'But you'd have heard about it,' Ethan said. 'That kind of news gets around. Kids freaking out. Ending up in hospital like you did today. The police would already be investigating and what do you think they'd find out if they did? That the people experiencing drug-related episodes all went to one of your boyfriend's club nights. The boyfriend who happens to be closely associated with local gangster and poster-boy of the old school network, Oscar Turnbull. Trust me, if this was down to Oscar and his drugs, your boyfriend would have had his balls ripped off by now and shoved so far up his arse that no surgeon in the land would be able to extract them. And you?'He smiled and I froze.'All the thigh-skimming dresses in the world wouldn't help you, Casey. You'd find yourself in a filthy, back street club in Kiev within days, drugged up to your eyeballs, wearing nothing but your knickers and turning tricks just to stay alive.'Suddenly, I realised just how stupid I'd been. Ho

Three grams of Charlie in a small plastic bag. Two pills, one blue, one white. Two blotters of acid, one with a strawberry picture, the other with a heart.I sat on the side of the bed, fist pressed against my lips, one foot constantly tapping a jive against the floor. Reaching out, I straightened up the line of drugs on the bedside table, spacing them out, then went back along and did it again. I stood up abruptly, began to walk away and stopped.Three grams. Two pills. Two tabs.Turning around, I stared at the line-up and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. Taking a step closer, I hesitated, clutching at my hair. With a whimper, I opened the drawer, quickly swiping the cocktail into it and shut it firmly, stepping back to watch the small table lamp wobble on top of the unit, the light juddering on the walls.I walked away. Stopped. Glanced back. Closed my eyes.Screams filled my ears, like the shrieks of a thousand birds, wings furiously beating at the air.

I didn't know how long I'd been laying on the staircase.Maybe a lifetime. Maybe just a few moments.I remembered getting in the cab, but not the journey home. I remembered fumbling with the key in the lock and walking into the house, although walking was a stretch of the truth to be fair. Shuffling would have been more apt. I'd gotten as far as the staircase and collapsed, half-twisted on my back, staring up at the ceiling. There was a cobweb right above my head, a thin wispy strand that danced on the breeze blowing through the still-open doorway.I couldn't move. I wanted to, I think I wanted to, I knew I probably should have moved. The front door was open, after all. The keys were still in the lock. But I'd been falling since I'd reached home, falling as I lay on my back staring upwards at the cobweb, falling even though I wasn't falling at all. I was dimly aware that my leg was bent at an angle that was uncomfortable and that there was a dull pain building in the base o

There's a monster at my door.I hear it all the time. This hissing of its breath. The scratching of its claws. Rapping its knuckles on wood.Knock, knock, knock.There's a monster at my door.It wears the face of my mother. It wears the face of many. It smiles to deceive, to trick, but its teeth are needles, razor-sharp and tipped with poison. I see them.I see.There's a monster at my door.No shadow can hide me. Darkness cannot conceal me. I'm a flickering light, I'm warm flesh, I'm a beating heart.Knock, knock, knock .There's a monster at my door and it won't go away.It won't ever go away.*******The faint scent of cigarette smoke filtered through the gap in the partly-open doorway.The voice of a newsreader I couldn't stand, drifted in with the smoke, serving as nothing but background noise to the crack of bone and screams I could still hear.

I'd never been special. Not once.I'd been told I was, but only by those who couldn't look me in the eye as they hurt me. They stroked my hair and told me I was special, that I was a good girl, that I was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen and then they covered my eyes from it all, as if covering my eyes would make a difference. As if covering my eyes numbed the pain. As if covering my eyes would make me believe them.But I never did, because I knew I wasn't special. I knew .Being Davey's top girl had made other people think I was special, but I'd never believed that either. I just took another pill, snorted another line and smiled as I covered my own eyes.That Ethan could believe there was anything remotely remarkable about me was insane. I was a nobody. Nothing. But he was looking at me like no one ever had, like he was seeing beyond the façade, beyond the Casey Brogan that everyone else saw and he wasn't just seeing the layers of dirt and filth underneath.