It seemed like the only thing I said for the next few days, a kind of mantra that I kept pumping out as a defense against all the questions and accusations. The first ones at my throat were the cops who threw me into a van, whose taunts and threats cut into me with far more force than the cuffs that bound me to the seat.
"How could you do it?"
"I didn't do it."
"He was your friend."
"I didn't do it."
"Well, you're gonna pay, kid."
"I didn't do it."
Next it was the detectives. They started nice, like they always do in the movies, offering deals and leniency if I just confessed. But the more I denied it the harder they got, their questions so relentless that by the third day when they were kicking over my chair and blowing cigarette smoke in my face I barely knew whether I was guilty or not.
Then came Toby's parents, who sat on the other side of a table clutching each other and screaming at me, their eyes burning with more hatred than I had ever seen in anyone, their anger only held in check by the cops who rested hands on their quivering shoulders and told them I'd get what was coming to me. By this time my mantra was a whisper, little more than a breath, but I kept saying it because, like a breath, it was the only thing keeping me alive.
The worst questions came from the people I loved, my mom and dad. I was separated from them by a dirty plastic window, but there was a far greater barrier between us. I could tell by the way my mom couldn't meet my eye that she thought I was guilty, and she refused to listen to my pleas just like everybody else. There may as well have been a gorge between us, or a mountain, and by the time she was guided out of the room by my dad's unsteady hands I couldn't even find the energy to whisper my denials.
For three weeks I endured an interrogation every day and was thrown into a cell each night. Of course, I told them everything that had happened-the men in the black suits, the sinister figure in the gas mask, the way they had shot Toby in cold blood-but even as I was talking the words seemed ludicrous, hollow. I didn't blame them for laughing at me, I'd never have believed my story either if I hadn't lived the nightmare myself.
MY TRIAL WAS an extension of the same empty process. I was marched into court with an armed escort, and chained inside a cage-the kind better suited to serial killers and military generals accused of war crimes, not terrified kids. The heavy bars didn't stop the hatred directed at me when the hearing began. It poured through like ice water from a judge who was already convinced I was a killer, from a jury that had made up its mind about this case as soon as it started, and from the crowd in the public gallery who bayed for my punishment like hyenas. I felt like I was drowning in their contempt, and just prayed for it to be over, even if it meant sinking without a trace.
My spirits were lifted only once, when midway through the second day the doors of the courtroom opened and two men strode through. Dressed in black and larger than life, they were instantly recognizable-the men who had sent me here. The room fell silent as soon as they entered, even the judge lowering his voice from respect, or maybe fear.
"That's them!" I shouted as they took their seats. "They're the men who framed me. They killed Toby!"
But the judge simply banged his gavel and fixed me with a contemptuous stare.
"Of course they are," he said, his voice oily with sarcasm. "These men are representatives from Furnace Penitentiary. Is this what your defense has come to? Accusing anybody of your crimes. Was I there? Did I have a disagreement with your accomplice and pull the trigger too?"
The jury laughed, and the men in black suits unveiled their shark grins and flashed their silver eyes at me. I was like a fish on the end of a line, waiting to be reeled in.
It took the jury less than forty minutes to decide my fate. Twelve men and women in a room with my life in their hands, and they condemned me in less time than the first half of a soccer match. Not that I'm trying to pass the buck. I hadn't killed Toby, but his blood was on my hands just like my blood was on his. If we hadn't been so stupid, then none of this would have happened. We'd both have been at school just like any other day, tormenting teachers, chasing girls, and being kids.
I'll never forget the judge's closing speech when the jury announced the guilty verdict. He stood, his walnut desk like a pulpit and his booming voice and thrashing limbs like those of a preacher damning the devil.
"Your crimes are heinous and unforgivable," he shouted, the flecks of foam around his mouth visible even from where I was standing. "Like so many of today's youth you have taken your life and squandered it, turning to crime instead of honor, sickness instead of decency. You have killed in cold blood, you are a coward and a thief and a murderer, and like all the other festering waste of society who come through this court I am happy to sentence you without remorse and without pity."
He leaned forward, never taking his eyes off me.
"You knew very well when you pulled that trigger what your punishment would be," he hissed. "There is no longer any leniency for child offenders, not since the Summer of Slaughter. And like those murderous teenagers you will never again see the light of day. If it was up to me, I would see you hanged by the neck until you were dead. But alas I must settle for this." He paused again, smiling wickedly to himself. "Or perhaps settle is the wrong word. Perhaps this is a fate even worse."
I knew what was coming. I clenched my fingers around the bars, praying one last time that something would happen to end this sick and twisted dream. But it was too late. It was over.
"Alex Sawyer, I hereby sentence you to life imprisonment at the Furnace Penitentiary with no possibility of parole. You will be taken from here this afternoon and incarcerated for the remainder of your days."
The resulting wave of cheers and shouts, the banging of the gavel and the roaring in my ears as the truth sank in drowned out the only thing I could think of to say.
"I didn't do it."
I DON'T REMEMBER much else about that day. I have a vague recollection of being dragged from the courtroom by the armed guards, the men in black holding open the door and telling me once again that they'd see me very soon. I couldn't quite remember how to use my legs, so they literally pulled me along the marble-clad corridors, past the crowds with their expressions of hatred and disgust, past my own parents, whose faces I could not make out because they turned away.
I recall only one thing with any clarity. As I was passing a second courtroom the doors flew open to reveal another boy, a similar age to me, being hauled kicking and screaming from inside. He was giving the bailiffs a hard time, his flailing body sending one crashing to the floor and causing the other to reach for his taser. With a flash fifty thousand volts sent the boy hurtling across the corridor, leaving him in a groaning, smoking pile. But even then I could make out his protests and they sent a chill down my spine.
"It wasn't me," he whispered as the men picked him up. "It wasn't me."
For the briefest of seconds our eyes met. It was like looking into a mirror-the fear, the panic, the defiance. I knew instantly that what had happened to me had also happened to him. Our dark fates entwined by the same men, our lives broken by an identical deception.
And then he was gone. I was carried down the corridor, my memories of the moment lessening with each step and fading away completely as I climbed into the truck that would take me to my new home. To the place I would spend the rest of my life. To my own personal hell.
To Furnace.