Out of habit Lukas had initially avoided the sheriff and his sons but once the town had learnt of his family history it was like they were always watching him, waiting for him to slip up.

One summer the elder son, Marko, had tried to pin a string of vegetable thefts on Lukas; going so far as to convince some of the other boys to provide false witness. Everyone had been half convinced until the real perpetrator got caught in the act. It had turned out to be Marko’s younger brother, Artony. The secondary motive for blaming Lukas must have been to protect his brother.

What really angered Lukas in the whole affair was that because Artony was a good boy from a good home everyone just wrote it off as youthful foolishness and the whole thing was forgiven and forgotten, which was vastly different to when they thought Lukas was at fault.

Standing in the doorway Marko had the same amused malice shining in his too small, dull brown eyes; an unflattering family feature shared by all three men.

“What do they want?” The blow to Lukas’ head had shaken him up and he couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Allwood ignored him and turned to the three men. “I made sure he didn’t do a runner, had to rough the brat up a bit.”

“Good work Allwood, mutts like this always try to slip away once they are finally found out,” Sheriff Eelroy clapped his hand on Allwood’s shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself for this, you did all you could. Hell you did more than he deserved. Some’m just born bad.”

Lukas had seen this dance before, people saying the right and correct things, but if you look closely at their eyes you could see the truth. Allwood was acting contrite but his eyes were gloating. Lukas couldn’t figure out what was going on but whatever it was, it was not good. Maybe if he stayed small and quiet they would forget about him.

It didn’t work.

“Lukas Quince, you are to come with us immediately, if you resist we will use force.” The sheriff kept his voice cool and professional but in those beady little eyes Lukas saw something like satisfaction or vindication.

“I don’t- what’s going on?”

“You’re being arrested, that’s what’s going on,” Marko butt in, twisting the grip of his cudgel in his hands. His father held up a hand to silence him.

“We just have a few questions in regards to the break-in and robbery up at Arckvile this afternoon.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” a slight lie, the thief had been in this room only moments ago and Lukas even knew his name now. But he couldn’t have explained how he knew these things. “I was there when it happened but that’s it. I don’t know anything else.”

“Even so, you will come with us now,” Eelroy motioned to his son and Marko happily stepped forward and pulled Lukas to his feet. Large rough fingers dug into Lukas’ flesh as Marko led him to the door. Lukas tried not to give him the satisfaction of showing his pain but his head was still ringing and suddenly standing had caused a wave of dizziness to wash over him. He stumbled slightly in an attempt to steady himself.

“Stop resisting,” Marko almost purred in delight before yanking and twisting Lukas’ arm up behind his back and almost out of its socket.

Lukas let out a desperate cry of pain, but no one made an effort to stop his rough handling. He even thought he saw a small smile on Allwood’s face. In that instant he was that young boy again, wrongly accused, alone and afraid. But this time it wasn’t over some missing vegetables.