Bubblegum Smoothie by Ryan Casey Page A

Think…
    I’m not sure whether it was through feeling woozy from the smoke poisoning, but something made me run over to the window behind my destroyed television. Something made me yank it open, even though it was boiling, even though the flames were creeping up the walls beside it.
    Something made me stick my head outside. Take a huge gulp and gasp of the fresh, clean summer evening air.
    And then something else made me step onto the window ledge.
    I lowered myself down. Stared out over the street. I could see people gathering outside. Lights flickered on in the neighbouring houses. No one seemed to be calling anyone though. No one was ringing for the fire brigade. In fact, I swear I saw one scrawny little shite recording me. Just wait ‘til I get my hands on him.
    Or his YouTube account, anyway. Serious trolling was heading his way.
    I grabbed the edge of the window ledge, the heat from the fire still nipping at my body. I stuck the tips of my fingers into the brick, wondered how the hell I was going to turn myself around. Bloody hell. I should’ve climbed out with my back to the outside. Would’ve made things a whole lot easier.
    I eventually managed to shuffle myself around, almost tumbling to my death a few times, but hey, the smoke sedation was keeping me fairly chilled about it. Fairly chilled meaning I hadn’t shat myself. Yet.
    I gripped the window ledge again. Bit my lip as I edged my legs over the side, a blanket of fire and a wall of smoke staring back at me through my window. I tried not to focus on it. Just focus on getting down, Blake. Focus on lowering yourself. You’ll be okay.
    I held my breath some more and realised I was holding my breath a lot lately, and I edged my torso over the window ledge. Gripped tight hold of the brick. Prayed to God my shoulder was tough enough to support me, that my biceps still had plenty of juice left in them.
    Come on, Blake. You’re a tough bastard. A tough bastard who’s going to pull through. A tough bastard who isn’t gonna fall to his death.
    And then I lowered myself completely over the edge.
    For a moment, I felt my fingertips sticking into the brick ledge, felt my upper arms and forearms supporting my body weight as I dangled out of my window like some kind of trainwreck of a Lara Croft tribute.
    For a moment, until a searing pain shot through my right shoulder.
    My instincts told me to let go.
    I told them to fuck off.
    They weren’t listening. They were having their way this time.
    I slipped away from the window ledge. Stared up at my flat as the smoke petering out of the window grew further away. I wondered whether this was what suicide felt like. This slow-motion tumble to the hard concrete below, watching the world slip by in reverse.
    And then the world stopped slipping by and I felt a hard crack against my back.
    People gathered around me. Gathered around me, pointed their phones in my face, asked if I was okay.
    I tasted copper in my mouth. Swallowed a whole bout of it. My back ached, my arms ached, my head ached.
    I looked back at my burning flat. My burning possessions, the burning purchases from my Fun Funds.
    That made me sick in my mouth a little.
    And then, as sirens approached, I thought about the note. Look Inside!
    I thought about the finger, and the bomb.
    The IED, intended for me. For me and for no one else.
    “I’m being… being targeted,” I said, to myself more than anyone else.
    Paramedics slipped a stretcher underneath me. Lifted me off the ground and rushed me out of the surrounding crowd.
    “I’m being targeted by… by the killer.”
    I pictured Gus’s static body lying in the middle of the A6, blood pooling out of his back, and I realised I was next.
    I sicked in my mouth a little bit more.

NINETEEN
    I take back what I said earlier about police stations being my least favourite places on the planet. Hospitals definitely top them by a mile.
    I lay back in my hospital bed. Dull pain throbbed in my back and my shoulder. Even