Earl wasn’t happy. This was the fourth Saturday in a row that he was working the night shift and to make matters worse he was working by himself. All night his friends had been texting him whilst they were out on the town and he was stuck there watching the forecourt.

Moths were circling the lights on the canopy ceiling lights like a huge pack of rats fighting over a morsel of food. The sticky July air was worse at Night. Earl was observing this from behind the night pay window, the whole time daydreaming about finishing his shift and going outside as the air inside the petrol station was stifling and humid, not to mention that the oven was preheating for the baking. Earl hated the heat but felt like it was good for him as it made him sweat and sweating was his sign that he was losing weight. He was short for a man, very broad and stocky, people would describe him as square built. His mass of blonde hair didn’t help as it made him look like someone had just come along and plonked a massive blonde wig on top of a large pigs head.
Three in the morning had come and gone and Earl had not had one single customer so it surprised him when I sprinter van sped in to the forecourt and skidded in front of the night pay window where he was watching the moths.
He watched as the passenger hurriedly got out of the van, slammed the door and ran over to the night pay/ What worried Earl was the fact that the potential customer was wearing a black balaclava with holes where his eyes and mouth was. The man reached in to the front of his trouser like he was about to itch his manhood and pulled out a shotgun and pointed it straight at Earl. Earl stared at the gun calmly and then looked in to the eyes of the gunman and smiled.
“How can I help?” Earl said in his usual customer friendly voice.
“I’m not even joking, fatty, you open up your till and give me the money out of it otherwise I will shoot your face in to oblivion,” growled the gunman.
He was slightly offended at being called ‘fatty’, yes he was stocky and had a belly for his age but there was no need for that. Earl’s best option was to keep calm, smile and be very sarcastic.
“Oblivion, that’s quite word for a thief, but okay…” he opened the till to show the gunman that there were no notes inside, just a minimal amount of change, “How would you like it? I’ve got a couple of envelopes?”
The mouth of the gunman had opened wide, he knew this heist was a waste of time but he didn’t want to leave with a bag of pennies.
“Where are the notes you little shit?” he spat.
“Down the shoot, in the safe in the office. I can’t get at it, even if I tried they would be automatically sprayed with ink so they would be useless,” Earl said.
“How much have you got in your wallet?”
Earl got his wallet out and showed the gunman a wad of receipts.
“FUCK!” shouted the gunman.
“Yeah, I work at a petrol station mate, we charge you the Earth but we’re still monkeys mate, we get paid peanuts,” said Earl, smirking.
“Don’t you smirk at me you little shit, you’re hiding that money,” said the gunman.
Earl let out a short burst of laughter.
“Yeah, I’d really shove money down my trousers in front of the cameras,” said Earl.
The gunman struck his gun against the night pay window.
“It’s bulletproof mate, you’re powerless,” said Earl.
“POWERLESS?! POWERLESS?!”
“Yes, powerless. There is literally no way in for you mate,” said Earl.
“Which means there is no way out for you,” the gunman smiled.
“Of course there is, I work here mate,” said Earl, his fingers had just moved to the two red buttons underneath where he was standing. These two buttons were a one way signal to the Police in case there was trouble. Earl pressed them.
“Come on mate… My daughters sick,” the gunman was trying the sob story.
“That shit don’t bother me mate, I couldn’t give a damn if your daughter was on her death bed, there is no way you’re getting in here and there is no way that you’re going to find any money if you do,” said Earl looking seriously in to the gunman’s eyes.
The gun was pointed at Earl’s chest as it spoke. The glass, of course, wasn’t bullet proof. It shattered when confronted by the bullet. This is when Earl moved like the wind. It happened faster than he could think and what he achieved he never believed he could do. It would scar him for the rest of his life but it saved his life which his future friends would always reassure him was the right choice.
