Chapter two-

"That sounds like cops" I said and ran over to gather up my stuff. I quickly started shoving my bare feet into my shoes: An old daggy pair of Globe skate shoes. My globes had gotten me out of many scrapes before and I wasn't about to let them stop now. Beside me I could see Ryan pulling his shoes on out of the corner of my eye. We both pulled our t-shirts on and grabbed our bags before jogging over to where Ryan should have parked the car we all came in.

"Where's Chris?" I asked.

"He got KO'd in the first set. I think someone took him home." replied Ryan.

We were just getting into the car when a few cop cars rocked up and told everybody to freeze where they were. Underground fight clubs were becoming a problem in the city and cops were really trying to crack down on us. I couldn't see why; we weren't hurting anyone. Well, we were, but you know what I mean. Anyway, just as we got to the car, one of the cop cars pulled up right in front of us and switched a spotlight on right in our faces.

"Place your hands on the vehicle." said a voice through the car megaphone.

Ryan turned to me. "Get out of here Owen! They have my car's plates, but you aren't tied to this. One more run in with the cops and you're gonna be in some seriously deep shit, so just get the fuck out of here." I thought about it for a second before putting my arms through my bag's loops, tightening the straps, turning around and sprinting towards my escape. Cops all around me started shouting but I just powered forwards with all my speed.

I whipped past a cop speaking into his radio;

"Suspect is wearing green board shorts, a black t-shirt and a white backpack. Suspect is attempting escape on foot." A second cop reached out to grab at my arm but I avoided him and kept running. Up ahead of me was a line of cops between me and the street. I kept running towards them. At the last moment one dived low to try and bring me down. I jumped over as he dived low, planted a foot on his back, kicked off and kept running. I stopped for a second to look back; A couple of cops were moving to chase me on foot and heaps more were arresting everybody left inside the reservoir car-park.

I locked eyes with Ryan as a cop was slapping handcuffs on him. I turned and started sprinting again. There were 3 or maybe 4 cops running after me yelling at me to stop. I don't mean to brag, but I was fucking fit. I had been getting up every morning and going for a 6km run at dawn. I had been doing some seriously tough training the last few weeks and I would be damned if I was gonna let a bunch of random middle aged badge toters outrun me. Hell, I could have turned around at any moment and beaten the shit out of any one of them, probably any two of them, three maybe but definitely not four when they were all armed with capsicum spray, guns and radios.

Coming the other way down the road I saw another cop car. It pulled up to a halt just a bit further up the road. Flight hadn't worked; nothing to do now but fight. I stoped and turned around. There were only three cops behind me and two more in the squad car up ahead. If I chose not to give up, my best other way out was to attack five police officers and steal a police car. This was getting really deep. If I gave up now I was in shit, but if I tried to escape and it failed, I was just digging my hole deeper and deeper. But then there was that other option where I escaped… I put my hands on my head and started walking towards the three cops. They were all out of breath.

"s-stop there." The cop panted as he tried to catch his breath. I kept walking closer.

"Stop there and- and get down on your knees." The cop panted again.

I slammed my palm out into the cop's solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him before throwing him to the floor; I wanted to take these guys down as harmlessly as I could, because if I got caught, I didn't want grievous bodily harm to be on the list of offences.

The next cop scrabbled for his capsicum spray and actually got it out of the little holster thing before I grabbed his arm and pulled him forwards, towards me. As he stumbled towards me I stepped to the side and tripped him, sending him sprawling. I saw the can of capsicum spray fall out of his hand and roll away. I turned to the third cop who had gone for his spray too. I was about two steps away from him and he was already raising his can to point at me. I knew first hand what capsicum spray felt like and I wasn't at all eager to feel it again. I turned away from the cop and continued to run up the street. I purposefully planted a foot on the outstretched hand of the cop I had just tripped over.

The squad car was still parked in the middle of the road up ahead and there was two cops jogging towards me. One of them was talking into a radio while the second appeared to have something in his hand. I assumed that it was yet another can of capsicum spray. I was quickly forming a plan on what to do when I reached them.

Ill need to take out the guy with the spray first, preferably with a hit to the sweet spot. If he's not out, ill have to follow through with a kick to the ribs or a knee to the gut to hunch him over. Then ill drop him with an elbow to the back of the head or if I'm in a good spot, ill knee up into his face.

I had a few more metres to go. I was warming up my right hand for a hefty hook when the cop lifted his hand. What I thought was spray turned out to be a TASER X26 which the officer aimed at me and fired. Two little thingies attached to what I can only describe as string flew out with a little pop and embedded themselves in my chest.

I've been capsicum sprayed before. I've been kicked in the head, punched in the face, kneed in the guts, elbowed in the ear, slammed on my back, choked until I blacked out and knocked out cold a million times over, but until that point I had never been hit with a taser before, and I cant say that I was particularly disappointed about that. I could quite happily have gone a whole lifetime without the uncomfortable experience of god knows how many volts coursing through my system.

I'm not sure what happened next, but I believe the phrase: 'Went down like a sack of shit' may be appropriate. They picked my twitching ass up off the road and threw me in the back of the squad car. I'm not even sure if they used cuffs, but they sure as hell didn't need to; I was out for the count.

It must have been at least a few hours later that I came to in one of the police holding cells. Well that was it; I was in some seriously, seriously deep shit. Not only had I been at an underground cage fighting event, but I had beaten up a couple of cops, fracturing someone's jaw in the process and had had to be forcefully subdued with a taser. If that didn't look bad on paper when they showed it to my mum, I didn't know what would. I guess I really fucking lost it back there…

It would have been another hour later when the door opened and a cop walked in.

"Come with me, mate. Your mum is waiting for you." said the cop.

I got up and followed him out the door. I was still wearing my trunks, shoes and black shirt. I don't know what had happened to my bag. The cop walked me out into the lobby area where mum was waiting for me. At least there was sunlight coming in the window which meant they hadn't gotten her out of bed to come and get me. The cop pointed to where she was. "We've already given her your bag and things, so you guys can just leave straight away." The cop turned around and walked back down the hallway.

I walked over to mum. She was standing there holding my backpack in one hand and a few papers in the other hand. To say that she looked angry was about as accurate as saying head-butting the 2-13 to Melbourne might give you an unpleasant tingling sensation in your forehead.

"Are we moving again?" I asked.

"We aren't moving anywhere." She said.

"They're not sending me to juvy* are they?" I asked.

"They wanted to, but I convinced them otherwise." She said.

"Where am I moving then?" I asked.

"You're going to Florida to live with your dad in Orlando." She said.

*juvy: Juvenile penitentiary- underage prison

We drove home in silence and as soon as the car stopped I got out, grabbed my bag and went to have a shower. Nothing feels better after a night of fighting than a nice shower, and I was feeling pretty low at that moment. After the shower, I went to my room, pulled the curtains and crashed out on my bed.