Wild (8 page)

Vic looked up at her, eyes fever-bright. “You want some?” He gestured at the powder on the table. “This shit’ll perk you up.”

“I don’t need perking up.” Her pounding head begged to differ. She wet her lips and forced herself to smile. “Unless you brought any ket over, Vic?” She wanted that numb, bendy feeling, wanted to loosen herself up.

“Sorry. You still owe me for the last lot.”

Anger pricked at her but she marched to the table and snorted up a line anyway, almost just to spite him, then stomped into the bathroom before her temper got the better of her and she slammed her fist into his fat nose. She heard Harris mutter something as she ran up the stairs, something that Vic laughed uproariously at.

She turned on the shower and stripped off her sodden, mud-covered clothes. The water was lukewarm, which didn’t improve her mood any. She scrubbed her face angrily, hot tears mingling with the cooling water.

By the time she’d washed all the mud from her hair, the water was icy cold. She wrapped herself in a giant, but slightly damp towel and cracked open the bathroom door, hearing laughter from downstairs. She loitered in the hallway, torn between staying in the bedroom until Vic was gone and going downstairs to see if there was any meth left. In the end, as much as she hated herself for it, she went for the meth. One last line wouldn’t hurt, right? One for the road, one for luck.

She dressed quickly and tied her hair back before heading downstairs. In the living room, Harris and Vic were crowded round the computer in the corner, laughing hysterically. “What’s so funny?” she asked, coming up behind them to see Wolf Watch’s familiar black and red logo on the screen. “God, I don’t know why you two are so obsessed with this stupid site.”

“Look at this, Lizzie.” Vic snatched the mouse from Harris and scrolled down the screen to a fuzzy night-time picture of a dog – maybe a dog, anyway - rooting through an upturned dustbin. “Someone took this just the other night in town. Reckon it was the same wolf that attacked you?” he mocked.

She stared at the photo, fingers shaking as she clutched the back of Harris’s chair. It was … was it? It looked like the same wolf she’d seen in the park, and that night. Lean and ragged-looking. It was hard to be sure from the poor quality of the photo, but it could be. “Shit,” she breathed.

Harris spent half his life on this site. Had she confused these poor quality pictures with real life somehow, under the influence of drugs? Had her nightmares all been triggered by this site? That made more sense than anything else, didn’t it? Much more sense. And Nick… Well, Nick might be a Bible-basher after all, and that would explain his weird behaviour. She supposed being a good Christian and taking drugs probably weren’t mutually exclusive hobbies.

“Look familiar, Lizzie?” Harris asked, reaching back to pat her arm. “I told you, you should have taken us some pictures. We could have won Photo of the Month. They were giving away an Ipod.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she snapped, backing away from the computer. Her head hurt, and she wanted a spliff now rather than a line. Needed to calm down and make sense of all this. “We got any weed?”

“Yeah, just on the table. Roll us a joint, will you?” Harris asked. He stood, stretching. “I’m going down to the shop for some beers.” He winked at Vic as if this was some kind of code. “You two keep each other company, yeah?”

Lizzie eyed him suspiciously as she perched on the edge of the settee to roll the joint. There was something in his tone she didn’t like. Vic grinned at her, face flushed, eyes wide. “We’ll be fine. Take your time,” he told Harris.

Edgy, Lizzie watched Harris saunter out, slamming the door behind him. She lit the joint and sucked in a lungful of smoke, suddenly feeling vulnerable and small under Vic’s gaze. “What?” she asked him.

Vic rubbed his hands together, the gesture striking her as nervous, which unsettled her even more. He wet his lips, pinched his nose. “So, Harris owes me a lot of money at the moment, yeah?”

Oh, it was about money. Lizzie sank back in her seat, relaxing a little. It was always about money. “Yeah, so? We get our benefits next week, he’ll pay you back then.”

Vic shook his head. “Nah, we’ve worked out another deal.” He gave her his stupid smile, sending warning bells ringing in her head. “Harris said you’d be up for it.” He came and sat next to her, too close.

