Free Bad Men by Allan Guthrie

morning and fortunately Rodge hadn't burst into tears once since he'd got up, but he hadn't been able to sleep a wink all night. Telling Dad had been hard. You'd think there'd be some truth in the saying about a problem shared and all that. But there wasn't. Crock of shite, it was. Dad and Norrie wanted details, so he gave them details. Told them about Wallace threatening to blow his kneecaps off, about how he hid in the backseat of the car.
    Dad told him he was a fool. He was lucky to be alive.
    All night Rodge kept replaying the events of that day in his head. The more he went over it, the more he realised that Dad was right. If Rodge had been a betting man, he'd have wagered a shitload of money that Wallace would never have let him go.
    It wasn't right, man. Wallace wasn't the sort of person to behave like Gandhi. Okay, so that wasn't exactly how he'd behaved, but by his standards, that was as near as damnit.
    Rodge thought about how composed Wallace had been. Someone strolls into your house and fires a couple of bullets at you, you don't stop to think how you're going to respond, do you? You kick the shit out of the bastard. At the very least. Well, that's how a normal person would respond. Wallace was very far from being normal. From the outset, he began messing with Rodge's head. And he was continuing to do so. And doing a fuck of a good job of it, too.

The next night , around two o'clock in the morning, Rodge was in bed listening to the welcome patter of rain on his window—this heat didn't help when you were having trouble sleeping – when he heard a noise, like chair legs scraping, that sounded as if it came from the kitchen. Wasn't May. She slept like a horse. Could be Dad, his busted nose keeping him awake. Or a bit peckish, making himself a sandwich or grabbing a biscuit. But what if it wasn't Dad?
    Rodge got out of bed, quietly, reached under it for the black wood Louisville Slugger baseball bat he'd kept for protection since May had moved in.
    He crept along the corridor. Poked his head into the sitting room.
    Nothing.
    Carried on along the corridor. Braced himself. Firm grip on the bat. Poked his head round the kitchen door.
    Nothing.
    He switched on the light, just to make sure. Nothing. Nobody. He breathed out hard. Went over to the sink, poured himself a glass of water, drank it, switched off the light again. Wished he could calm his nerves.
    Wallace wasn't stupid. He wouldn't come here. If he was carrying a grudge, he'd play it out on his own patch. He wouldn't —
    Wham! The side of Rodge's head exploded. He staggered, tried not to go down. Tried to keep hold of the baseball bat, but his grip had slackened with the blow to his head. He felt dizzy. Wham! A second blow dropped him to his knees. Lights flashed in front of his eyes. The baseball bat slipped out of his fingers. They had no strength in them at all. "Wallace?" he said, then asked the craziest question: "Did you just shoot me?"
    A third blow, across the bridge of his nose, knocked him backwards. His face filled with pain.
    Then he felt a hand on his leg. "Wallace?" he said again.
    And an explosion. He knew what it was, what it meant. He had his answer. The first three blows weren't shots. This was. For a second, he was left with only his imagination. And during that time, his imagination tried to prepare him for the ensuing pain by conjuring up what it thought was a suitable agony. But it fell way short. When the pain came, it was like nothing he'd ever experienced. At the same instant, a hundred mallets slammed into his kneecap. Pulverised it. The pain overloaded his senses. He couldn't believe this much pain was possible. But it was. He roared, told himself the pain wasn't so bad. Roared again at the lie. Choked on the blood from his smashed nose.
    He didn't notice what Wallace was doing. Not that he could have stopped him.
    The second explosion followed quickly. The same blinding pain. This time, the other knee. Through the pain, the thought