Just one Step (Pogue)

[attr="class","scrollBW"]His hands reek of indecency, singed to ashes by the fall of the sun.

Screaming, whispering things. The Square had yelled to him when he'd arrived just before sunset, counting down the seconds until his breakaway using the watch laced onto his wrist. It was weekly, habitual. In the place of his father and the loss of his mother's attention he'd developed rituals, sacrifices made of his neighbor's bread and bones, apples stuffed into his rucksack and footsteps in the dust tracing his getaway. The fall was a special moment for him, complementing the paths of the sun as it fell from grace.

Every day, the Sun closed its fifteen minutes of fame with a mighty fall into the abyss.
Right now, it was on its fourteenth minute.

Word had gotten around that there was a boy who preyed on his own neighbors, shattered kneecaps with his kicks and scaled buildings with ease. Shopkeepers were on edge, teetering on the cliffs of panic, held back by the promises of sanity. It was something of anomaly, the way the crowds swallowed him like the fall of the waves, the way the engulfed him, cloaked in transparency. His steps had been calculated, executed with the tip of precision. He'd walked through minefields before, and this week had been no different.

The bag of apples was red like scarlet.
The blood that seeped from his nose with the stray right hook of a shopkeeper burned even brighter, tracing the outlines of a thief's cheeks and falling falling falling to the ground.

For a moment he'd stumbled backwards, feeling the pebbles scatter beneath his shoes, holding his nose as the blood poured out. And then, amidst momentary panic he'd seen figures in white dart towards him out of the corner of his eye, carrying the thoughts of finally catching the thief of the district square on their shoulders. Split second, the Sun collapsed downwards and the shopkeeper had swung again, three weeks of stolen fruit and foods laced within his knuckles.

Revenge was quick.
Canterbury was quicker.

His back arched and his head pulled backwards, fists of a broke man just missing the tip of his broken nose. And then, he'd fallen, dropping low to the ground and sweeping his legs towards the stand owner, feeling the man's legs give and in the split second when the clouds covered the sun the fall begins.

"Shit." He barely has time to utter the words before he vaults over the stand itself, feeling it give and topple beneath his weight, apples and oranges and bananas and pineapples scattering the ground, rolling all along the square.

What makes this week different than any of the other weeks is that he runs the split second risk of getting caught by the men in white, rucksack slamming against his spine with every fleeting step he takes. Alleyways and dead ends, his escape plan was tarnished the minute a stand owner's hand connected with his nose. Even now, with every tick tock fall of the sun he can feel the pain spread out from the broken body part.

They are close, he can hear their breaths and their muttered words, most of which he couldn't bring himself to say.

Him and Kell, they'd prepared for a moment like this, even though his reassurance that it would never come had been persistent, his brother had insisted on being prepared.

"You're not as good as you think."
"Better than you are."
"I'm paralyzed from the waist down, Kent. I would hope."

His brother had made smoke bombs, powder laced within a shell that could withstand the pounds and bangs of the bag against his back. Even though he'd insisted on not needing them, every week he packed one into his pocket, if only to remind himself that he'd never need it.

He makes a mental note to thank Kellan for being so damn persistent when he gets home.

Alleyway coming up on his right, followed by the turn of the sidewalk. He reaches into his pocket and grabs the medium sized pellet, counting down the tick tock seconds until the fall and the rise.

On the third breath he tosses the bomb to the ground, feeling the smoke engulf him and the peacekeepers behind him.
It is split second, the way he throws his body into the alleyway on his right.

And then bang, his bones slam into the body of another and for the second time that day he stumbles backwards, clutching his nose for a split second before diving behind a dumpster, listening to the Peacekeepers sprint by the alley.

When their stupidity has fled the premises he turns his attention to the victim, processing the bloodbath of ripped through bags and bruised fruits, crushed bread and the anger of his neighbor. She seethes, rubbing her palms before turning to him as he brushes himself off.

"Are you blind or just irritating?"

Her words are venomless and a smile dances across his lips, blood on his fingers brushed against his maroon pants. With an air of misplaced confidence he strolls forward and, instead of helping the girl with her groceries, instead grabs one of the napkins that had fallen from the bags, using it to wipe the blood from his face, wincing with every accidental brush of his fingers against nose.

He shrugs. "I guess a little bit of both."

Another grin and he pulls himself up onto the top of the dumpster, sitting with his legs crossed, looking down on the girl. She rubs pebbles from her hands, muttering "ouch.." between sighs and seethes.

He laughs, pointing to his own nose. "Ouch."

The sun's fall casts shadows down the alleyway, highlighting the grin on his face before he crosses his arms.
"Perhaps next time you shouldn't walk down the middle of an alleyway when you know thieves could be coming at any moment, hm?"