"Go - fuck - yersel'," he manages in a taut, breathless snarl, and a successful wrench tears him from the other boy's grasp.

It's the only window he needs. He's fair fucking fast when he needs to be, always has been. Always has had to be. He stops only to jerk two fingers up in a defiant 'V' before facilitating his escape by pitching himself over the edge of the slide. He lands in a flurry of sawdust and scrawny limbs but picks himself up immediately, scrambling off and away.