“Yeah, make me a sandwich, will ya?”

I don’t even bother heading for the kitchen, I just quietly snatch up the gun from the table along with his keys, which I stuff into my pocket, and then I cock the gun and point it at the back of his head. He stills.

“Make your own goddamned sandwich.”

“What the fuck are you doin’, bitch?”

“Sorry, Killer, but you kind of suck at this babysitting thing.” His hands are in his lap, and he tries to turn towards me but I shout, “Hands where I can see them.”

He lets out an angry sigh and puts his hands up, crossing them behind his head. “Don’t do this, Ivy. You’re gonna get my head beaten in. And you’ve been clean for how many days now?”

“Too many,” I reply. I rummage through the pockets inside his hoodie, and smile when my hand seizes a tiny plastic bag. I pull it out and laugh as I glance at the little bag of snow-white powder. “You really are the worst liar, Killer.”

“Put the fuckin’ gun down, bitch.”

“Sorry. But this is more than just a fix to me. I know you don’t understand it; none of you do. But it’s life or death.” I ease back towards the front door and Killer stands.

“I can’t let you walk out that door, Ivy.”

“Yes, you can. Unless you want your head splattered all over Tank’s cabin,” I say evenly, but my hands are shaking, and my blood is whooshing in my ears, thundering through my veins with both excitement and desperation. “You’re going to let me walk.”

“Fucking bitch,” he says, and there’s murder in his eyes. Not because I’m stealing his drugs, and probably not because I have a gun pointed at his head, but because he knows he’s a dead man when Tank finds out I’ve gone.

He takes a step towards me and I squeeze the trigger. The gun goes off. The kickback jolts my arm and almost knocks me off my feet because I didn’t brace properly. I recover in time to see what I already knew—that I’m a lousy shot. Killer strides towards me. I turn and flee the cabin. I run for the bike, but Killer is already out of the house and sprinting towards me. My restless legs like running even less than they like standing still, and I know I’ll never make it and get the thing started before he’s on me so I dart in the opposite direction. It’s too risky to stop and aim—he’d be on top of me and dragging my arse right back to the house before I could even fire off a shot, much less hit him with one. I stalk around to the side of the house, through the thick scrub that I’ve spent days and sometimes even nights studying from my bedroom window, and I disappear into it.

Killer’s behind me though, his heavy footsteps thudding across the grass. I duck under tree limbs and jump over bushes. I don’t know much about Killer’s past, but I know he used to play on the football team in high school. He’s young and fit, and yeah, pretty fucking stupid, but he’s fitter than me. He won’t stop until he’s caught me, and even then he might consider knocking me out in order to drag me back to the house. He won’t stop unless I make him.

Abruptly, I turn and aim the gun, but Killer just barrels towards me. I dart away at the last minute, but it’s not quick enough. He stumbles and falls, grabbing my leg and dragging me down with him. I don’t hesitate; I just shoot.

“Ah fuck!” he roars and blood blooms on his shirt sleeve, trailing down the tattoos on his arm. “You fuckin’ shot me. You bitch. You fuckin’ shot me.” He clutches his shoulder. I don’t waste time. I just run.

“Get back here, you fuckin’ bitch!”

I don’t bother looking back. Only forward. I know he’s likely losing a lot of blood as he gives chase again, and for a half-second I think of throwing him the keys to his bike so he can drive himself to a hospital, but I can’t have him follow me. I need away from that house, away from Tank.

Maybe I’ll find another club that will take me in. Maybe I’ll just wind up on the street turning tricks for drug money, or maybe my father will find me and finally slit my throat the way he threatened to the last time I ran. It doesn’t matter. All that does matter is not bringing them down with me. And more than that, what matters right now is the teeny, tiny bag of junk clutched firmly in my grasp. I thrust my hand deep into my pocket so I won’t lose it as I move.

I run until my legs give out. I run long after Killer has stopped chasing me. It’s dark now, and adrenaline is making me raw and exposed. The trees have cleared a little, giving way to dense underbrush that crunches beneath my bare feet. Night has set in thick and fast, and even though I’m sweating, the cold wraps itself around me and seeps into my bones. I sit down on a log and take stock of where I am. An owl hoots; nearby, a small stream runs and I’m dying for a drink, but I’m so exhausted I don’t have the energy to walk there. I really should have planned this better. I should have taken my jacket that I’d shed when I woke earlier, and a couple of Tank’s shitty power bars. Not to mention shoes. I’ve been running through the cold July woods barefoot in only a singlet top and a pair of jeans for God only knows how long.

I shake and stare around me in the darkness. The chances of me finding someone else wandering the woods are pretty slim, especially at this hour, but I still find my ears pricking up at every tiny sound that echoes through the forest. I don’t really want to spend the night here, but what other choice do I have? I have a set of keys and … the coke. In all the adrenaline-induced fear I forgot the thing I was running for.

The thing I was running towards.

I shift on the log and shove my hand in my pocket, yanking out the keys and closing my fist around the tiny bag. I can’t snort it, I know that much—not unless I want it contaminated with moss and shit from the forest floor. I open the bag and dump it into my mouth. I wince at the sharp chemical taste but delight in it all the same because it’s so familiar. Pushing the powder around as much as I can, I run my coke-covered tongue over my gums and around my mouth. When I can hold it in my mouth no more, I swallow, thrust my tongue into the bag and lick it clean. My whole mouth goes numb.

Moments later, I taste nothing, I see everything, and I feel fucking incredible.

Jesus Christ. I’ve seen some fucked up shit in my time, I’ve done some fucked up shit, but nothing has nor will ever stay with me like witnessing what was on those tapes. I wish I’d fought harder when Kick tried to save his new bitch from my gun. I wish I’d ignored him and riddled her brain with bullets, because anyone who has been through that much torture shouldn’t be left alive to remember it. I know I sure as hell wouldn’t wanna be.

I’d taken the videos, pictures, the collection of teeth and everything else we found in that little shrine of fucked up goodness back to the clubhouse for Prez to deal with, and I’d doused every square centimetre of that room of horrors in petrol and thrown the match, torching the place. But I hadn’t left it there, because I couldn’t get the vision of those sick fucks sliding a knife between the ribs of a girl no older than thirteen. Her hair hung limp in front of her face. Her body was covered in shit and blood, but I still saw the nothingness in her gaze when she’d lifted her head to the camera. She hadn’t begged, she hadn’t cried—she wasn’t even fucking there anymore, even though she’d been very much alive. They wanted her to beg, and she wouldn’t. She didn’t say or do anything at all, she just hung there from the Saint Andrew’s cross.

I watched the life slip out of her eyes as the fucking cop jacked off and rubbed his cum into her body, and I thought about Ivy’s past, and wondered whether her father had been this kind of monster, or whether he’d played nice. The concerned parent, the man who only wanted her to feel good. Had he pretended that he loved her? Pretend being the operative fuckin’ word, because you didn’t love anyone you could hurt that badly. You didn’t destroy what you loved.