He grabbed the man by his tattered shirt, lifted him off the ground, slammed him against the wall. With the ceiling low, the stranger’s head cracked against the jagged stone, a sound the Orphan knew would haunt his dreams, a sound that made his nerves sizzle. And made him happy. Holding the man’s neck with his left hand, the Orphan punched him in the face with his right. He pulled back and hit him again, with all the weight of his muscles and a hard, clenched fist. Again, then once more. Things creaked, and things crackled, and things shattered. The Orphan let go and the man collapsed in a broken heap onto the floor.

Heaving with each and every breath, he looked down at the horrible man’s victim. The poor kid was badly beaten, but alive. Thank the Cure, alive. Their eyes met.

The Orphan knelt in the cold, squishy refuse, readying to lift the small body. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “He’ll never hurt you again. What’s your name?” He didn’t really expect an answer—the boy was barely conscious. But the kid surprised him.

“Kuh . . . Kuh . . . Kit.” The boy sputtered, mere grunts through the pain. “What’s . . . yours?”

“My . . . ?” The Orphan went from surprise to shock. Downright gobsmacked. This was not something you asked an Orphan. He found it hard to speak. He couldn’t quite catch up with what his lungs demanded.

“What’s . . . your . . . name?” the boy repeated. He was a fragile, terrible thing to look upon.

“My . . .” Run, he thought. For some reason, he wanted to run. Away from this. From all of it.

“Please . . .” The boy’s eyes had closed, his breathing gone shallow. “Name . . .”

Why! Why did he want to know so badly? Why would this shattered child use his last remaining strength to ask the question that tormented his life!

The boy coughed, cracked open his eyes. Pleading. “Name . . .”

The Orphan looked down at him, ashamed of the spite that filled his chest, bulging up in his throat like a cancerous lump. But he finally answered the wretched kid to shut him up.

“I don’t have one.”

As she walked through the ruins, it was hard to envision what had once been.