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“Tad, don’t p.i.s.s me off,” the man said. “What happened to your eye?”

“Daddy hit me.”

The man’s eyes narrowed again.

“Your daddy hit you?”

Tad nodded. Or tried to—he couldn’t move his head.

The man stood. Tad barely came up to his belt.

The man let go of Tad’s head and pointed back the way Tad had come. “Is that your house?”

Tad didn’t need to look. He just nodded.

“How did you leave?”

“Jumped out the window,” Tad said.

“Run along, Tad,” the man said. He reached behind his back and pulled out a long piece of black metal, bent at one end. Tad recognized it from when he and his family were on that trip to Cedar Point last summer, when Dad had to fix a flat.

It was a tire iron.

The man walked down the road, heading for Tad’s house.

Tad watched him for a few seconds. Then he remembered that he was running away, and what he was running away from. He sprinted down the sidewalk.

He made it one block before he stopped again. Who knew that running away would have so many distractions? First that great big superhero man, now a car accident. A fancy red and white Mustang and a little white hatchback, smashed head-on. The Mustang’s trunk was open. The little white car’s driver’s-side door was also open. The inside light of the hatchback lit up a man lying motionless, his feet still next to the gas pedal, his back on the wet pavement.

The man had blood all over his face.

And he was holding a gun.

There was another man in the pa.s.senger’s seat, not moving, leaned forward, face resting on a deflated air bag.

Over the pouring rain and the strong wind, Tad heard a small voice.

“Report!” the voice said. “G.o.ddamit, Claude, report!”

Tad knew he should just keep running. But what if his parents came after him? Maybe he needed that gun.

Tad walked up to the man lying on the pavement. Rain steadily washed the blood off the man’s face and onto the wet-black concrete.

“Baum! Where are you?”

The voice was coming from a little piece of white plastic lying next to the man’s head. It was one of those ear receivers, just like they used on Frankie Anvil, his favorite TV show. Maybe this man was a cop, like Frankie.

Cops would take him away, protect him from Mom and Dad.

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