Free Return of the Jed by Scott Craven

twisted. The lock sprang open, and Luke slipped it from the latch.
    Tread burst out and would have jumped into my arms, if I had any. I leaned my face into his neck, feeling his cold breath on me.
    “Luke, grab his tail,” I said, nodding toward the ratty snake-thing in the middle of the kennel. Luke shrugged off the backpack and stuffed Tread’s tail inside.
    “Let’s get out of here.” I stood, looking left and right. “Do you remember the way out?”
    “Yeah, hang on.” Luke put his head down, so I assumed he was thinking hard. It was odd because thinking hard was not something Luke normally did. “I memorized the map as if it were to Pine Hollow, with the exit as the cafetorium, providing the necessary motivation. Let’s see, it was Biology to Social Studies to the gym to the cafetorium and lunch. Follow me and please keep up.”
    I lost track of the turns and soon was lost, hoping Luke really knew the way out. Or to the cafetorium, whichever way worked.
    “Turn this corner, and first door on the left should be the way out,” he said. We stayed with him and sure enough, there was a large metal door looking very much like the one we’d entered. I prayed it was not locked.
    Luke twisted and knob and pulled.
    It opened, letting in a blast of hot air that was refreshing and stifling at the same time.
    I burst through, relishing the night air with the freedom that came with it.
    “ ¡Pare ahora! ¡Manos arriba! ”
    I have no idea what he said, only that there was a lot of anger for a quick shout. I looked toward the voice but saw only two beams of light that were about two hundred feet away and bouncing closer.
    “Luke, do you have any ideas where—”
    “Guys, over here, quick.”
    I knew that voice. The girl from the break-in. Luke and I peered into the darkness where the voice came from. We saw a faint light. A lighter? No, a glow stick. It was across the parking lot, in the opposite direction from the approaching flashlight beams.
    The angry voices screamed again. “¡ Alto, alto !”
    We were between a rock and a hard place.
    We chose the hard place, since I was pretty sure it was the one that did not include Mexican prison.
    But I never would have guessed what it did include.

Chapter Twelve
     

     
     
    “Go toward the light,” I told Luke, chest-bumping him toward the glow stick. He stiffened and stared at me.
    “I thought it was always a bad idea to go toward the light, especially for you, being dead and all,” he said.
    “What are you talking about? We have to move.” I chest-bumped him again. “Now!”
    He spun, and I followed on his heels, focusing on the ground where chunks of asphalt waited like land mines. If I tripped on one and went down, I wouldn’t be getting back up until the guys with flashlights stopped laughing and hauled me to Mexican prison. I’d never see my arms again.
    Luke and Tread raced across the parking lot while I stepped quickly as if in a bit of a rush. The slightest misstep and I was a dead man, so to speak. I’d never been to prison, but I had been in a seventh-grade locker room filled with close-minded bullies, so I had a pretty good idea of what life would be like.
    I glanced over my shoulder and saw those bobbing flashlights were much closer than I thought. I kicked my pace from a “bit of a rush” to “in quite the hurry.”
    Focusing in front of me, I found the glow and made a slight course correction, my right foot disappearing into the world’s deepest pothole. I went down, hard. I’d fallen and wasn’t getting up anytime soon.
    The little air in my lungs sputtered out in a death rattle when my chest hit the ground. My forehead quickly followed, the asphalt scoring a major victory over my skull.
    I had just enough consciousness left to know what I wanted more than anything right now. Arms and hands. They were not just for reaching things and scratching stuff anymore. They were also great at breaking falls.
    Prison wouldn’t be bad. Probably like