Lights and Sirens by Lisa Henry

Author:Lisa Henry [Henry, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-09-12T23:00:00+00:00

The incident location in Bushland Beach was a house in a quiet residential street in a new subdivision. The houses had all been built from the same four or five cookie cutter templates. Except Matt knew this address. He’d never been, but the Deeragun crews were regularly dispatched here. The house was rented by a charity that had a contract with the state government to provide care for kids who were under the care of the Department of Child Safety. The ones who had burned all their bridges with foster families. The violent ones, or the ones with behavioural issues that regular foster carers couldn’t deal with. Except half the time the professional carers couldn’t deal with them either. Share houses like this were usually staffed by a single youth worker at a time who couldn’t do a damn thing when the kids decided to abscond or, like tonight, grab a knife and start cutting.

The ambulance was parked at the front of the house when they arrived. The youth worker on duty—flanked by a couple of annoyed, sleep-deprived residents—met them in the front yard.

“The ambos went in without us?” Sean asked. “And the kid’s armed?”

The flustered youth worker nodded. “They’re talking with him in the bathroom.”

“And you’ve seen the knife?” Matt clarified.

“Yeah. It’s a steak knife.”

Matt and Sean entered the house. The lights were all on. The living room was a mess, but it wasn’t clear if that had been the result of tonight’s disturbance, or just the result of this many teenagers living in the same house. He and Sean made their way deeper into the house, heading down the hallway—there were a couple of fist-sized holes in the wall here and there—toward the bathroom. There was an ambo standing outside, his kit on the floor beside him.

He turned when he heard them. “About fucking time.”

Arsehole.

“Got here as quick as we could,” Matt said blandly. “What’s the sitrep?”

“My partner’s in there talking to him,” the ambo said. “The kid won’t let anyone else in.”

“Okay.” Matt really, really didn’t want this to turn into more of a situation than it was. He already didn’t like it enough as it was. A paramedic stuck in there with an armed kid? That could go sideways quickly.

He approached the door carefully. It was shut. Matt knocked on it gently, and winced at the sudden burst of shouting that elicited. And then, underneath the pitch of the teenage boy’s rage, he heard another voice, this one calm and steady. A familiar voice.

Hayden.

Matt turned the doorknob. Locked.

Shit.

“It’s Hayden,” he mouthed at Sean, and Sean widened his eyes. Matt dug his phone out of his pocket, and brought up Hayden’s name in his contacts. He called. Then, when he thought there would be no answer, Hayden picked up.

“Hey, Matt. Is that you on the other side of the door?”

“Yep. What’s going on?”

Hayden’s voice was calm. “Me and Isaiah are talking.”

“Does he still have the knife?” Matt asked.

There was a pause before Hayden answered. “Yes.”

“Get out of there, Hayden.

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