HELLRAISER

That was the trouble with being a hellraiser.

Sometimes you got burned.

Marlow Green knew this better than anyone. How many times had he heard it? From his teachers, when he got kicked out of class. From the principals, when he got kicked out of schools. From his mom, over and over. You set fire to the world and you run, Marly. And he did. Not literally — hellraiser, yes; arsonist, definitely not — but he lit up the world around him, started wildfires that burned through bridges, that sent his friends and his family packing, that spat and roared into his future, destroying it before he could even get there. Then, when it got too hot, he turned and bolted.

One of these days you're gonna start a fire that can't be put out, his mom had told him. One you can't ever run fast enough to escape. And he'd always wondered when that would be, always wondered what he'd have to do to ignite an inferno of that magnitude.

Turned out the answer to the first question was now. And the second? Yeah, that would be carving a certain part of the male anatomy into the paintwork of his principal's car.

They came for him during class. They didn't knock, just barged in through the door like they were raiding a meth lab instead of math. Half the kids were dozing off, staring out the dirty windows at the blazing June sunshine that drenched Staten Island. The sight of three school cops and the principal flooding into the room like a dark, cold current made everyone jump.

"Green!" growled the principal, Mr. Caputo, a scarecrow of a man drowning in his cheap suit. He pointed a blade-like finger at Marlow. "That's him."

Oh, crap.

The biggest of the three cops pushed his way through the desks. Everyone called him Yogi because he was always confiscating kids' lunches, then scarfing them. That and the fact he was a major fat-ass. His eyes were two raisins drowning in the doughy flesh of his face and he smiled wickedly at Marlow with sausage lips.

"Got you."

Marlow blew out a long sigh and sat back in his chair, feeling the heat on his cheeks. He