Heatwave by Oliver Davies (the red fox clan txt) 📗

car park and breaking out onto the pavements outside felt like a relief, and not just because of the oppressive heat of Hewford’s stout walls and the unpleasant smell of egg that’d lingered all day.

The streets were relatively quiet, and I stretched out my stride, taking it fairly leisurely since I was planning to spend a couple of hours running if I could. There was certainly enough daylight, and I’d sent Sam a text so that she’d know to expect me later.

I wasn’t the biggest fan of summer, it was true, but evenings like this when the city seemed to slow down, the breeze was pleasantly Mediterranean, and the daylight seemed to stretch out for a week, it was hard not to love it a little bit. I’d have preferred to be up in the moors to appreciate the golden light rather than within the stone walls of the city, it was true, but it was beautiful from down here too. York was picturesque enough that even a country bumpkin like me could appreciate it.

I ran on, taking the same route I’d run recently whenever I was craving stretching out my legs and pushing myself. It took me past the site of the first fire I’d seen, of the disused building out near Vangarde shopping centre, and I glanced at it as I ran past. It looked charred, diminished, and unimportant now, and I doubted that those driving past would even notice it. It occurred to me to think that that same fire, which seemed like nothing particularly serious at the time, had proved to have been the start of a dangerous, escalating pattern, and we still didn’t know how it would end.

Cutting back towards the city an hour or so later, I began the stretch back towards Sam’s place. Despite spending so much time at hers, I could honestly say I didn’t miss my flat. I bought it because it was reasonably cheap, well-located, and available when I needed it, not because I’d fallen in love with how it looked. I’d never really made it my own, whereas Sam had turned her house into something much more personal. With me staying over there, my clothes had started ending up in her drawers, my books and DVDs on her shelves.

Before she’d dropped her bombshell about moving to Kent, I’d been starting to think about asking her whether she’d want to move in together, but that was off the cards now. The thought of her selling her place sent a pang of melancholy through me before I pushed it away. I couldn’t change the situation and had no desire to talk Sam out of it when I knew how much she wanted to give it a shot, so there was no point dwelling on it.

The evening light dimmed as I ran along the city streets towards her house, though there was still a couple of hours of daylight left at least. I was thinking about Sam and me eating dinner outside when a movement off to my left made me startle, and I looked sharply sideways.

Up ahead, no more than ten yards away, a figure had just come out from a side road, and two more followed him out. He was hooded, but I got the impression of youthfulness from all of them, from their lanky limbs and the way they were dressed.

Instinctual unease made me slow even though there was no immediate reason to suggest that I should. Later, I would wonder whether I should’ve pushed on, sprinting forwards, but at the time, I didn’t have the chance to think it through. A second later, another three people came walking towards me on my side of the road, wearing the same hoodies and jeans as the others.

I was definitely feeling trapped, and I twisted around to glance behind me, slowing to a walk as I did so. Walking up the middle of the road behind me was a tall teenager with his hood up, but the flash of blond hair at his brow was unmistakable, even in the soft light of the evening. It was Jules.

Glancing at the boy at his side, I recognised Alistair Pumphrey immediately. The kid’s face was lodged in my memory, and he was easily the shortest of the group. Until now, I’d been thinking of him as a victim, but watching him walk alongside Jules while the three groups of teenagers were closing in on me made me reevaluate him as being firmly on their side.

“Look who it is,” Jules called.

I looked up and down the street, searching for a witness, but there wasn’t anybody around. I clawed my phone from my pocket and hit the shortcut button to call for help, but a second later, I was violently hit by a weight slamming into my back. I hit the ground hard, the breath thumped out of me by the force of one of the heavier teens tackling me from behind and landing on top of me.

I wheezed, dragging in air as I tried to find where my phone had gone after it’d gone flying when I was attacked.

“Looking for this?”

I looked up, wincing at the pain in my chest and back, and saw that Jules had his foot on my phone. I didn’t get the chance to even say anything before there was a crunch, and Jules crushed the screen beneath his heel with a sadistic smile on his face. I swore under my breath.

Whoever had attacked me from behind clambered off my back and grabbed my arms to pull me up. There was a moment when they weren’t pinning me down, nor had a good grip on my arms, and I tugged myself sharply forwards, getting free.

The problem was that the teenagers had already surrounded me, and there were at least ten of them. Still, I got to my feet, my grazed knees bleeding, and scanned all of their faces as I tried to commit them to memory.

“You’re skinnier than you looked on