Zero Sight

ZERO SIGHT.

(Zero Sight Series, Book 1).

by B. Justin Shier.

To Deborah Lim, For reminding me how to move a castle across the desert.

Part I.

HOW TO MAKE TOAST.

Chapter 1.

BEHIND THE SCHOOLHOUSE.

I read it in a book once. Time doesn"t slow during a fight. What you perceive as a slowdown is actually your poor noggin" overloading with data. It"s working extra hard to create a detailed record of events-the mental equivalent of running a highlighter through a book-and you"re misinterpreting the added detail for added time. There"s a good reason for your brain"s sudden attention to detail. If you manage to survive the fight, there"s a serious advantage to remembering every last dodge and strike. You"ll have a chance to learn, a chance to maybe not repeat any of the stupid s.h.i.t that got you there in the first place.

Professional fighters hear this explanation and shake their heads. They"ve all been there. They remember the sensations. They say that when the punches start flying, time slows down to help them focus. All they see is their opponent. All they hear is their heartbeat. Distractions like the shouts of the crowd fade away. Fighters become totally consumed with winning. Victory is their one and only drive. And the pros believe that if they wait long enough, all their intense focus will pay off. They call that moment the fight"s tipping point. They argue that spotting it is the difference between winning and losing. And trained fighters are patient beasts. They"re willing to take tremendous damage waiting for that perfect moment. But when that moment comes, they don"t hesitate for an instant. They deliver all the savage precision they can muster. It"s the essence of their craft. They gamble everything on it. No wonder they get so hot under the collar when some know-nothing scientists start arguing otherwise.

The scientists or the fighters...to be honest, I have no idea who"s right. I"ve been in dozens of fights: nasty ones with broken bones and missing teeth, fast finishes that ended before the second swing, slow grinds that were ended by the cops, but through them all, I never once experienced time slow down. Maybe that"s because I see things differently.

Perhaps "see" is the wrong word, but frankly, there isn"t anything else to call it. I"ve looked in hundreds of books, searched the Internet for hours, but there is nothing like my Sight logged anywhere. All I can do is describe it for you: Close your eyes.

Rub them for a minute or two.

You see bursts of countless colors bound off in different directions, right? Some of them even have forms you can recognize-circles, squares, squiggles, and waves. Picture all those shapes overlaid onto your normal visual field. Now, imagine that every sparkle, every blur, every little motion has a meaning, that every last one is telling you something important about the world around you, that they"re feeding you information about energy on the move. When my adrenalin starts pumping, and my mind is overrun by fear and pain, my world doesn"t slow down-it fills with stars. And right now, in the dirt lot behind my high school, I"m about to take advantage of this strange little talent. A few seconds before the next punch is thrown, I"m already going to know it"s coming.

My feet kicked up dust as I skidded just out of his range. The dust irritated my eyes and mixed with the sweat on my skin. I tried to ignore it. I tried to focus on my footwork. I reminded myself of the need to breathe. I needed to be patient. Needed to lure him into a strike. I took a quarter step forward and leaned in on my toes.

Tyrone took the bait. As soon as I planted, he lunged in too close, and then I saw it: Light surged ahead of Tyrone Nelson"s left hand-beautiful waves telegraphing the punch"s power and direction. The waves were clean. The waves were vibrant. The more powerful the source, the brighter the bands of light. The more directed the source, the easier it is for me to read a blow"s path. I could See this one as clear as day. Tyrone got high marks for power and accuracy. If I let it hit, the punch would rattle my brain. I would stumble backwards with my chin high in the air. He would be able to follow-up with whatever he wanted. I would be on the ground in seconds, blow after blow caving in my face-so it was truly unfortunate for Tyrone Nelson that I Saw his left hook coming before he even released it. It gave me the half-second lead I needed to quarter-step right, set my feet, and deliver my own fist to his incoming nose. I felt the rush of air as his fist missed wide, the satisfying crunch as my own punch landed clean, and the warm spray of blood as his nose collapsed. That was the true value of my Sight. It made me nearly unbeatable.

I lowered my fists and smiled. This fight was over. I was going to need a new shirt.

As my heartbeat settled, so did my Sight. The crowd noise came rushing back. Life"s normal dull hues returned. I sagged from the strain. My Sight was a strange gift. I had no idea why, but I could only manage to focus it when I was in danger. Once a brawl was over, it faded away with the adrenalin.

