(click here to go back to Part Nine)
Ronnie’s nose hurt and his head throbbed. He had been punched in the nose once, but it didn’t compare to this. Something in there was broken, or torn. He lifted his head off his mom’s shoulder and leaned his head back.
“No, son, don’t do that. You’ll get sick [...]

(Click here to go back to Part Eight)
Ronnie’s nose and mouth were completely submerged by the time he managed to get a hand on the faucet. He shut off the water and pushed on the basin as hard as he could, but the man holding him was too heavy and strong. He frantically slapped both [...]

(Click here to go back and read Part Seven)
“I gotta go to the head,” Ronnie said. It was one of the nautical terms he had picked up from his dad’s sailing hobby.
“You okay?” Susan asked.
“Yeah, but I really need to go. I’ve needed to since before… well, since earlier tonight.”
He plodded off toward the restroom.
Maybe [...]

(click here to go back to Part Six)
Strange voices to her left and right. Blinding light everywhere. A sensation of pressure on her chest.
“I need that CT scan now!” boomed a woman’s voice above all others. “And where the hell is neuro?”
That’s what they say when they’re looking at the brain. Is there something wrong [...]

(go back to Part Five here)
Ronnie walked beside his mom, across the parking lot toward their apartment. When he moved there with her in May of that year, the goody-two-shoes son coming to settle in with his mommy, he never dreamed that by October he’d be tangled up in such a mess. In a little [...]

(go back to Part Four)
Trena lay quietly, but she couldn’t tell it from the siren’s wail. Her first look inside an ambulance wasn’t what she would have picked. Having to remain so still, she let her eyes take in the interior.
On the left were a cushioned gray bench and several black straps rolled up next [...]

(see Part Three here)
Susan and Ronnie stood and followed the paramedics, stopping at the bottom of the stairs to give them room. The landing was only four steps up, so they still had a good view of everything.
Helping the woman with dirty blond hair was a man at least 10 years her senior. He stood [...]

(Click to go to go back to Part Two)
Susan hung up the phone after 911 said someone was on the way.
She wasn’t going to sit there waiting for an ambulance when her son might be in danger. Whatever had hurt that Trena girl could hurt him, too. Who the hell is… She remembered a [...]

(continued from Part One)
He kept his eyes closed for a moment, hoping to hear something, just a little sound indicating that she was okay. When he opened them, slowly, he saw Trena, still lying there with one side of her head touching her shoulder and her arms and legs akimbo.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, [...]