hand and gave Kurt a light shove. Kurt stumbled back helplessly and bumped my shoulder. Courage.

Before my conscience tried to argue against it, I punched Luke in the face with all of my strength that had been building up the entire conversation.

"Blaine!" Kurt gasped. It was beginning to dawn on me what I had just done. A glimmer of the color red made my knees wobble and I was afraid I was going to pass out. Oh my God...

Luke covered his face with his hand, stumbling backwards. The other two boys had their mouths dropped open in shock. However, it didn't take long for the shock to morph into confusion, and the confusion to change into anger.

"You little punk," the taller of the two mumbled. I tried to remember what Kurt had said to me that night at prom. Courage.

"You can't touch Kurt. Or me. You can't touch us, or what we have."

"Do you wanna bet, Anderson?" the shorter one with the noticeably larger arms said, stepping even closer. Courage.

"Run, Kurt!" he looked at me, his eyes ablaze with terror, anger, and confusion. "Run! Find Ava, I'll be right there!"

"Blaine, I'm not leaving you here to-" I cut him off.

"These are my classmates, they're my business. I don't want you getting hurt."

"It's too late for that, you're both going down," Luke said, wiping the blood on his hands on Kurt's jacket. Kurt froze. I remembered him ranting to me this morning about this outfit. He told me it was his favorite outfit he owned. He told me it was the outfit he had worn the day he met me. I remember fiddling with the collar, telling Kurt that he should have remembered his uniform. Something in the back of my mind told me he wasn't really a new kid. It was kind of obvious. The confusion in his expression alone gave it away pretty well. If it was anybody other than Kurt, we probably would have beat him up for spying. But there is something about Kurt that caught my attention. He was special. Seeing this outfit now, one that holds so many amazing memories, covered in the blood of a homophobic teenager... Something snapped in Kurt. He wasn't going to let this slide.

"What is the matter with you?" he screamed, his voice reaching a whole new level of high pitched. "What makes you think you can come here and torment us, when we did nothing to hurt you?"

"You girls did hurt me! Look at my face!" Luke screamed, motioning to his nose that was still gushing blood. I grabbed Kurt's wrist.

"Kurt, please, go get Ava. I'll take care of them."

"No, Blaine, I'm not letting you do this alone," he shook his hand out of my grip and tried to address Luke again. "You are just ignorant, that's what you are! You don't understand us, you don't understand how two guys can love each other even though it is just love, the simplest thing. So, you choose to torment us instead of getting to know us. You need to stop, all of you!"

"Dude, this punk is gonna get it!" the shorter boy said, pounding his fist in his hand, the three of them closing in on Kurt and leaving me out.

"Oh, God," Kurt murmured. I tried to push through the boys, but it was no use. I couldn't see Kurt, but I could hear him. I heard a punch and the a scream of pain, silence followed by another. In a panic, I tried to tackle down the boys but I just couldn't do anything. My heart stopped when Kurt's cries of pain became less and less frequent, and eventually stopped.

"What did you do to him!" I yelled, with all of my voice. The three of them turned around towards me, and I saw the mangled red body of my boyfriend on the pavement of the zoo, lying helplessly.

"You're next, Anderson. Think of it as round two. You up for it?" Luke murmured. I couldn't speak. I choked out a strangled sob. I couldn't scream, I couldn't run. All I could do is accept the blows given to me with all the courage I could muster.

The blows were hard. They hit my face with all the force that I could only dream of producing myself. It hurt a lot, but not nearly as much as the fact that Kurt was lying unconscious next to me. The emotional pain hurt so much more than the real pain. I tried to protect Kurt the best I could from this, that's why he transferred to Dalton. But the second we step off campus, we're not safe. We can never be safe in the real world, as long as people like Luke and Karofsky exist. No amount of courage can protect us.

Eventually, I joined Kurt in a state of unconsciousness, and the three boys left us behind the polar bear exhibit, where only the staff ever wander. I knew we'd be here for awhile.