I looked down at Tyrone sputtering in the dirt. It was all he could manage through the rush of blood and tears. I glanced up. The bright afternoon sun shone down hot and heavy. A circle of our peers stood around us. They looked thoroughly disappointed. I rubbed the dust and sweat out of my eyes and sighed. The return to reality was always like this. No more laser light show. No more rush. Just another bleached-out day in the valley of the sun. Except this one sucked more than usual, and I wasn"t out of the woods just yet. I returned my eyes to the dirt. It was best to not make eye contact with the crowd.

I listened to Tyrone"s blood patter to the ground and watched as it beaded up on the earth. The dirt repelled the uninvited moisture and held it up as an offering to the sun. In less than an hour, the only hint that someone bled all over the desert would be a faint streak of red in the dust. The city of Las Vegas doesn"t do soil. Soil implies some hope of life. The dirt here doesn"t do life. h.e.l.l, it doesn"t even do moisture.

I tightened my fists. The response had to be coming soon.

With a quick glance, I checked the distance between the crowd and myself. They hadn"t gathered to watch Tyrone Nelson get dropped, and they sure as h.e.l.l weren"t scared of me. Las Vegas was still in America, and Americans demand happy endings, no matter how contrived. The muscles in my legs were locking up, so I shifted my feet. I needed to be ready to move. I needed to be ready to dodge. My mental calculus was simple: It was way better to get the beating over with now rather than later, but I didn"t want them breaking anything.

I could hear sirens in the distance. The school police must have spotted the fight. They wouldn"t intervene just yet. Not before they had backup. The riot two months ago had been a bad one. It had taught the cops just how much the gangs respected their badges. Live where I do and you get to know sirens real well. I listened carefully to the whines. I guessed three minutes tops. Five minutes would be pushing it, but I thought I could survive three minutes. They would get some hits in for sure, but I would be able to walk away. Running was a no go. Even if I got away clean I would still have to face them eventually. Then the fight would be at a time and place of their choosing. I shuddered at the thought. If that happened, there sure as h.e.l.l wouldn"t be a three-minute time limit.

The decision was an easy one. I"d take my lumps now.

With a smirk, I looked up to meet their eyes.

Fifteen or so young human males and females wearing our mandated white b.u.t.ton-down shirts and thick navy slacks surrounded me. (On a side note, whoever picked blue as our school color was one twisted f.u.c.k. Here"s a good idea: Take a bunch of impoverished, hormonally imbalanced teenagers, wrap them in heavy sheets of cotton, and make them march around in the middle of the desert. Yeah, that"s gonna work out well.) Despite the mandated uniforms, the Splotches stood out from the crowd. Legend had it that one of the founding Splotches had thrown their school slacks in the washer with a gallon of bleach. Twenty-five minutes later, the Splotches were born. You would think that the school administration would have banned the newly developed gang colors on the spot, but the Splotches were one step ahead of them. They pointed to a bureaucratic loophole which stipulated that no student could be required to buy more than two uniforms a year. They bleached every pair of slacks they owned and pleaded poverty.

Two pairs of slacks a year-it was sorta like the gang"s membership fee.

And so it was that the Splotches (who couldn"t pa.s.s a single cla.s.s if you summed their scores together) circ.u.mvented the will of the entire educational establishment of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Three cheers for the ingenuity of youth.

Right now, I needed as little of said youthful ingenuity as possible. I wanted to orchestrate a controlled beating; I couldn"t afford any sparks of genius. What I needed was pure unadulterated rage. What I needed was a mob. I considered the possibilities, flipped through my Rolodex of pre-p.u.b.escent insults, and selected one of my finest bovine references: "So," I asked. "Which one of you f.u.c.king bluebells is next?"

Thirty eyes glared back at me.

Someone actually snarled.

My shoulders sank. I was committed now. The inevitability of the beating added to the suckitude. My heart began to pound. My gut churned. I considered just how badly this was going to hurt, and my confidence plummeted faster than a fat man in dunk tank. Nauseating anxiety rose to replace it. Then came the fear. Wave after wave of knee-knocking fear. The fear was perfect. The fear was exactly what I needed. My Sight returned just as a stream of color warned that the first attack was already coming-and from behind no less.

I focused on the shape of the source.

A pipe. A pipe was coming down on my head.

I looked a very b.l.o.o.d.y Tyrone Nelson straight in the eyes. I watched the smile growing on his face vanish. Tyrone knew I knew the pipe was coming, and Tyrone knew that was bad.

