MARCUZ paced up and down a room. It was a large living room in a 3-bedroom apartment.
The boy walked about sweating, his pace doubling up with each turn he made.
After a while, the door opened from outside. Then a sporty kid, a few years younger, stepped inside.
Marcuz didn’t turn to look at him. He only glanced at the clock, saw it was past 10, and went on roaming.
He was stuck on his last night at Cannon.
Now the younger dude shared some resemblance with the older one. As the two kids were brothers.
Then the younger kid went by the name Luca... Luca López.
Luca had his training wears on that hour of morning, as he was a badminton player. And he was just heading back from practice.
This was the home and family of the Lópezes in Kingston. And Marcuz’s only family was Luca, with some distant relatives...
Yet Luca was the home that he ran to.
“You didn’t say you’ll return this soon. When did you come back? I’m guessing it is around now.”
It was Luca talking to Marcuz, but the latter only looked up and stared blankly.
Luca went on. “Let me see! One, I had a match yesterday, so I woke up late today...
“I left home around 8 this morning – you weren’t home.
“Two, Cannon is some 2 hours flight to Kingston. Then from the airport home, it’ll take you 1 hour...
“Still you’re not the early bird type to catch the first flight home.
“But if you did, you’d just be home around now—”
He waved a hand in Marcuz’s face and pointed the time.
“It’s 20 past, my gentle brother... it means you took the first flight home!
“What made you run home from Cannon?!”
Marcuz jolted up from the daze. As his brother caught him, even when he hadn’t read things correctly.
For the dude had fled from college that same night he witnessed a murder. And he’d travelled by a ferry that took 3 nights.
“Stop with the math, Luca!” Marcuz was back, so he waved the topic. “What does it matter what time I came in?”
“I told you it’s not math,” quipped the brother. “It is logic... pure logic!
“In math, you solve problems with figures. But what you solve in logic is situations—
“Now, what made you leave Cannon this early?!”
Luca’s insistence was getting all too pokey for the boy. So he dodged the question one more time.
“Go freshen up, guy!”
“Now you didn’t answer me at all!”
“See, you reek of sweat! Leave this place first of all!”
By now, the 18-year-old had sensed the older had something in mind. But that he didn’t like to share it.
Still they were men; they wouldn’t prod each other to talk. So the younger boy decided to wave the matter, too.
“Wow, you didn’t say I stink like ammonia today! Or what did you always say my sweat contains?
“Ammonia. Ammonium. Harmonica—what’s that stuff even called?!”
Marcuz was about to answer when Luca talked instead.
“Don’t bother to say anything, Marcuz! See, I’m off to the bathroom!”
He flashed a wide smile.
“It’s easier than to sit for another class on chemistry!”
Marcuz watched him leave and felt to tell him.
Then he recalled his escape, and changed his mind.
◘◘◘
That night when Marcuz went to pluck his music stick from the bike, and the ride went tumbling over him, it was the closest he’d ever been to death.
The crash was loud, so it was no question if the thugs upstairs heard it.
His heart pumped faster to make him sprint. Then his mind raced wild in a desperate search for cover.
In one fraction of a moment, he spotted the canvas that’d once sheltered his bicycle nearby.
The broad sheet of cover had been hurled to the foot of the stairs, at a corner spot there.
Then the next moment saw Marcuz slid beneath the sheets.
He couldn’t process whether he crawled or leapt—or flew. Yet one thing was clear to him...
That his adrenaline was up. And he’d fled.
But then again, Marcuz López was there at the crime scene by an arrangement beyond chance.
He’d gone to witness a piece of some conspiracy, so he could answer a call of duty and fight a good cause.
So, when the flight hormone sent him fleeing the place, it seemed a big hand pulled him apart and slid him under cover.
For he turned and saw the sheets on the floor and took the risk to hide under.
Then just when he hid, the men surfaced.
Yes, the ingenious youth was pretty sure that those guys would never think that he could still hide there.
He knew that they’d think to race after him. Chase his trail as far as the basement. But they wouldn’t check up there.
Hiding in the enemy’s den seemed to be the safest option, he thought.
Well, Marcuz was quite fortunate to be apt on this. As the men raced down and chased after nothing.
They turned down the place from the passages to basement, and they couldn’t find a trace of spies.
One of them eventually said, when they returned, that the bicycle must have fallen itself.
They stood the bike up and barred the stairs again. Then they went back to setting up the chemicals.
Alvaro returned to distributing the gas masks with no one manning his post.
So, Marcuz sneaked out and left the crime scene.
It was then that the boy stopped a recording on his device. For he’d set his MP3 to record the surroundings.
He always did this each time he roamed from his bicycle.
Now that stick meant to Marcuz what the dashcam means to cars...
It was his precious ride, after all.
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