Behind the Tears (Behind the Lives) (47 page)

“My boots,” he whispered.

“Later,” she hissed. “Go.” She shooed him with a flick of a hand, then lowered the blinds.

He stood there, frozen like a stunned animal. A door shutting inside snapped him out of his possum-in-headlights state. He inched around the corner of the house, aware that he could still be seen. It wasn’t exactly how he’d pictured meeting her mum, dad, or whoever it was.

A silver station wagon was parked in the driveway. He slowly edged down the side of the house and peeked around the corner at the front. No one was in sight, but he still had to run down the driveway and, from memory, the curtains were wide open. He glanced at the fence lining the walkway. Yeah, he could scale that. He put a foot on the middle beam and pushed himself up and over, landing on the concrete on the other side, then ran down the walkway and onto a field. Classrooms framed one side, while a fence outlined the back of the school with roofs jutting over the top. He grimaced, realising he was on Claydon High’s rugby field, the goal posts and blue clad students hard to miss.

A group of boys throwing around a rugby ball looked his way. A fat boy yelled out, “Hey, wrong school, dumbarse.”

Ash gave him the finger then ran back down the alleyway, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had followed. Nope, he was safe. He turned back round, and almost smacked face first into three guys as they piled into the walkway: Tiana’s brother and his mates.

“Shit,” Ash muttered.

Tiana’s brother pulled out something from his pocket. “Thought I recognised you. Now, the question is do ya recognise me?”

Ash’s gaze dropped to the black handle of a gun. He backed up, the scene feeling like déjà vu. It was the cokehead who’d pulled the gun on him and Hunter during the drug sale a few months back, but this time the guy was sporting a different hairstyle and was his girlfriend’s psycho brother.

Yeah, today did suck, but in the worst possible way.

Graffiti Heaven
is available from Amazon.