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Exactly what he needed!
    Turned out Alex hadn’t learned quite as much as he thought. Marcus had to tell him how to take his foot off the brake and step on the gas. He helped Alex shift from Park into Drive, and the car jerkedinto motion. Alex guided the vehicle to the middle of the road, as if lanes hadn’t been invented yet. The car shook and bumped as they made their way toward the hospital. With any luck, they wouldn’t run into the law.
    On the cup holder between them sat the spider’s Kleenex-box coffin. Neither Alex nor Marcus could so much as glance at it. The guilt was too much.
    Marcus kept his hand up, on Alex’s orders, to prevent more blood loss. Leaning to one side, forehead pressed to the window, he stared at a passing stop sign. “Rules, Alex. Follow them!” Alex stopped the car with a screech and glared at him. “W-w-want to live or want to d-d ... die?”
    “You said I couldn’t die!”
    “I’m el-el-eleven. What do I know?”
    For the first time, Marcus noticed the pattern on the tea towel: dancing mice. Even soaked in blood, they looked cheerful. Marcus wondered what the Morrisons would think when they returned. The bullet stuck in the fridge door. The blood on the counters, on the floor, the cupboards. Surely they would call the police. At least the gun wasn’t left behind. Alex had had the brains to put it back in the holster.
    “You still have Lisa’s ring, right?” asked Marcus.
    Alex nodded.
    The car sprang forward. Marcus felt a warm gush of blood on his palm. He wished, as he had so many times already, that it was the kid who’d been shot. Alex got the car rolling again.
    “Why were you after Morrison, anyway? What did he do to you?”
    The car slammed to a full stop and they both hit their seat belts hard. A group of three school kids walked past, staring and pointing at Alex behind the wheel.
    “Tell me.”
    Alex rubbed his eyes under the sunglasses. He pressed his lips together and looked around the neighbourhood for a moment. “K-k-k-k ... k ... k-k-ki ...” He waved the question away.
    “It’s okay. Slow down. The words will come.”
    “Ki ... k-k ...”
    “He kicked you?”
    Alex shook his head. “K ... killed my father.”
    Marcus stared at him.
    “H-h-hit and run,” said Alex.
    The oversized cop shirt. The holster. This was no Halloween costume.
    Marcus had heard the story while watching the news with his mother. It had happened late at night, just a few days ago. The cop pulled someone over, and the driver opened the door to climb out. Some idiot went speeding by and took off the driver’s door. The driver suffered nicks and scratches. The cop was killed instantly. Left behind a wife and a child. They’d just moved to a new part of town. Kid started a new school. “I don’t believe it,” he said. “That was your dad?”
    Alex didn’t react.
    “Is Morrison being charged?” Marcus asked.
    “Nob ... n-nobody believes me.” Alex stepped on the gas and sped up smoothly this time.
    They drove in silence for a while. Marcus sank lower in his seat. He should have been thinking of Alex, now nearly an orphan. He should have been thinking of his own life. He should have been getting his story straight, the story he would tell at the hospital. But they were too close to her place. Lisa’s. All he could think about was ... “Turn right on the next street.”
    Alex jabbed his finger left, toward the hospital.
    “Soon. We just have to make a stop first.”

Chapter Ten

    Alex stopped the car in front of a dumpy grey apartment building. Marcus had been getting more and more nervous the closer they got. He had checked himself in the mirror and smoothed his hair with his good hand. Now he turned to face Alex. He had blood all over his T-shirt. His hand was a dripping mess inside its tea towel. “Give me the ring.”
    “D-d ... don’t.”
    “I want her back. I told you.”
    Alex stared at Marcus for a minute before fishing the ring out of his