The Last Child by John Hart

Author:John Hart [Hart, John]
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2010-04-05T07:00:00+00:00

Johnny pounded down the stairs, through the security door and into the crowd. He smelled pizza and scorched beef, the crush of overheated bodies and, somewhere, an unchanged diaper. He angled for Jack and heard his name whispered. Fingers pointed.

That’s the guy.

It took Johnny a minute to understand, but then he did.

The story was everywhere.

By the time he crossed the Food Court, a dozen people were watching him, but he didn’t care. One of the seniors was snapping rabbit punches at Jack’s bad arm, hitting beneath the meat of the shoulder, right where the hollow bone had the least protection. Jack was trying to hide it, but Johnny saw that his friend was about to cry.

Johnny bulled his way into the group and punched the senior as hard as he could. He connected with the kid’s mouth, felt whiskers, teeth, and the ripe softness of a burst lip. The guy stumbled left, caught himself, and his hands came up, fisted. He drew back to throw a punch, then recognized Johnny. “Holy shit,” he said.

Johnny stared at the startled brown eyes, the stained teeth, and the long hair spiked with gel. The kid spit blood and stepped away. “Damn freak.”

Johnny shook with rage, with a long year’s silence and with all of the things he’d repressed since waking in a hospital room stained red. The senior mistook the trembling for fear and started to smile, then looked over Johnny’s head at the suddenly watchful crowd. He lowered his hands, tried to laugh it all off. “Easy, Pocahontas.”

No one else laughed. Johnny was a celebrity of the darkest kind, a strange, wild kid with eyes that were savage and black. He’d seen things no boy was supposed to see. He’d lost a twin, found Tiffany Shore, and maybe killed a man.

He was war paint and fire.

Insane.

Johnny held up a single finger, then looked into his friend’s bright, brimming eyes. “Let’s get out of here.”

He started to leave, then saw Gerald, who stood three rows back, tall and broad, with sandy hair and skin the color of fired clay. Johnny pulled Jack into his wake, and the crowd parted. He stopped in front of Gerald and saw how the pretty girls stepped back, how naked Gerald looked without them.

Johnny dragged Jack from his shadow and draped an arm around his neck. He did not see how his friend lowered his eyes and rolled a curve into his spine, did not see the shame and the fear and the quick, nervous twitch. Gerald towered over Johnny, ten inches taller, a hundred pounds heavier. He was summer sweat and green grass, a hero in the making, but no one watching could doubt who was in charge.

Johnny held up the same finger, stabbed Gerald in the meat of his chest. “He’s your brother, you dick. What’s wrong with you?”

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