Every single pump pipe on the forecourt burst, issuing out all types of fuel and gasses. When this happened the sprinter vans doors sprang open and five other men in balaclavas sprang out, all of them running towards the night pay to get in to the building. One of them had stupidly been smoking a cigarette and as he ran out of the van had flicked it subconsciously in to the flammable liquid now spilling on to the forecourt floor. At once the forecourt was ablaze, flames spitting in all directions and hitting the gang of sprinter van thieves. All of them writhing in pain as they burned alive. The flames didn’t stop there, they began to move towards the building like it was on a path of revenge and it was finally free from it’s prison of tankards.
Earl, at this point, had realised what had happened, he had no anticipated the flames to begin so quickly. He hadn’t know that there was a whole gang of thieve in the van and it was just sods law that one of them was stupid enough to be smoking in the vicinity of a petrol station. He was running out the back towards the back fire door, he hit the fire alarm, even though that wouldn’t do anything, as he sprinted out of the door. He knew that within a matter of seconds the Police would be here anyway because of hitting the panic buttons. As soon as he was outside he let the air hit his face for a second before running to his car which was solitarily waiting for him by the bin sheds well away from the forecourt’s fire. As soon as he got in his car Earl looked in his rear view mirror and saw the shop begin to smoke, the fire had got in there quicker than he thought, the canopy was also on fire, he knew that any second the explosion was going to happen.
He turned the key in the ignition, started his car, reversed quicker than the car wanted to, he stalled, restarted his car and pulled off in first gear. He drove round the bend and past the forecourt now on fire, fearing that the heat would ignite his own car. When he drove past he knew he was safe and stamped on his accelerator. His car flew up the slip road and on to the dual carriageway. The whole time he was looking in his rear view mirror. He could see flashing blue lights in the distance behind him, he was observing when there was a huge flash of a mass of yellow, orange and blue as the petrol station blew up behind him with an almighty BOOM!
Earl hadn’t realised how fast and loud he was breathing until he was safe from the vicinity of the petrol station. Dawn had started to arrive and the sun was coming up. He knew that he was in trouble, the police would want to talk to him, ask him how it had happened but he wouldn’t be able to explain how every single pump had burst. He knew how it had happened of course, it had been that thing he could do. He’d known he could do it for a while but he had never used it like that before. He hadn’t told a soul through fear of being disowned by his trusted friends. He thought about his friends for a second, realising that he would;t be able to talk to them again. He was now on the run.
Earl squeezed his steering wheel, screaming. He needed to get as far away from town as possible, he needed to get some clothes, he needed to get a new car, he needed… He needed… Money. No he didn’t! His hand moved to his trouser pocket where there was a gigantic bulge, he had emptied the till. He didn’t know why he’d done it, he had spontaneously emptied every single note out of the till minutes before the van had turned up. He hadn’t even sent any money to the office safe the whole time he had been working the shift, there must have been at least eight hundred pounds in his pocket. Earl didn’t smile, his brain was working over time, there was a moment where he thanked God that he was the only person on the road.
He had to change his clothes first and then ditch the car… His mind was racing. He had an idea of what to do but it was too early in the day to do so, especially as it was the weekend, what he planned was at least four hours behind what he would like.
“It would be a fucking Sunday, wouldn’t it?” he asked himself.
He asked himself why he was talking to himself and he replied by telling himself that he was probably going to be the only company he’s going to have for a while. Little did he know that he was completely wrong.

Christy Valentine was in love. Again. This time she knew it was for real. She had seen him playing football at lunch time on the school field whilst she was walking to her favourite spot to read her book. She had noticed the handful sized group of girls in the same year as her, year eleven, huddled together, giggling and looking at him as he played with his best friends. When he tackled his best friend who started to play fight with him and they began to spar with each other, the girls began to giggle even louder at his boisterous mannerisms. Mitch Roberts, was playing for the crowd when he punched his best friend, Dave, a tall ginger boy who followed Mitch everywhere, hard in the nose and caused it to bleed.
