The Big Time

CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

TROY TOOK A RIGHT at the next stop sign and bolted in between a grassy stretch separating two big homes. Even in the dark he knew that the secret path he'd followed through the trees and underbrush behind the homes to get to Seth's place wasn't far. Tate kept up, but Troy could feel that the shadowy man-who remained frighteningly silent-was gaining on them. On a hunch, Troy broke through a line of shrubs, but when he came out the other side, he slammed full speed into a chain-link fence.

He recovered quickly and sprinted up the fence line and into a stand of pine trees, where the glow of a nearby pool let him see. The bushes swished behind him, and he heard the man crash into the fence just as he had. The undergrowth got suddenly thick and dark; Troy grabbed Tate by the arm and pulled her straight into it with him, the branches and brambles whipping their faces and cutting their hands.

Then it ended. They broke free into a swath of grass that bordered the concrete wall surrounding Cotton Wood. Troy sensed the spot and took a hard right. When he glanced back, he saw nothing of the man's dark shape. With his lungs on fire, he put his head down and ran even faster. The ladder wasn't too far.

When they reached it, Troy had to use all his inner strength and every lesson his mom had taught him not to just scramble up and drop down over the other side. Instead, the noble side of him won out, and he handed Tate up the ladder so she could climb up to the top of the wall. When she did, she looked down the way they'd come, and a muffled whine escaped her.

"Troy," she said, "hurry! He's coming!"