A Killer Harvest by Paul Cleave

Author:Paul Cleave
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria Books

THIRTY-FOUR

“Hey, freak,” Scott says, and Joshua can’t get his breath back, can’t make sense of what’s happening, can’t get to his feet. His head hurts and his legs hurt and so does the rest of him. He can taste blood. Scott has punched him in the stomach. “You shouldn’t have told on me.”

Skin has torn away from Joshua’s hands and knees. Bits of dirt and flecks of stone are stuck in the cuts. His schoolbag has twisted around his body and is restricting him like a straitjacket. He doesn’t know what Scott is talking about. Doesn’t know how far Scott is willing to go. Isn’t he frightened of being expelled? Or being charged with assault? Joshua doesn’t think so.

Scott punches him so hard in the arm, it goes numb. “If you tell anybody again, then this is how every day is going to go between now and the rest of your life,” Scott says.

“I . . . I didn’t tell anybody,” Joshua says, and he sure isn’t going to tell anybody about this. This is how bullies get away with things.

“You going to keep your mouth shut from now on? Or do I have to break your jaw?”

“I get it,” Joshua says.

“What do you get?”

He gets that whether he tells anybody or not, Scott is always going to come for him. That’s the thing about the Scott Bullies of the world—they do what they want because they can, because they don’t care, because their empathy chip has been switched out with an asshole chip.

If he doesn’t do something in this moment, then nothing will ever change.

He lashes out with his foot.

It connects with Scott’s knee.

“Ah!” Scott cries out, and he drops his hands to it as he falls over. “You’re dead!”

Joshua is already on his feet and running, but he’s running farther from the intersection he was trying to reach earlier, the tumble down the bank having turned him around. He can’t change direction now, because it would mean running back into Scott. He can hear him catching up. Last time he got his ankle-tapped, he hit the ground hard. The same thing is going to happen this time too.

Unless he keeps it from happening in the first place.

He comes to a stop. He fights his bag off and faces Scott. He separates his legs and makes a solid base and tightens his hands into fists. He pictures himself as a brick wall that can’t be budged. He pictures his hands as sledgehammers.

Scott will slow down. He’ll reassess.

Surely.

Won’t he?

Scott keeps coming, and fast.

Joshua swings his fist as hard as he can the moment he’s in range.

And completely misses.

The momentum takes him off balance. Scott punches him in the back of his head. Those two things combine to send him flying again into the air. Without his bag to take the impact, his head hits heavily against the ground.

Everything goes black.

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