Page 18 of The Shape of my Scar
Bare feet slapped pavement slick from the morning rain. Torn, blood-crusted clothes clung to their emaciated frames. Their hair, too long and wild, and eyes sunken in their sockets made them look like shadows of the boys they used to be.
Across the road, a cherry blossom tree stood in full bloom, branches dancing and petals trembling in the wind—a beautiful contrast to the atrocities that the house just across the road hid.
Row upon row of identical houses stretched out in every direction. There was no one out and about, and the windows were shuttered.
It was like the lull before the storm.
They ran like their lives depended on it. And it did.
Zel dragged Thane, who stumbled with every other step. The adrenaline was starting to wear off.
It seemed like they had been running for miles before the world began to stir. An old woman in a red dress pulled her curtain shut. A mother grabbed her toddler from the pavement and rushed inside, slamming the door.
Eyes followed them, but nobody came near.
They reached the main road.
A grey van slowed, and the boys froze for a second before picking up the pace.
Zel instinctively shielded Thane, his heart pounding.Was it them? Had they found them already?
The man in the van rolled down his window, revealing a bald head with tired eyes leaning out.
“You alright, lads?” he asked, his voice careful. It was a familiar accent, clipped and low.
Another man crossed the street, eyebrows drawing together “You hurt, lads? Where’ve you come from?”
Too many voices. Too many questions. Too fast.
The boys couldn’t answer. They just stood there with their backs to each other in a standoff.
Everyone was wary about coming too close as if they were a wild wolf pack.
Then, there was the shriek of sirens in the distance. A blue-lit cop car slowed down with lights flashing, and then another followed. An ambulance trailed them, its doors swinging open.
The boys froze as one, like deer in the headlights.
“Put it down, lad,” one officer in navy said in a soft, placating tone. “Whatever it is…just drop it, yeah?”
Thane looked at his hand. He was still holding the taser in a bloodstained, grubby paw.
He let it clatter to the tarmac, blinking like he’d just woken up from a nightmare.
His breath came in gasps. He tried to speak past a throat that had seized up but words wouldn’t form. He looked over his shoulder at Maro, who was holding his shiv up with a shaking hand. His eyes were wide, the whites stark around his irises.
“Stay back!” he growled, panic trembling in his voice.
In a daze, Thane noticed his expression-the shifting eyes, his clenched teeth feral.
He wasn’t about to let anyone near.
Lirian stared at nothing. Then suddenly, like a puppet with its strings cut, he lurched forward. He walked to the ambulance on stiff, mechanical legs.
Then Zel stepped forward with his palms up, speaking through cracked lips. “Where…where are we?”
One of the officers—stocky, older, with a blunt face—exchanged confused glances with his partner. “Wythenshawe. You’re in Wythenshawe, lads. Manchester.”
What happened next happened in a flash. Suddenly, Maro was down on the ground, an officer on top of him. Animal grunts were torn from his throat.
