“C’mon! Hurry up!” Alex shouted. He rushed through the trees.
“Alex! Wait!” cried his younger sister Emily.
Alex slowed to a stop. Emily lay down beside him panting like a dog.
Alex glared at her. “You always slow me up, Em. Can’t you see I’m trying to train for a big race coming up?”
Emily looked at her brother sheepishly.
“I’m trying,” Emily muttered.
“No, you’re not! If you were trying, you would be able to keep up! This is exactly why I told you to stay home,” Alex argued.
Emily looked up at her brother’s angry eyes. How could he expect her to keep up when she was three years younger? Tears flooded her eyelids. Her lip quivered. She dashed away.
“No! Em, wait!” Alex called. He ran after her but Emily was far ahead.
Emily kept running. Let him try and keep up now, she thought. Let’s see him pass me now.
Alex ran and ran as fast as he could. He began to get a very painful cramp. Emily’s faint shape faded before him and he lost view. He cursed and stopped.
“Em!” Alex called out when he had recovered.
He heard a scream in response. He would know that scream anywhere. It was Emily’s.
Alex ran as fast as he could toward the sound of whimpering and sobbing. There was an occasional scream. He finally came to a small break in the trees, where he could glimpse Emily’s blond hair.
“Em!” Alex yelled. “Hang on!” He dashed toward the hair.
A flash of metal accompanied Emily’s hair. Then they came into full view.
A young man stood there, holding Emily with a gun against her temple. He grinned at Alex.
“Missing something?” the man said crazily. Crooked teeth glinted in the sun.
Alex clenched his fists. “Let her go.”
“I don’t think I want to do that just yet.” The man clicked the safety switch off on his gun. “Hand over the watch.”
Without hesitation, Alex ripped off his hundred-dollar watch from his wrist and tossed to the man. He caught it with his free hand.
“Now the jacket.”
Alex took off his expensive leather jacket and handed it over.
“Got anything else?”
“Nope,” Alex replied. “Now hand her over.”
The man smiled. It was a mean nasty smile. “I don’t think you understand, my good friend. You see, I’m not going to just give her back to you.”
Fear leaped in Alex’s chest. His voice shook as he whispered, “What do you want?”
“I want a body.” With that one sentence, the man fired the gun.
“NO!” screamed Alex. He squeezed his eyes shut. No, not Emily. Please not Emily… she can’t die…she’s fine…
Fear turned into anger.
He ran to the man, and punched him square in the face. Alex ripped the gun away from the man’s hands and tossed it into the trees. Alex dragged the man to the ground. Even though he was thirteen years old and he was tackling a full-grown man, the man had been caught off balance from the force of the gun and was skinny and frail.
Alex punched the man over and over, and ripped at his gray skin until he felt warm blood gushing between his fingers and only after his hands were soaked was he satisfied with the damage.
Then he brought himself to go to Emily.
She was lying on her back on the forest dirt. The bullet hole was right in her temple, where the brain was. There was very little blood, but Alex knew the damage had been fatal.
Alex knelt down to her side, and stroked Emily’s blond hair. “I’m so sorry, Em,” he whispered. “I hope that where you are now, you can practice running. That way by the time I get there, you can beat me.”