Lizzie shifted back to the edge of the settee. “Up for what?” She was going to kill Harris.

Vic rested his hand on her knee, his fingers squeezing slightly. Her skin crawled as if bugs marched down her spine. “You know, a bit of bartering. I give you two a few lines here and there, you give me … something nice in return.”

Anger fired through her. She wanted to slap him, slap that dumb smile right off his fat face. “Don’t dance around it, Vic, just fucking say it.” She wanted to hear it, wanted to know exactly what Harris had told him. It would keep her angry, and she wanted to be raging with fury when Harris walked back through the door. “What exactly are we talking about here?”

“Sex,” Vic said bluntly. “You know, the odd blow job or whatever.” He slid his hand up her thigh, clumsy and heavy. “Harris said you’d be up for it,” he repeated.

She threw his hand off, leaping to her feet, blazing with anger and mortification. “I wouldn’t touch you if my life depended on it, you fat wanker!”

Vic rose too, towering over her, fists clenched. “Come on, Lizzie, don’t be like that,” he said, a touch of anger in his voice. “It could be a sweet deal. I can keep you in coke, meth, ket, whatever you want. For free. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

She couldn’t believe she was hearing this. She was going to kill them both. How dare Harris? Did he really think that little of her? “I’m quitting drugs and I’m leaving Harris,” she told Vic. “So you can fuck each other for meth for all I care.”

Vic sneered, face turning ugly. “You’re not quitting, Lizzie. I know hundreds of girls like you, always banging on about getting clean and changing their lives, and they never do. You never will. You’ll just come crawling back every time begging for more. You’re pathetic.”

“Fuck you!” she shouted, lashing out at him. It was stupid, it was so stupid, but she couldn’t stop herself. She saw red and she hit him. Vic stumbled back, more in surprise than anything else, an almost comic look of shock on his face. “You and Harris can go to hell!”

He knocked her fist aside when she struck out again, sending her reeling a little, off balance. “Don’t be such a stupid bitch,” he told her. “Fuck, I don’t know why Harris keeps you around anyway.”

The front door opened then, and Harris walked in, a bag of clinking cans in hand. He dropped them on the floor when he saw Lizzie and Vic, a frown on his face. “What the fuck’s this?” he asked.

Lizzie rounded on him, stalking across the room to jab him in the chest. “I’m not some cheap whore you can pimp to your mates for drugs!” she shouted, trying to hold back the tears stinging her eyes. Crying would be even stupider than hitting Vic. The minute she cried, she lost.

“Don’t fucking yell at me!” He reached for her, slapping her hands down when she tried to fend him off. “Fucking hell, Lizzie, you’re a complete headcase at the moment. I don’t know why I bother with you anymore. You’re no fucking fun at all.”

“Dump me then,” she said, wrenching free from his grip. “Find some other girl you and Vic can pass around.”

“Maybe I should!” he shouted. “All you do is whine and complain, and you’re bloody shit in bed too!”

She laughed. “A poor workman blames his tools, right? Maybe if you weren’t so fucked up all the time you’d be able to
have
sex!”

Violence snapped in his eyes. Lizzie tensed, recognising a look she’d seen too many times. Heart hammering, she moved for the door just as Harris’ hand came crashing towards her face.

The blow clipped her, rocking her but not really hurting. She steadied herself against the wall, anger swarming up in her. “Don’t you dare hit me,” she snarled.

Harris balled his hands into fists, his triceps flexing. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

She cringed for a second, tempted to give in and let him win. Then a red haze of hatred fell around her, a hybrid mix of grief and fury. Was she going to spend her whole life letting Harris shove her around? Fuck that. “Don’t touch me,” she growled, her voice thick and low, not her own. Something dark and hungry stirred inside her, like a second being coiled around her heart. “Don’t you dare ever touch me again.”

“Hey, come on.” Vic was suddenly between them, alarm on his face. “We don’t want the neighbours hearing this, do we? Don’t want the coppers round asking questions.”

Harris’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, come on, Lizzie. We don’t want any trouble, do we?”

