SEVENS

DELINQUENT

The car ride wasn't bad. Mary was useless sure but she wasn't terrible company. Now I wouldn't fucking talk to her if I had a choice but as it were I needed information from her.

I remembered just as we pulled into the Oakland High parking lot. The car quieted as Mary turned off the ignition and I decided to brave it.

"Mary?"

"Yes darling!"

I ignored the term in favor of getting information. "Where-" I hesitated and took a breath, this was my last ounce of hope. "Where is Reece?"

"Oh! He was just in town you know! But now he's off with his old friend Jack, you remember Jack don't you? Well they're off on some month long road trip before Reece is deployed again!"

My heart and stomach switched places. Reece, the only good thing about this part of my life, was gone for however long and I couldn't be more alone. He was the only one who had ever stopped Mark. Though he didn't know about the abuse Mark never acted out around his younger son.
The severity of everything hit me then as I pushed open the door and slid out of the passenger seat. My feet hit asphalt, the boot barely registering in my mind.
Mom left, Raf was somewhere halfway across the globe and I had no way of contacting him, Reece wasn't here to save me and I was stuck- stuck with- I was on my own.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.fuck.fuckfuckfuck.

I was running before I had closed the car door and had left the parking lot seconds after that. I couldn't hear anyone calling after me, not that I expected anyone to care, even if I did I wouldn't have stopped.

I only stopped when I couldn't figure out where I was. The trees overhead cast cool shadows and I was suddenly thankful for my hoodie. I ran a hand through my hair and tried to figure out where I was from what I could see.
I was at the edge of a park and around that we're old neighborhoods made of rotting side paneling, dying flower beds, and cracked sidewalks. The field of the park was dry yellowing grass and I decided to cross it.
With grass crunching noisily under my feet and my mind on other things I almost didn't pick up on the sound of slow rolling tires.

For a half of a second the image of Raf's shiny black Lamborghini entered my mind and my heart skipped a beat. Was he here to save me? But that was wiped with reality. Instead of a black lambo was a gleaming cop car.

I didn't stop walking incase that lead them to be more suspicious but did turn my path to the other side of the park. I sped up my gait a little and finally reached the sidewalk, I walked the opposite direction of the car but couldn't stop the pounding of my heart as they slowly followed.

And then without warning another cop car pulled out of a side street.
I had two options. The first was to let them be and hope they would go away and the second was to run. As the cars began to converge on me the second became more and more viable.

One parked and a officer got out and began to walk towards me. My breathing was shaky and everything in me itched to bolt again.

"Tomas Petrovich?" The cop asked.

My stomach bottomed out. And against all common sense and with a overwhelming flood of self preservation I bolted.

I didn't make it far. Within five long legged, desperation driven strides I felt something hit my thigh and back before waves of electricity flooded my body. My muscles seize and the air left my chest.
I was on the ground in seconds with fists in my hair and knees in my back. The dead grass cut at my cheek, and itched where it snuck up my hoodie.

"Calm down, calm down!" Someone was shouting at me.

I tried to relax but tensed when I felt cold cuffs latch around my wrists as the taser continued its shocking.
"Let me go, please, just-" I cut myself off with a groan that bordered on a scream.