I don't know how I did it, but somehow I managed to start running again. You must remember how your legs feel after running laps in gym class, when they're so exhausted that it seems like you're running underwater. That was how it felt-leaping back onto the pavement and hurtling down that road, trying to hold off the sobs so I could breathe. When I look back, remembering that policewoman, who only chased me to the end of the street before returning to her car, it doesn't seem too bad. I mean, I've run screaming from far worse things since that night, creatures that never stop chasing you.
There was only one place left to go, and I headed there at full pelt. I don't remember the journey, it was as if my brain had shut down so that all my energy could be directed to my feet. And I couldn't stop running, even when I reached my house. If I kept moving, then nobody could catch me-not the police who were gathered outside, not the men in black suits who were waiting in the shadows, watching everything through silver eyes. If I could just make it inside, then all the bad things would go away.
So I didn't stop. Not when the police started shouting, not when officers in black masks and bulletproof vests ran into the street with rifles, not when my mom came racing out of the front door dressed in her pink nightie and slippers, screaming at me to give myself up. I just put my head down and cried to her with all my strength.
I don't know how I even managed to stay upright, the world was spinning so fast, but I made it past the first policeman, my sheer momentum sending him flying. The second backed out of my way, his expression of shock almost comical. I could see my mom, tears streaming down her face, being held back by two policewomen. I could see the open door behind her, the warm glow of the kitchen. If I could just make it, ten more steps, then maybe all this could end. Maybe I could find Daniel Richards, give him his money back. It was only twenty quid!
I hit the third policeman square on. He was built like a fireplug-all chest and shoulders-and I bounced off, the wind knocked out of me. I charged forward again but it was too much. My legs cramped and I dropped to my knees for the second time that night. I reached out to my mom, and she reached out to me, but the air between us was instantly flooded with black uniforms, blotting her out like flies. Then I was on the ground, strangers' knees in my back, their nightsticks against my skull, and sharp metal around my wrists.
"I didn't do it!" I sobbed. "I didn't do it!"
But I couldn't even lift my head from the sidewalk, and with the weight of the world on my shoulders only the cold, wet concrete beneath me heard my denial.
DENIAL AND DAMNATION
It seemed like the only thing I said for the next few days, a kind of mantra that I kept pumping out as a defense against all the questions and accusations. The first ones at my throat were the cops who threw me into a van, whose taunts and threats cut into me with far more force than the cuffs that bound me to the seat.
"How could you do it?"
"I didn't do it."
"He was your friend."
"I didn't do it."
"Well, you're gonna pay, kid."
"I didn't do it."
Next it was the detectives. They started nice, like they always do in the movies, offering deals and leniency if I just confessed. But the more I denied it the harder they got, their questions so relentless that by the third day when they were kicking over my chair and blowing cigarette smoke in my face I barely knew whether I was guilty or not.
Then came Toby's parents, who sat on the other side of a table clutching each other and screaming at me, their eyes burning with more hatred than I had ever seen in anyone, their anger only held in check by the cops who rested hands on their quivering shoulders and told them I'd get what was coming to me. By this time my mantra was a whisper, little more than a breath, but I kept saying it because, like a breath, it was the only thing keeping me alive.
The worst questions came from the people I loved, my mom and dad. I was separated from them by a dirty plastic window, but there was a far greater barrier between us. I could tell by the way my mom couldn't meet my eye that she thought I was guilty, and she refused to listen to my pleas just like everybody else. There may as well have been a gorge between us, or a mountain, and by the time she was guided out of the room by my dad's unsteady hands I couldn't even find the energy to whisper my denials.
For three weeks I endured an interrogation every day and was thrown into a cell each night. Of course, I told them everything that had happened-the men in the black suits, the sinister figure in the gas mask, the way they had shot Toby in cold blood-but even as I was talking the words seemed ludicrous, hollow. I didn't blame them for laughing at me, I'd never have believed my story either if I hadn't lived the nightmare myself.
MY TRIAL WAS an extension of the same empty process. I was marched into court with an armed escort, and chained inside a cage-the kind better suited to serial killers and military generals accused of war crimes, not terrified kids. The heavy bars didn't stop the hatred directed at me when the hearing began. It poured through like ice water from a judge who was already convinced I was a killer, from a jury that had made up its mind about this case as soon as it started, and from the crowd in the public gallery who bayed for my punishment like hyenas. I felt like I was drowning in their contempt, and just prayed for it to be over, even if it meant sinking without a trace.
My spirits were lifted only once, when midway through the second day the doors of the courtroom opened and two men strode through. Dressed in black and larger than life, they were instantly recognizable-the men who had sent me here. The room fell silent as soon as they entered, even the judge lowering his voice from respect, or maybe fear.
"That's them!" I shouted as they took their seats. "They're the men who framed me. They killed Toby!"
But the judge simply banged his gavel and fixed me with a contemptuous stare.
"Of course they are," he said, his voice oily with sarcasm. "These men are representatives from Furnace Penitentiary. Is this what your defense has come to? Accusing anybody of your crimes. Was I there? Did I have a disagreement with your accomplice and pull the trigger too?"
The jury laughed, and the men in black suits unveiled their shark grins and flashed their silver eyes at me. I was like a fish on the end of a line, waiting to be reeled in.
It took the jury less than forty minutes to decide my fate. Twelve men and women in a room with my life in their hands, and they condemned me in less time than the first half of a soccer match. Not that I'm trying to pass the buck. I hadn't killed Toby, but his blood was on my hands just like my blood was on his. If we hadn't been so stupid, then none of this would have happened. We'd both have been at school just like any other day, tormenting teachers, chasing girls, and being kids.
I'll never forget the judge's closing speech when the jury announced the guilty verdict. He stood, his walnut desk like a pulpit and his booming voice and thrashing limbs like those of a preacher damning the devil.
"Your crimes are heinous and unforgivable," he shouted, the flecks of foam around his mouth visible even from where I was standing. "Like so many of today's youth you have taken your life and squandered it, turning to crime instead of honor, sickness instead of decency. You have killed in cold blood, you are a coward and a thief and a murderer, and like all the other festering waste of society who come through this court I am happy to sentence you without remorse and without pity."
He leaned forward, never taking his eyes off me.
"You knew very well when you pulled that trigger what your punishment would be," he hissed. "There is no longer any leniency for child offenders, not since the Summer of Slaughter. And like those murderous teenagers you will never again see the light of day. If it was up to me, I would see you hanged by the neck until you were dead. But alas I must settle for this." He paused again, smiling wickedly to himself. "Or perhaps settle is the wrong word. Perhaps this is a fate even worse."