Free Mind Blind by Lari Don

medals. Look what happened to her. Maybe I had to take a few risks, in order to find out what this boy did to Viv, and to make sure he got the punishment he deserved. If violence and crime and death could find Viv on the way to her flamenco class, then I wasn’t safe anywhere, and hiding from it wouldn’t help. Perhaps I needed to go out there and face it.
    I leapt under the duvet when I heard Dad’s feet on the stairs, rolled over so my back was to the door, and tried to breathe more slowly. My heart was racing, but he wouldn’t hear that.
    The door creaked open. He tiptoed in and put his cold outdoor hand on my forehead. He murmured something. I tried not to listen, in case it was more sentimental nonsense.
    As he walked out, I heard him sniff. I have tissues by my bed, the ones with lotion to stop your skin peeling when you’re wiping your nose a lot, like when you’ve got a bad cold or someone has murdered your only sibling. I blew my nose quietly and wiped my eyes.
    I heard them both go to the loo and brush their teeth, then they went to bed. Once they stopped whispering, I got up again.
    I found my darkest clothes: black jeans; dark top, inside out so the picture on the front didn’t show; black Converse, which I hadn’t cleaned recently, so the white bits were allmuddy; and the navy hoodie Mum hates because she thinks it makes me look like a criminal.
    I tied my hair back, then grabbed my keys and purse out of my bag, and put them in my pockets.
    I picked up my phone and looked at it. I should just dial 999 right now. I slid it into my back pocket. I could dial 999 any time I liked. Any time I thought he was holding out on me or a danger to me.
    I opened my door and sneaked downstairs. I heard a sob from my parents’ room. Mum was still awake. But I didn’t turn back. I hoped the boy could hear her crying, then he might stay hidden for longer.
    Because I’d changed my mind about teaming up with a murderer. I’d decided to do this myself. I would walk right past the study, keep going silently to the back door and get out on my own.
    If I ran all the way to the centre of Winslow and all the way home, perhaps I could get back with the urn and whatever it contained before he realised that I’d left without him.
    I wasn’t keen on leaving him here with Mum and Dad, but I was even less keen on taking him to Grampa’s house, like Red Riding Hood escorting the wolf to her granny’s.
    The study door stayed closed as I sneaked past. I smiled. He wasn’t that smart, then.
    I tiptoed through the kitchen, then into the extension, heading for the back door.
    And he grinned at me.
    He was standing there, his arms folded, a self-satisfied smile on his face. Blocking the back door.
    “Sneaking off?” he whispered. “Without me?”
    I shrugged.
    His grin got wider. “Don’t ever try to deceive me, Lucy. I’ll always be one step ahead. And how were you planning to get past the police?”
    I wasn’t convinced anyone was out there, but I didn’t saythat. “I have a perfect right to walk out of my own house.”
    “In the middle of the night?”
    I shrugged again.
    “There are four police out there now,” he whispered, “because two more followed your parents home. I can’t get both of us past that many. Even though you’re little and skinny, you still don’t look enough like a stray cat to sneak past them.”
    He thought I looked like a skinny stray cat? What an arrogant prat. “Of course I can get past them. I’m half your size and I don’t glow in the dark.” I pointed to his golden face and pale hair, then my dark skin and black hair.
    He took a thin black hat from his pocket and pulled it over his face. Not a hat, a balaclava.
    I shivered. He suddenly looked really scary. Not cute at all.
    But I said, as calmly as I could, “Terrorist chic. What else do you have? Machine gun? Bomb?”
    He pulled the mask up, leaving it lumpy on his forehead. “No. But I am tooled up for this and you