Chapter 1 Trapped

Ryan stared out the apartment window, wishing he could escape. A month had crawled by since the judge had given him the CSO. He felt trapped by the eight-o’clock curfew. Every night he had to stay in an empty apartment while his dad was at the bar getting drunk.

Enough, Ryan decided. He grabbed his jacket, opened the apartment door, and headed downstairs to the ground floor. Easing open the main door, he looked around for the cops. It was after curfew. He took a deep breath and stepped out onto the main street of Mill Town. The street lights were dim in the gloom of the evening. The smell of the pulp mill hung heavy in the air.

Ryan’s fists tightened, making the letters tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand stand out. He walked onward, his ragged runners hitting the sidewalk with firm steps.

A Nissan GT-R zipped past. Rap music blared from its open windows. Ryan saw the teen driver at the wheel. The driver’s buddy, next to him, yelled rap lyrics at the top of his lungs. The car swerved down the street. Probably boosted, Ryan thought. He was glad it wasn’t Dan Main and his flunky Connor Cog — guys he’d been sent to juvie with for stealing cars. If he never saw that jerk Dan again, it would be too soon.

Ryan kicked a stone on the road. It zinged against a garbage can at the side of an apartment building. A cat hissed in the night. Ryan turned right onto a tree-lined street.

Most of the houses and apartments were in darkness. Some were lit by the flickering light of a TV. Ryan headed up the street, rounded the corner, and walked another block. Lights were on in two houses. A lady standing in a window across the street nodded at him as he walked by. Surprised that someone was being friendly, he waved back.

The beam of a flashlight shone in the dark interior of the house across the street. It was three doors up from where Ryan stood. The light bounced this way and that — searching.

Ryan’s eyes widened. I’ve got to get out of here. I’m not going to get blamed for a B and E, he thought.

An alarm blared in the night. The front door banged open.

Ryan froze.

Connor Cog bolted from the house.

“You set off the alarm,” bellowed a short, stocky teen who came sprinting after Connor. Ryan scowled. It was Dan.

Connor lumbered across the lawn. He was bigger than Dan but slower. Dan caught up to him and punched him in the back. Connor fell on the ground. Dan kept pounding him.

Ryan groaned. Connor was getting the worst of it. He wished Connor would turn on Dan and beat him up. Ryan knew Dan was like the dregs at the bottom of a beer can — gritty and bitter.

Lights flicked on in the house next door. A man threw open a window. “What’s going on out there?” he yelled. “I’m calling the cops.”

Dan and Connor stopped fighting and ran.

“Crap,” said Ryan. His eyes darted about the neighbourhood for an exit. He ran toward the shadows of a house next to a laneway. Ryan flattened his body against a wall and waited. He had a clear view of the action on the street.

“What the hell, Dan? Can’t you stay out of my freaking life?” Ryan muttered, as he watched Dan run past the house where the lady was watching in the window.

Connor crossed farther down the road and hid behind a pile of wood at the end of a driveway. The wood was lit by a nearby street light.

Dumbass, Ryan thought. The cops will get him for sure. A small pile of wood couldn’t hide Connor’s large frame.

Sirens screamed in the night. Two cop cars came down the street from opposite directions. The red and blue lights lit up the neighbourhood.

“Shit,” Ryan said. He moved a bit farther down the lane, into a deeper shadow. He pulled the beak of his baseball cap down closer to his brow to hide his face.

Wheels screeched as the cop cars came to a halt. A cop jumped out, yelling, “Police. Stop!”

Two cops ran after Dan. One spotted Connor in the woodpile. A fourth shone his flashlight across the street. Ryan edged farther down the lane.

The cop’s flashlight shone on Ryan. “Police! Stay where you are.”

Ryan ran down the lane searching for any possible escape.

The cop raced after him. “Stop. Police! There’s nowhere for you to go.”

Ryan turned right and ran across a backyard. A leashed Rottweiler snarled, showing its white fangs. Ryan’s heart pounded. He leapt the rear fence and sprinted into the woods behind the row of houses. He hoped the cop was out of shape.

Maybe I can lose him in the forest, Ryan thought.

“Police. We want to question you,” wheezed the cop.

Ryan zigzagged between the fir trees. Their branches brushed his jacket and face. Sweat ran down his back. He heard the cop running somewhere behind him. The sound of the cop’s footsteps stopped. The light from his flashlight played left, then right. Ryan darted deeper into the woods. When he felt safe, he bent over to catch his breath.

Idiot, damn idiot, I should have stayed home, he thought. Now I’m in shit again.