I shifted downward and threw a blind kick straight into Phil Collins" incoming kneecap. Phil had already committed to the swing; he couldn"t dodge. The charging weasel yelped as I repositioned his bones. My blow flattened his angle of attack, redirecting the pipe forward. Tyrone was smart enough to protect his head. Instead of cracking open his skull, the pipe came down on his forearm. I heard his radius snap clean. (Or was it his ulna? I could never keep those two straight.) Tyrone screamed in pain as his wrist jiggled like well-done pasta.

Phil was too busy cradling his busted knee to apologize.

I scrambled back to my feet. There was no time to gloat. I still had fourteen very angry Splotches to deal with. I cursed myself as I stood. This hadn"t been the plan. I had wanted to buy time, not dish out more hurt. These kinds of fights didn"t give extra-points for extra a.s.s kicking-they deducted them. I knew that the more pain I dished out, the more they would pay back in kind, but I had underestimated how serious they were. I mean, a freaking pipe to the head? Stars above, these guys wanted me in the back of an ambulance.

Once I got off the ventilator, my dad was going to kill me-we didn"t have any insurance.

I swept the circle like a cornered animal. I needed an opening, and I needed it fast. All 14 of the Splotches wanted me pulped, and they were all acting on that desire at the same time. My Sight was starting to go haywire. When lots of sources generate energy at once, it"s like listening to an orchestra tune-up. Each instrument clamors over the next, vying for attention. Focusing on a single one becomes increasingly difficult. All I could See was a brilliant collage of colors-very pretty but very useless.

I didn"t need Mr. Tzu to tell me that, if a gang of mongoloids wearing tie-dyed navy slacks starts charging, it"s time to make haste or be paste-and I certainly wasn"t too proud to run. I spent a precious second searching the crowd and selecting an opening. I picked a gap between two girls, a weak link in the rapidly collapsing circle-o-death. Hoping that my antsy legs would cooperate, I kicked off in a dead sprint for the s.p.a.ce between them.

Leaderless, the Splotches were acting rash. Each Splotch wanted to be the first to land a blow. Most committed to full-on charges. That included the two girls I rushed at. As they realized I was charging towards them, their eyes popped wide with surprise. Mobs are funny. Rolling deep gives the mobites a ton of confidence. Their chances of getting hurt are incredibly small. But that type of confidence comes at a cost.

It makes them stupid.

In their haste to bash my brains in, the girls had charged too fast. They had never considering what they would do if I came charging back at them. Now they couldn"t change course to block me. I zipped right by. One of the lovelies did manage to rake my cheek with her sharpened nails. (Remind me to never ask her for a head ma.s.sage.) But that was that. I was home free. I extended my stride and didn"t look back.

Things were going well. My mad sprint was adding distance, and more importantly, it was eating time. As I reached the back of Binion High, I angled toward the corner of the main building. Taking the beat-down was no longer an option. The amount of damage I"d dealt to Tyrone and Phil had escalated this fight to a whole new level. If I didn"t want to be spatulaed onto a stretcher, I needed to get to the cops before the Splotches got a hold of me. At the very least, I needed to get out in front of the school and into the police"s line-of-sight.

I smiled. I"m a fast kid, and while some of the Splotches might eventually chase me down, I doubted they could make up the distance between us before I reached the cops. The LVPD would charge me with disorderly conduct and throw me in jail for a day or two. I could plead the charge down with some community service. The charges wouldn"t even show up on my record. I nodded to myself. Two nights in jail was a fair trade for getting to stay in one piece.

My head jolted forward and relief spread over me like a warm blanket. I was going to make it...but that warm blanket was making me dizzy. The sky was far too white. My feet were lagging behind the rest of my body. My limbs weren"t moving right. It was like one of those dreams where no matter how fast you ran it wasn"t enough to get away. A funny tingle was developing at the back of my head. I felt mushy. My ears started ringing. I reached back with my hand and felt my scalp. It was wet, sticky.

"Oh," I blubbered. I had forgotten that my Sight was blurred. I hadn"t sensed the incoming rock. If I hadn"t been running away, it probably would have killed me.

My legs giving out, I stumbled to the corner of the building. I was right outside the chemistry lab. It was all closed up for the day. Clinging to cinder blocks, I tried to sort out my feet. They replied by turning to jelly. Shower of sparks were rushing towards my Sight. The lights were coming from too many directions. There was nowhere for me to dodge. Fear took me, and time slowed. As the first blow landed, I prayed I would have the chance to learn from my mistakes.

