Free The Miscreant by Brock Deskins

when he stepped from the town hall building. Two more pushed Matt away.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Garran demanded.
    “You’re going back to your room, and this time you’re going to stay there until I let you out,” Dwight answered.
    “The hell I am!”
    Garran lashed out with a foot and kicked the man holding onto his right arm in the crotch. The struck man cursed and stumbled, but he did not release his grip. With several shouts of profanity, they forced Garran facedown into the street and twisted his arms behind his back.
    “You’re going to do as you’re told, boy! For once in your life, someone is holding you accountable for your actions.”
    “You can’t do this! I didn’t do anything!”
    “You done plenty!” Nina shouted. “All your life I let you get away with running wild, making excuses for your behavior, and blaming it on not having a father.”
    “Maybe I would have had a father if you hadn’t latched onto the first floating piece of garbage to come along and save you from spinsterhood!”
    Dwight jerked his chin, and the men yanked Garran to his feet. “If he struggles, break his damn arms.”
    The men forced him to walk but stopped when Claire ran up and slapped Garran in the face. “I hope you burn in hell, Garran Holt!”
    “Damn it, I just got that to stop bleeding!”
    Garran’s captors forced him to move around Claire and frog-marched him to his home, up the stairs, and into his room. They shoved him forward hard enough to propel him to the middle of the room and secured the door. Dwight had installed a simple crossbar on the outside. There would be no escaping that way. Still, this was a bedroom, not a prison, despite their intentions. It should not take much effort to break free.
    Matt called up from below his window. “Garran, so what’s the deal?”
    “Dwight’s locked me up again and barred my door.”
    “Do you think this is what he was talking about not mattering what happened at your trial?”
    “I guess.”
    Garran heard a door slam open below, and Dwight burst out of the house. “Get out of here, you little rat!”
    “Screw you, Dwight, you don’t own me,” Matt challenged.
    Matt beat a hasty retreat when Dwight rushed at him with an axe handle. “If you come back, I’ll have a word with your father!” He glared up at Garran. “You’re not getting any help escaping this time, and if you do get out, I’ll break your damn ankles!”
    Garran responded by peeing out of the window and laughing uproariously as he chased Dwight back into the house with his stream of justice. As fun as that was, Garran needed to take Dwight’s threat seriously. If he did escape, there would be no coming back. It was quite possible he had finally burned the last of his rather flimsy bridges.
    Dwight pounded on his door with a heavy fist. “That just cost you a day of meals, you little shit!”
    “You can’t do that! There are laws, and I have rights!”
    “I’ll pass on your complaints to the mayor, but something tells me he’s not likely to be sympathetic to your plight.”
    Garran sat down heavily on the edge of his bed. “Well, this sucks.”
    ***
    Boredom was worse than any torture Garran could imagine. Dwight quickly learned to use the kitchen door during his comings and goings to avoid being bombarded with whatever Garran could fit through the bars covering his window. Matt came by occasionally, usually after dark. Dwight had made good on his promise to tell his father to keep his son away from the house. After a week of incarceration, Garran finally decided it was time to make his escape.
    Fashioning a pry bar from a chair leg and the hinge from a chest, he worked several floorboards loose, pounded the nails flat, and set them back into place to prevent his mother from seeing them when she brought his food. He needed to wait until his mother left the house, which, unfortunately, was not often. Shortly after Nina brought him breakfast that morning, Garran saw her