Ash moved cautiously along the wall, pausing in the shadows and listening for any sound of movement or voices. Shooting the rifle would not do him much good in a close fight, but he could still use it as a weapon. Thanks to Josh’s dad and his grandmother, he and Josh had taken martial arts classes after they were caught spray painting railroad cars. Ash didn’t know which parental figure he had been more afraid of, Josh’s dad or his own grandmother, when they came to the police station to pick them up. Being handcuffed at the age of eight had convinced Ash that it was not the way he wanted to spend his life. His grandmother’s silence and the disappointment in her eyes was his undoing. When Josh’s dad appeared three days later with a brochure on Judo and Taekwondo classes available on the ba