The Splotches knew their craft. They avoided my head. The body offers plenty of opportunities for pain, parts that don"t kill the sucker if you break them. All you need is a pointy boot and some patience. The kicks came sharp and quick. I couldn"t stand. Curling into a ball only opened up my sides. It was hard to sort out the pain, but I could certainly hear the cracks. A broken rib makes a distinct sound. I took a breath and instead of air I was greeted with a stabbing pain. The blows just kept coming. I had the time to consider what a shattered rib could do to a lung. The time to wonder what would happen if someone hit my spine. It occurred to me that I might die. The pain reached a crescendo. My mind started zeroing out. But I fought the urge to sleep. I fought it with everything I had. I was afraid. I was afraid I might not wake up. And I sure as h.e.l.l wasn"t ready to go. I gritted my teeth and bore through it. And to think, this whole mess was of my own making.

Tyrone Nelson was the best pitcher our school ever had. He was headed for a full-ride scholarship at Stanford and a guaranteed ticket to the majors. Scouts actually came to our school to watch him play. The chicks loved him. The guys wanted to be him. He was a phenomenally talented athlete-and an absolute pile of s.h.i.t.

Last year, Tyrone was halfway through his third no-hitter when a kid from Valley High took a single off him. During the kid"s second at bat, Tyrone Nelson threw a fastball at his temple. The pitch found its mark. It blinded the kid in one eye. He"d never see another fastball again. Needless to say, from that point on, batters just swung and missed. The incident earned Tyrone the nickname Beemer. An enterprising agent had gone ahead and bought him a real one in exchange for hiring his firm.

Tyrone Nelson was the undisputed king of our school-but that wasn"t enough. More than fame, more than power, Tyrone loved to control. He took over the Splotches as a hobby, purely as a way to get his rocks off. Under his leadership, the Splotches cornered our school"s soft drug market. They sold ecstasy mostly, plus some of the good ADD medicines that the nerds loved to pop before tests. Tyrone was smart. He avoided the hard stuff and never let the Splotches sell s.h.i.t on school grounds. The Splotches didn"t exactly terrorize the school either. Tyrone"s violence was more targeted. He preferred to make one or two kids" lives a living h.e.l.l. Tyrone call them his "projects". He would toy with a kid for a while, break them, and then move on to the next.

No one bothered to intervene. Tyrone was the school hero. He was something rare for Las Vegas: a success. Vegas was in the s.h.i.tter. The decade long Great Slump had crushed people"s self-worth. They all desperately wanted to be around something that wasn"t rotting. They wanted to rub up against it. Maybe they hoped that some of it would come off in their hands. Most of the students, a good number of the faculty, and a majority of alumni backed Tyrone no matter what s.h.i.t he pulled. They looked the other way when the Splotches dented in a dork-and to be honest, I did too. I had no interest in getting involved in any of it. That would have conflicted with the Plan.

The Plan called for calm. Throughout high school I had kept my head low. I managed to make it into my senior year with only five major fights under my belt. I think it might have been the school record. (I could see the yearbook inscription now: "Dieter Resnick, least likely to be stabbed dead in a bar fight") The trick was to b.l.o.o.d.y up your opponents. You know, hurt them real bad. Then no one wanted to mess with you.

Ted Binion High was sorta like prison + homework. The same rules applied.

I had kept my head down for good reason. I only saw one chance to get out of this s.h.i.t-hole of a town: a full-ride to a private. Nevada"s state college system collapsed my freshman year. The funding had simply dried up. Across the country money was tight, so the Great Slump was. .h.i.tting Vegas especially hard. No one wanted to take a trip to Vegas when they were worrying if they had enough money to last the winter, and with the tourists went the tax base. There was barely enough revenue to fund the primary schools let alone state colleges. With state school out of the picture, an admission to a private was the only viable option for an aspiring Nevada youth. If your parents were wealthy enough to stash some cash you might be able take out a loan. But that wasn"t an option for me. My dad was heavily invested in The Bank of Ethanol, and believe-it-or-not, their interest rates are terrible. Since the only help I got from home was free lessons on how to dodge beer bottles, I needed to go for broke. A full-ride to one of the East Coast privates-that was the Plan. To do that, I had to deliver straight A"s and blow the doors off every AP test that Binion High had to offer. There were a lot of smarts gunning for the same scholarships. If I wanted to make the Plan happen, I needed to keep my head down and bust my a.s.s. So you see, I didn"t want to be involved with Tyrone. I didn"t want to fight any of the Splotches. It"s just that I couldn"t help myself.

