Haze Bois

Chapter 1

** Warning: Contains bad language, drug use, descriptions of s****l situations and strong violence. **

*** I have now completed revising this story. Thank you for reading and please leave a comment! ***

‘Focus,’ Caleb tells himself. ‘Believe your lies are true.’

He glanced briefly at the assortment of medical instruments sitting upon a tray. Nestled on a bed of blue-green paper, they reflected hard light from the lamp above.

The nurse, a heavyset woman, brushed his arm as she leaned up and adjusted the lamp, twisting the blinding light into Caleb’s eyes.

“I’m just going to insert this into your nose. You might feel a slight scratch.” The nurse spoke with confidence, but they both knew it was more than a “slight scratch”. Caleb took a deep breath as the needle pierced his skin. He blinked back the involuntary tears as the nurse moved away, and the detective returned.

“As we explained, this chip will read your brainwaves and act as a lie detector. We will also be reading your vitals, as is standard procedure,” Detective Stevens stated. His delivery was fast and monotonous, as though he had recited the speech many times.

“Sir, we are all set up and ready to go,” the technician interrupted.

“Okay, since we only have a short timeframe to collect the data I will get straight to the point. Caleb Hayes, we you in any way involved in the arson attack at the Carlson residence?”

“Nope,” Caleb replied.

“You were seen walking towards Miss Carltons home just before the time of the attack,” the detective stated.

Since it wasn’t a question, Caleb said nothing. The crease in the detective's frown grew deeper. He appeared frustrated.

“So, at no point in the evening of May 12th did you walk up to the Carlson residence and throw a petrol bomb through the window?”

“No,” Caleb answered. “I didn’t.”

‘It was a Molotov cocktail.’ Caleb thought to himself, trying not to smile.

The fluorescent lights and lack of windows made the interrogators skin appear sunken and pale. He wiped little beads of sweat from his forehead with a napkin and coughed before continuing his questions.

‘Why does he seem more nervous than me?’ Caleb wondered.

His own lack of nerves were probably down to the one hundred percent success rate of the nanochip technique. The tiny machines were hard at work inside his brain, recording and analysing all his thought patterns and emotions. The technology was still in the early experimental phases so volunteering to be a guinea pig meant lighter sentences... in most cases.

“Well, if you weren’t at the Carlson residence at the time of the incident... where were you?” the nervous interrogator asked.

“Like I told the police, I was at home watching TV,” Caleb said.

‘I was watching TV. I was watching TV.’

“What was on that night?” the guy asked. It wasn’t a question he had read off the sheet.

Caleb shrugged and frowned. “Same crap as usual. I feel like the BBC don’t even try anymore, you know?”

“You weren’t out with your mates? Girlfriend?”

“I’m grounded,” Caleb told him. He didn’t bother to add the fact he had no girlfriend. Having a girlfriend would not benefit him, so why bother? He didn’t feel the need to explain this to a sweaty stranger in a suit.

“Why? Been getting into trouble?”

“I got a week of detention. Again. Mum went ape-s**t,” Caleb said, rolling his eyes. That was the truth at least.

A man in a white coat knocked and entered the interrogation room without waiting for a response. “All done,” he told Caleb hastily. “You’re free to go.” The guy rubbed his hand and hovered like a waiter trying to free up a table.

The detective sighed heavily and shuffled in his seat, scraping the metal legs on the linoleum flooring. It made that annoying sound Caleb hated. He gritted his teeth and waited as the nurse stripped away the Velcro armband.

“You can wait in the seating area for your Mother to collect you,” she said.

Caleb glanced briefly at the technician and detective before walking out. The blank faces gave nothing away.

“They can’t be letting me go. I am guilty as hell and this new chip has a one hundred percent success rate. Surely they can’t be letting me go,” Caleb thought, but couldn’t stop himself hoping he had somehow cheated the thing.

The seating area was cold and had those metal seats that felt like sitting on ice. Caleb wished he had his favorite hoodie, but mum had insisted he wear a smart shirt – plus it still smelled like fire. It would be sensible to throw it away. That sentimentality might have gotten him caught... if Amy Carlson hadn’t already grassed him up.

The sound of his mother talking to the receptionist travelled down the hall and into the waiting room. She was laughing with what sounded like relief. When she entered the room her eyes looked ready to stream.

“I never doubted you,” she said, smiling. Her lip quivered as she came in for a hug.

Caleb paced the foyer as his mother signed out at reception. He overheard the lady on reception telling his mother to look out for any unusual symptoms. Apparently a nosebleed was normal after the procedure and nothing to worry about, but mum panicked about it on the taxi ride home anyway. She read the other 36 possible side effects in an increasing high pitched voice.

“Why didn’t they explain any of this before the procedure?” She cried.

“They did,” Caleb sighed, “It was all in the booklet we had to read before signing the waver. Remember? The one we didn’t bother to read.”

