Fear melted into humiliation, and Tim’s shoulders sagged as the tension drained from his body. He wiped his brow, now picking up the first hints of jocular conversation and laughter. He started forward once more, composing himself so he wouldn’t look too geeked-out when they passed him.
But his fear returned when he recognized the loudest voice in the group.
“Oh, shit.”
Tim scrambled off the trail and took cover within the foliage, wincing with each sound made beneath his shoes.
He didn’t know if Brad still wanted revenge for the dodge ball incident, but if he did, Tim could only imagine what the larger boy would do to him out here in the woods.
The three drew closer. Thirty feet away now. Twenty-five.
Tim wondered how brave Mallory would think he was if she could see him now, cowering like a rabbit in the presence of a wolf.
He positioned himself behind a tree trunk less than four feet off the trail, not daring to chance looking for a better spot deeper in the woods. If he stepped on a brittle stick, he might call their attention.
From where he crouched, he saw the occasional red glow of a cigarette flare brighter when one of them inhaled, and he could vaguely make out their black shirts and dark jeans.
Tim held his breath, hoping they’d pass without—
Suddenly, the plants thrashed with movement at his back, rustled by something deeper in the trees. Before he could look, an object shot over his head like a bullet, sending shredded leaves fluttering to the ground behind it.
Tim held his breath to keep from gasping when he realized what had happened.
To confirm his fear, the silhouette on the far right of Brad’s group jerked backward, crying out in pain.
“Oh God, no,” Tim whispered.
The boy fell off his bike and crashed to the ground, howling through clapped hands locked over his mouth. Tim heard one of the others say something about a rock.
Tim looked over his shoulder and tried to find the attacker, but saw nothing past his own hiding spot. Just black plant stalks on a blacker background.
A light clicked on and swept over the bushes. It caught the back of Tim’s head in its beam, causing his shadow to flee over the plants ahead of him.
“There,” Brad’s voice boomed.
“Get the fucker,” another roared.
Their bikes hit the dirt, followed by the sound of footfalls thundering toward the tree he squatted behind.
“It wasn’t me,” Tim cried. He lunged from his hiding spot and sprinted onto the trail. “It wasn’t me!”
“It’s Flemwad,” Brad hollered.
Tim heard the sound of combat boots pounding the ground behind him as the older boys gave chase, and Tim took off like it was qualification day at track tryouts. He knew they wouldn’t give him the slightest chance to explain if they caught him—not that they’d believe him, even if they did. The mere thought caused tears to slide from his eyes and stream down his cheeks.
“Someone’s not going home tonight,” one of the pursuers laughed.
They closed fast, bearing down on him like charging bulls.
At the last second, he dodged to the right and took one of the forks in the path, hoping to double back to Mallory’s neighborhood. But no sooner had he made the turn when he discovered a massive cottonwood had collapsed across the trail ahead, its thick branches cutting off his escape with the effectiveness of a ten-foot-high fence.
Trapped!
“You’re dead, asshole,” Brad yelled. “Dead!”
Tim stopped hard, skidding on the dry soil. He wheeled around to face the teens.
The two boys sprinted forward. They had sticks.
With barely enough time to think, he scanned his surroundings and managed to locate a broken glass bottle to the side of the trail. He snatched it up by the neck and thrust its jagged end forward.
“Stay back,” Tim hollered. He thrust the broken end of glass bottle forward. “Keep away or I’ll use this, I swear I will.”
Brad and his friends kept their distance, but the confident looks on their faces didn’t waver.
“What are you gonna do?” Brad’s friend asked. “Give a speech on recycling?”
Tim ignored the comment. “I didn’t throw that rock.”
“Screw you, Flemwad,” Brad roared. “You drop that thing, or I swear I’ll shove it up your ass.”
“No!”
“Drop it.”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“I’ll count to three, you little shit.”
“I didn’t throw the rock!”
“One.”
“Honest, I didn’t.”
“Two.”
Fresh tears bunched at the corners of Tim’s eyes, then spilled down his cheeks. He could smell the reek of alcohol on their breath.
Brad and his friend edged closer, testing Tim’s threat.
He backed up a step, a move that only brought a wider smile to Brad’s face.
A white flash appeared at the edge of Tim’s vision, a faint undulation of light that pulsated from within the forest. It flew at him like a lightning bolt, vanishing again before he had a chance to see what it was.
The fight exploded like an avalanche blasting out of a mountain tree line. Everything happened at once. In contrast, time seemed to slow while Tim’s mind recorded and processed every action, and the oncoming assaults advanced in slow motion.
Brad surged forward, hands out—one reaching for the bottle, the other going for Tim’s throat. The second kid hefted the stick he’d been carrying and readied it like a baseball bat.
Unable to bring himself to use the broken glass, Tim closed his eyes and tensed in preparation for the first blow. In the same frozen second the sleeves of his jacket slipped down over his hands and constricted around his fists. The jacket’s cuff crushed down on the hand holding the bottleneck, forcing the blood out of his knuckles. Before he could react, the remaining jacket material replicated the sleeve’s action around his waist and torso, trapping him in its grasp.
Brad’s reaching hand came within inches of Tim’s wrist when the ensnaring clothing exploded with a life of its own. An irresistible force caused Tim’s arm to swing at the bully, propelling his captured limb with too much power to counteract. The pointed end of the makeshift weapon came between them and—
—something warm and wet spattered across his face.
Brad sucked in a sharp breath and heaved away from him, toppling into the woods, vanishing in shadow.
Even as Brad went down, the second kid lunged forward, swinging the gnarled chunk of wood.
The jacket shifted again, this time thrusting Tim’s empty left hand at Brad’s friend in a counterattack. The strike hit the kid in his throat, hammering Tim’s restrained fist into his opponent’s Adam’s apple. The stick dropped without ever making contact, and the teen clasped both hands to his brutalized neck.
The jacket sleeve loosened its grip on Tim’s wrist and slid farther off his arm, twisting him around to snake over the other boy’s shoulders.
With the zipper still open, Tim seized the opportunity to shake himself free of the possessed jacket. He stumbled backward, anxious to get away, but his eyes remained locked on the animated coat while it grappled with