The kid Tyrone Nelson blinded was my friend.

His name was Victor Newmar, and we cut vegetables together.

Because my father is such a money sieve, I"ve worked since I was fourteen. Air salads and invisible hamburgers aren"t very filling, and hunger serves as excellent incentive to forage for a paycheck. That"s where the Newmars came in. Victor Newmar"s father used to deal cards with my dad. When I was about five, Mr. Newmar left the casino floor and-with some seed money he and his wife had scrounged together-opened a little restaurant in the same district as all the strip clubs. No one ever opened businesses down there, especially not 24-hour restaurants. But it was a brilliant move. It turns out that strippers and bouncers have to eat too, and being service employees themselves, they tip d.a.m.n well for your efforts. The Newmar"s little joint became a huge success, and at fourteen, I became a grateful employee. Mr. Newmar had me do two hours of prep-work in the kitchen plus give Victor any tutoring he needed. In return, Mr. Newmar paid me a full-time wage.

His son, Victor, was two years younger than me. Victor"s folks realized early on that he was a bit slow, but that never stopped Victor. He tried hard and seemed immune to frustration. Teaching him inspired me to work harder myself. It made my own excuses seem petty. My own struggles, small. Growing up, the Newmars were like a surrogate family. When my old man settled in for a bender, I could always crash at Victor"s place. Before I was halfway through the door, Mrs. Newmar would be on her way up the stairs to make a bed. They never made me feel like a charity case. They never made me feel guilty for hiding out at their place. Heck, they even made me feel like they were happy to have my company. But the best part about the Newmars was how they never said a word about my father. When I got older, I realized why. There was never any alcohol in the Newmar household, and despite all the family gatherings the Newmars hosted, I never once heard Mr. Newmar speak of his own father.

I never asked him, but I figured Mr. Newmar knew more than most about growing up with a drunk.

I was sitting in the stands the day Tyrone hit Victor in the skull with that fastball. In the car with the Newmars as they followed the ambulance. At the hospital when Victor woke up blind in one eye.

Victor shrugged it off like it was nothing.

"Can"t fix what"s already done, Dieter," he had told me. "Only what"s comin"."

Only what"s coming...

I spent that night punching a wall till my fists bled, but in the morning I bandaged up my knuckles and told myself a convenient lie. I told myself that Tyrone didn"t mean to do it, that it was an accident, a fluke pitch. It was a lie, but I had my eye on a scholarship and taking on gang members didn"t mix well with Dieter"s Grand Plan. I told myself it wasn"t my business. I told myself making a stir would amount to nothing. I told myself it was all for the better if I got the scholarship. I told myself I could give Victor a better turn if I became powerful and wealthy. What good would revenge against Tyrone be anyway? The world was a hard place. You couldn"t fix it with your fists...You needed money and power for that.

I avoided those arguments when I stood in front of a mirror.

They didn"t work so well when I looked myself in the eye.

Then one day as I was walking to cla.s.s, I overheard Tyrone talking with his buddies. They were laughing about the "tard he puttied during the Valley High game last year. To my surprise, I realized I had stopped walking. Instead, I was standing in the middle of the hall shaking. People were b.u.mping into me as they rushed to cla.s.s. I stood there oblivious. Part of my brain screamed at me to stop glaring, screamed at me to let it go...That part got smacked down, and smacked down hard. All those weeks of cowardice boiled over. I wanted Tyrone to hurt, for him to bleed, for him to plead for mercy, and get nothing but more pain in return. I knew I was distinctly qualified to make it happen, and that excited me. It drove me wild.

Tyrone noticed my glare. It must have unnerved him, because he jolted alert. Tyrone wasn"t used to having that sort of look directed at him-it was unheard of.

His reaction thrilled me. For once, I didn"t hesitate. I started right towards him.

Tyrone saw me coming. He stood, ready-to-go-but we were interrupted.

Dr. Leeche, my chemistry teacher, intercepted me mid-stride. He was going on and on about the work we were going to do in the lab over the weekend. The Plan. My brain reoriented at the word. Schoolwork. College. Gainful employment. Or the alternative: Stuck in Las Vegas. Dicing onions and frying burgers. Going nowhere just like my dad.

The fear of no choices. The fear of no free will. That fear was greater than my sense of shame, greater than my desire to smear Tyrone Nelson up and down that hallway. I faltered, and just like that, my fury ebbed. I walked away. I buried the urge deep inside me. I decided to let it go.

But things are never that easy.