“At least they will be off your back now they know you’re innocent,” Mum said with a shaky smile.

The taxi ride home was as slow as taxi rides usually were, made slower by his mother's constant chatter and mithering.

“So, Jay is out of prison next week. I get to have my two boys back together,” she smiled. “Not that I ever lost you,” she was quick to add.

“I was thinking we could throw a party, you know Jay’s friends, you could invite them...”

“Katie can do that,” Caleb decided.

Katie, his cousin, ran in the same circles as Jay, and just happened to live next door. She was in the year above and was friends with the girl Jay had been seeing, despite admitting to not really liking the girl more than once. Caleb didn’t really see the point in being friends with people he didn’t like. All of his friends were carefully hand-picked.

Half listening to his mother, half concentrating on messaging his mates, Caleb was more interested in finding Amy Carlson. Even though he had gotten away with it, she would regret opening her big mouth, purely on principle.

Outside the front of his house, friends and family gathered. At least ten of his mates sat on the wall or crouched beside it. A couple more were messing with a piece of rope and his cousin Katie sat with her best friends, Jade and Haley, smoking cigarettes. He saw Kevin throw something into Jade’s cleavage from fifteen feet away and shriek with joy. She was chasing him into the driveway as the taxi pulled in, her face screwed up in anger.

‘God, I hate that girl,’ Caleb thought.

“One day she will be yours,” a voice inside his mind whispered back.

Caleb shook his head.

He blinked.

‘Who said that?’

As soon as Mum was out of earshot Kenny cried, “Dude! How the hell did you get away with it?”

“You beat the ultimate lie detector?” Aman added, gushing with admiration. As though Caleb had some kind of input over the result. If he had to guess, he would say it was a fluke. No harm in his friends thinking otherwise, however. They stared in awe, open-mouthed, awaiting an explanation that Caleb did not have. He just smiled knowingly and touched his nose.

“Come on, tell us how you did it?” a familiar voice chimed in. His cousin Katie popped her head up and waved. She scanned the faces of his friends briefly, and Caleb knew why.

“She has a crush on your new friend,” his brain whispered. Caleb frowned, wondering why he would notice or care about such a thing, but the look of disappointment on her face seemed to confirm it. Jamie, the newest member of his group, was busy tonight, not that he would be much help in a confrontation.

“I’m innocent,” Caleb told her with a wide smile.

“Bullshit,” Jade scowled. Jay’s on again off again girlfriend was a pain in the arse. She acted like she was so much better than everyone else, living in the posh end of town with her upper-middle-class family, but Caleb knew the truth about her family. Her older brother had been buying drugs from him for years now, and not the soft ones.

“Oh, oh, guys... she’s outside the chippy!” Kenny cried, looking up from his phone. “Hurry, we can catch her.”

As a group they ran down the road into town. They probably should have slowed as they approached the chip shop, as their heavy footsteps and breathing startled the girl into running. It wasn’t a problem. There was no way she could outrun them, even with the head start.

She gave up before they caught her, stopping and turning to face them. She hunched over, one hand between her knees to steady herself and one splayed defensively to halt them.

“I didn’t grass,” she spluttered between panting for breath.

‘Man, she is really out of shape.’

“So, why run?” Caleb asked.

“You were charging at me!” she cried. Caleb had to admit she had a point.

“I swear, I didn’t give the police your name,” she said after a short pause, and somehow Caleb knew she was telling the truth.

“She knows who did,” the little voice whispered inside his head.

“You know who did though, right?” he asked.

Amy’s eyes shifted to the left and blinked. “N – No.”

“Was it your boyfriend?” Kenny asked.

Amy shook her head. She looked about, as though hoping someone might walk past and save her. She was out of luck. Aside from an elderly lady walking a dog, the street was clear. The lady crossed the road to avoid the group of teens and disappeared down an alley.

“Just leave me alone. Haven’t you done enough? I have a second-degree burn—”

“You’ll have a second-degree death if you don’t tell me who went to the police,” Caleb warned. He heard Kenny and Ryan snickering at the ridiculous threat.

“Come on, can't you just let it go? You’re going to get me into so much s**t,” she whined.

“Someone she fears. Who has a worse reputation than you?” the little voice of reason asked.

“Johnny Carter!” Caleb cried.

The shocked look on her face was all the confirmation he needed.

“He’s gonna beat the crap out of you guys. I’d leave it. Seriously,” Amy warned.

“No,” Caleb smiled. “No, he won’t. Because while he’s injecting poison into his veins, eating cornflakes and playing C.O.D, I’m doing cardio and weight training.”

“Plus, you have me,” the little voice hissed inside his head. This time, it wasn’t even pretending to be his own inner dialogue.

Caleb frowned.

...

‘Who the f**k are you?’