She did. She wanted lots of trouble. The desire for it was boiling in her blood. She wanted to rip them both to pieces and dance on the remains. A dark being raged inside her, desperate to break out and attack.

“Look,” Harris said, cajoling now, all the anger gone – or at least hidden. “This doesn’t have to be a big deal, yeah? We all want the same thing here, don’t we? And if you play nice, Lizzie, we all get what we want, don’t we?”

The dark being took over and something inside her snapped free. Lizzie lashed at Harris, dragging her nails down his face, raking through his stubbled cheek to draw blood. She heard herself yelling but she didn’t know what she was saying. Harris raised his hands to fend her off and they tangled together, clawing and scraping at each other in a blind fury.

The rich coppery tang of blood, his and hers, flooded her nostrils, winding her up and driving that other being into a frenzy. “I hate you! I hate you!” she shrieked at him, slamming her fists into his chest.

Suddenly Vic was between them again, pushing her away. She stumbled, banging into the coffee table. “That’s enough!” he bellowed. “Fucking hell, Lizzie, you’re a proper headcase.”

“I should have dumped you months ago,” Harris snarled, rubbing his face where she’d scratched him.

Lizzie fell onto the settee, the rage driven from her in a rush. That wild strength that coursed through her when she hit Harris lingered, turned to dizzy fright now, but still there. It had felt good to hit him. The smell of his blood had whetted a wicked appetite in her, something she couldn’t name and could barely suppress. She stared at the gleaming red droplets on his cheek. His blood. Her blood. Hot desire spurted through her. She wet her lips.

She had to get out of here. Both of them were staring daggers at her, and she suddenly felt incredibly exposed, open to harm. You heard about this kind of thing, didn’t you? Drugged up twats killing each other by accident – it happened all the time. No, no, she had to get out of here before that dark other being inside her snapped again and something bad happened.

“I’m…I’m going out…” Trembling with spent adrenaline, she slunk from the room, listening to the two men mumble at each other. She scooped up her car keys, pausing at the front door to hear Vic raise his voice.

“You wanna dump her, mate, seriously. She’s insane.”

“Fuck you, Vic,” she shouted, slamming the door behind her.

She ran down to the Mazda, fingers shaking as she fumbled with the keys. She wasn’t a violent person. She
wasn’t
. Sure, she’d hit Harris before, but only in self-defence. She’d never attacked him like that. She couldn’t have. She wasn’t that strong. She wasn’t violent.

She got in the car, started driving, didn’t care where she was going. She needed drugs. She clung to that thought as tightly as she clung to her steering wheel. No uppers, she needed to go down, into oblivion. Ketamine. Even heroin, if she could find it. That was what she needed. She wiped the back of her hand across her mouth and tasted blood again, and suddenly realised that drugs wouldn’t be enough. She needed something else. Something more potent. More visceral.

Maybe I’m turning into a vampire. The thought was grimly amusing and she bared her teeth at her reflection in the rear view mirror, choking down a hysterical laugh as she did so.

Jesus, what was happening to her? A throbbing headache bloomed behind her eyes and the road blurred in front of her. Someone honked their horn and she honked back instinctively as she swerved the Mazda back into the right lane, just avoiding clipping the other car. “Arsehole,” she muttered, not really sure if she meant them or herself.

Without thinking about it, she headed for Hope Street and the bombed-out church. The car tyres crunched on broken glass as she pulled into a space at the roadside and she was transported back to the night Harris had driven off, leaving her in the rain to be attacked. “Christ.” She slumped forwards until her head rested on the steering wheel.

She sat up again, staring at the sun as it slowly began its descent into the west, painting the sky azure and orange. She thought about going home. Home to Harris shouting and raging at her. Home to more drugs, more nightmares, more of this … mess. Home to Harris reminding her she was helpless without him. Everyone thought she was helpless, incapable of standing up for herself. They must do, or they wouldn’t push her around like this.

And they must be right, or she wouldn’t let them do it.

She rubbed her arms, feeling hot and itchy. She opened the window to let cool air rush into the car, soothing her a little. She stared at her reflection in the rear view mirror. It was like staring at a stranger.