Young Adult Fiction
The steel bar swings again, thudding against Darius's back. Darius makes a whooshing noise, that's all.
Black smoke bites my lungs. I gasp to get a breath. As I turn away from the police car, there's a whooshing sound and flames spill from the broken windows. People scramble back from the heat. It feels like my jersey is on fire, but it's not. The torched car, the cheering crowd; it's awful and scary and weirdly fun, like we're in a virtual world. But the smoke is real—very real—and all rules are off.
"Huh? You mean...I'm in?"
"Yeah. You're not the best, but you're the only one who answered the ad."
My mother might be dead, but she was still my mother. I knew that, even if my dad seemed to have forgotten.
The door opened and two guys with ski masks on walked in. One walked straight to me. The other went straight to Lacey at her register. As they approached, I saw the guns come up. Lacey, Cam and I froze. The room suddenly went dead quiet except for the sound of hamburgers sizzling in the back and the buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights. I'd never even noticed the hum of the fluorescent lights before.
