James had practised the move hundreds of times, but the difference between deliberately missing in training and the crunch of real flesh and bone was sickening.
As the bearded teenager screamed in agony, James felt weird: a mixture of nausea and awe at the extraordinary power he’d attained through hundreds of hours of combat training. He’d shot and killed a man ten months earlier, but anyone could have done that. The sensation of effortlessly breaking a human limb with his bare hands actually felt more horrifying, even though the consequences were nothing like as serious.
The other two thugs were closing on James, with their girls egging them on. James didn’t want to fight them and decided that mega-confidence was the best strategy for keeping them at bay.
He pointed at the guy clutching his nose on the grass. ‘Anyone want some of that?’ James sneered. ‘Come near me and you’ll get it.’
All the other kids in the field were looking at James, struggling to see what was happening in the moonlight. James was massively relieved when the yobs stopped a few metres shy. One of the girls crouched over the dude with the busted arm.
‘You’d better call an ambulance,’ James said, with a hint of sympathy creeping into his defiant voice.
The mention of adult presence turned the mood of the twenty-strong crowd from tense to panicked. What if the cops show up with the ambulance? What if the thugs go back to get their mates? Every chain of thought hurtled to the same conclusion: Got to get out of here.
As his audience began to scatter, James felt Hannah tugging at his arm.
‘Come on, James,’ she begged.
Max, James and the three girls set off, chasing the shadows of other kids jogging downhill towards the exit gates on the Palm Hill side of the reservoir. Hannah gave James a tissue to wipe his face, while Max had suddenly found his tongue and taken the chair of the James appreciation society.
‘Where’d you learn to do that, James? It was awesome, like … Like The Terminator or something. That crunch when his arm smashed sounded a bit … Oh, man! You know when you get a chicken out of the oven and rip off the leg?’
James didn’t like being reminded and he was frustrated at how slowly his new pals were moving. The mixture of CHERUB training and frequent punishment laps meant James was fit enough run five kilometres without getting seriously out of breath. His companions were gasping after a tenth of that distance.
‘Where’d you learn it, James?’ Max repeated, wide-eyed and grinning in awe.
‘One of my foster parents was a Karate instructor,’ he lied.
‘Can you show me some moves?’
‘It takes months,’ James said irritably, as he looked back over his shoulder to find that the girls had fallen even further behind.
The first siren didn’t worry anyone: they assumed it was an ambulance. But the symphony that broke out half a minute later wasn’t good. There should only be one ambulance, which meant the other four or five sirens belonged to police cars.
James spotted torchlight when a group of kids running a couple of hundred metres ahead of him reached the exit gate.
‘Cops,’ Liza said anxiously.
James felt a shot of fear. He considered hiding out in the trees, or doubling back and going over a wall, but he didn’t know the neighbourhood and reckoned they could bluff their way through.
‘Stop running,’ he said. ‘Act normal.’
Max looked anxiously at James. ‘We’d better dump the booze.’
James sighed as he lobbed the carrier bag containing twelve quid’s worth of vodka and lager into a bush.
He looked back at the girls. ‘Is there another place where kids hang out in here?’
Georgia nodded. ‘There’s a playground.’
‘That’s good,’ James said. ‘If the cops ask, we were in the playground.’
Hannah closed in on James. ‘Let me look at your face.’
James stopped walking for a second. Hannah licked a tissue and used it to wipe the last few traces of blood off his forehead. He felt edgy as they approached the cops, but the previous bunch of kids had been waved through after less than a minute of questioning.
‘Hello,’ a female officer said politely, stepping out in front of the kids and switching on her torch. ‘Do you mind if I ask a few questions?’
‘Has something happened?’ Hannah asked innocently, as they all stopped walking.
The second officer, an Asian man, stepped out and lit up his torch. Max recognised him immediately. ‘Hello, Sergeant Patel.’
‘Hey, Max,’ the officer said, nodding half-heartedly. ‘Keeping out