Tyrone wasn"t ready to let it go. He couldn"t really. I had challenged him in front of his crew. In the world we lived in, you couldn"t let that slide. That was weakness, and weakness wasn"t allowed. The Splotches started in on me the very next day. Pushes in the hallway. Snickers in cla.s.s. Spitb.a.l.l.s at lunch. Weeks of silly bulls.h.i.t. They never challenged me to an actual fight. They were too smart for that. There was no profit in a direct confrontation. It was better to wear me down.

I took it all in stride. With graduation only seven months away, my eyes were back on the prize. Things would be better in college. Toughing it out would be worth it...

Then they torched my notebooks.

For a scientist, notebooks are everything. If it isn"t written, it didn"t happen. It"s that simple. They were the sum total of all my research with Dr. Leeche. I was studying how yeast could be used to generate energy. Dr. Leeche said I had a knack for breeding yeast, and the project had already won last year"s state science fair. If I could reproduce the findings, I"d be able to get published in a major journal. With that victory in hand, I was guaranteed a full ride at an Ivy League school. The data in those notebooks were my meal ticket. Every experiment would have to be repeated. It would set my work back months. Tyrone was telling me he knew where to hurt me. If I didn"t do something, he could ruin me.

And so I set a brilliant plan in motion. I challenged Tyrone to a fight.

I knew the Splotches. They loved to beat down an opponent. It inflated their egos and improved their reputation. But once they did it once, the thrill was gone. I"d never been beaten in a fight. I was a big prize. I figured if I lost to them, they would get their kicks and move on. But for the plan to work, I would have to give them what they wanted: a d.a.m.n good fight. I was going to throw it of course. I could use my Sight to turn the heaviest hits into glancing blows. I would take a few good punches, land one or two of my own, take one in the chin and go down. It was brilliant plan. I could get bloodied up while avoiding the worst of it, the Splotches would get their "justice", and we all could get back to minding our own business.

I challenged Tyrone right in the center of the cafeteria to a duel at dusk. (My performance was quite bada.s.s, if I do say so myself.) I needed people to know about it-and I needed him to be forced to fight me at a time of my choosing. A fight at school would probably get me arrested, but that was the whole point. I wanted the LVPD to intervene. It would give the fight a time limit.

His honor at stake, Tyrone had accepted.

When we met at the back of the school, the whole gang came to watch. I probably should have known what was going to happen next. Probably should have predicted it. As I stood facing Tyrone Nelson, my emotions started going haywire. I should have known they would-and maybe deep down I did. Maybe I needed a contrived situation where I could finally do what I really wanted. All I know is that as I watched Tyrone Nelson swagger up to face me, my mind went rogue. I thought of all those times Mrs. Newmar hustled up the stairs to make a bed for me, how none of them ever asked me where the bruises were from, how Victor never said a word when I cried myself to sleep at night-and I just saw red. When the punches came, there wasn"t a speck of hesitation. I only wanted to make pain. I was going to drop him. I was going to make him suck blood. Tyrone was going to know what it was like to be on the receiving end. He was going to know what it was like to have no control at all...

And now his buddies were readjusting my ribcage.

Hollow thuds filled my ears. Their boots were playing my lungs like drums. I struggled for breath as blows exploded my belly and sides. A particularly brutal one caught a kidney. I gagged as that special pain stretched down the length of my left side. I was going to be p.i.s.sing blood in the morning. My eyes rolled backwards. My shoulders sagged. And then, just when I thought I couldn"t bear anymore, the cheers of the Splotches were replaced by quietly shuffling feet.

Whispers and gasps filled the air.

I could hear sirens closing in.

I blinked my eyes. I had made it. They were finally finished with me. I should have been relieved, but something was wrong with my insides. Air was seeping out of my mouth. My body was screaming for air, but even as I tried to draw it in, it leaked back out my mouth.

For some reason the Splotches were walking in a circle around me. Looking at them, I felt like I was at the center of a merry-go-round. Why had the gang gone West Side Story all of a sudden? They whirled about, faster and faster...

"Oh," I thought to myself. They probably weren"t the ones spinning. The rock to the head must have caused a concussion. I blinked twice to try and clear the haze.

Like at the end of a really long exhale, the leak from my lungs trickled to a stop. I could manage small breaths now, but the strangest thing was happening-only the left side of my chest was rising. That explained the leak. They must have popped one of my two balloons. Still, why hadn"t the Splotches made a run for it yet? I was toast, and the cops were coming. Why were they still hanging around? They were looking at something, something over to my left.