Page 155 of Run Away Home: Tempered

He flips over and tries to push himself up. He can’t do it. I’m sure this isn’t what he pictured when he said he’d fight me. He didn’t realize how powerful I really am.

I bend down to look in his eyes. “Where is it?”

He’s not focusing on the question. I grab his face.

“WHERE THE FUCK DID YOU PUT MY KEY?”

He still doesn’t answer.

I drop him again so that his head hits the ground. I kick him. I just keep kicking him in the chest and stomach, and I don’t stop. I don’t see, I don’t think, not about anything other than the key he took from me. The hundred thousand dollars that will get me a key of my own...

I kick him until his shirt looks like a used maxi pad because of the blood pouring from his nose. He’s still breathing. Time for the grand finale.

I pick him up and lean him against the wall, looping the rope around his neck three times. He looks like he’s fallen asleep.

I pat his cheek. “You awake there? Wouldn’t want you to miss this.”

I take hold of the end of the rope. Then the music changes.

Huh?

“Come All Ye Faithful” starts playing.

When the fuck did I download this?

Peter

GOD, I’M SORRY. GOD, I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry. I know I deserve this, but please let it end. Let me die already. That’s whatshewanted, anyway.

Why this song? Is he taunting me? Sick basturt.

My eyes drift open and closed, then open again. The first thing I can make out is a cloud of knotted red hair. Someone’s lying down next to me.

Hayley?

“Seamus!”

It’s not Hayley.

“Adair...”

“Seamus? Get up, Seamus! You have to get up. It’s get up time!”

“I... I can’t do it. Not now, Adair”

He smiles and laughs, but nothing is funny.

“Ding!” he yells.

“Ding?”

“Ding! Ding!”

“I don’t understand, Adair.”

“Ding! Ding! Ding!”

My eyes open wider now. I’m suddenly, explosively, vividly awake. Adair is gone.I recognize that ding.

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