Excerpt: These Are The Times That I Fell In Love With You

"STOP IT." Dai was louder, shouted over me, grabbed my shirt. He shook me and I rattled. I trembled. I wasn't going to let them take me away. I'd die before they could rend me limb-from-limb, slice me apart, scramble my insides. I wouldn't let them get that far. I wouldn't stop screaming. Mouth open wide. Roaring. A rebel yell. Never stop. Mom wanted to pull me inside but I wouldn't let her take me. I swung at her, would have punched her out. But Dai was louder. He tackled me and I fell on the grass and I could feel it growing around me. He was going to suffocate me, take me out before I could get away. "DON'T YOU DARE HIT HER, YOU LITTLE SHIT," Dai shouted. "I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU."
Mom was screaming. I was screaming. There was so much noise. He hit my eye, made it black. He wound up and punched like a machine, a gear cranking his arm up and down. Punching sounds like dropping meat on the floor. A steak falling down the stairs. THWAP THWAP THWAP. Black eyes. Busted lip. Bloody face.
Sirens in red-and-blue came over the hill. Scientists in police uniforms. Enforcers of the law. The law of the experiment. Mom never went inside so it must have been a neighbour who called, a research assistant from next door picking up the phone to say, "HE'S IN OUR SIGHT. HE'S RIGHT OUTSIDE. TAKE HIM IN."