When this happened the girls began to scream and ran over to see if Mitch’s best friend was alright. Mitch stood over them repeating the words “He knows I didn’t mean it” over and over again, convincing himself more than his friends. Mitch walked off knowing that his few seconds of female attention had gone and he let down his barrier of solidness as he walked off down the school field staring at his shoes and looking quite upset. The whole time this had been going on Christy had been watching him.
She was a confident girl, she thought. She got up and started walking towards him, catching up with him halfway back to school.
“Hey Mitch, you alright?” she called to him.
Mitch turn his face to see who had called him and when she saw him his face changed in to revulsion.
“Oh, I know you don’t I?” he asked.
“Yes, I sit next to you in Maths, you think that I’m clever enough to copy from but stupid enough to bully,” said Christy.
“Right!” said Mitch, raising his head slightly in an ‘I don’t give a damn’ motion.
“I saw what you did to Dave, is he alright?”
“Not you as well… I didn’t mean it, okay, he knows that?”
“Or maybe you did mean it because you thought it would impress those girls?” said Christy.
“No!”
“Well, it didn’t impress them but it certainly impressed me,” said Christy, the worrying thing to Christy was that she wasn’t lying and she knew that what she had said was honest but it was also wrong.
Mitch stopped, he looked Christy up and down, staring down at her from his towering height.
“You’re a little bit dark aren’t you?” asked Mitch. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’re still not my type though. Lose a bit of weight, grow some boobs and change the face a bit and then we might talk”
Christy stopped, oblivious to what Mitch had just said.
“Charming,” she said. “I shall work on it”
Christy had gone home that day, refused her food and had gone straight upstairs to revise. It may have been early March but there were only twelve school weeks left at school before study leave and then the exams would really begin. She also had that amount of time to change herself for Mitch’s sake, she wanted to be his date to the school Prom.
Until now she had never wanted to go to Prom, she thought it was a ridiculous idea adopted by the Americans. Truth be told she still believed that, but the idea of turning up to Prom with the best looking boy in the year was enough to shove out the beliefs of American adopted events. She had a plan. She was going to lose weight, get herself a nice figure and become desirable.
For weeks she starved herself, eating morsels of food everyday, just to try and lose a bit of weight. She drank buckets of water at a time and was constantly on the toilet. She began to feel ill and tired all of the time but she didn’t care, she was going to look good and she was determined. She was stubborn with it too. When people told her that what she was doing was unhealthy she would become defensive and ignore them, becoming alone in her struggles.
Every lunch time she watched Mitch play football, he was unaware of his stalker. Christy, being a private person anyway, didn’t even tell her closest friends of her plans to persuade Mitch Roberts to take her to prom by losing weight, hopefully getting some boobs and wearing some make up to make her face look prettier. They had, out of all of those aspects, noticed that Christy was beginning to lose weight, but not just a little bit. They had told her one Monday that she looked like she’d lost a tonne of weight over the space of the weekend. This, of course, made Christy happy and gave her the belief that her plan was working and so she continued with her rapid dieting.
It wasn’t until late April that Christy approached Mitch again, apart from mitch obviously copying from Christy’s Maths Book.  It was in the large corridors at school during the change over from Science to Maths, he was at his locker which happened to be right outside the girls toilets when she spotted him whilst coming out of the toilet herself.
“Oh hey?” she said to him, acting surprised to see him at his own locker.
The tone of Christy’s confident voice caught Mitch by surprise, he looked round expecting to see a hot girl that he knows and likes, the last person that he expected was Christy Valentine.
“Alright?” he asked half heartedly.
“Yes. Really good, thanks. Are you looking forward to Maths?” Christy asked stupidly, trying to make conversation.
Mitch gave her a look and sniggered through his nose.
“No, I never look forward to any lessons,” Mitch said.
“What about PE, you’re really good at football,” said Christy.
“Yeah, you’re just saying that,” said Mitch.
“I’m really not, I think you’re really good. You impress me anyway,” said Christy.
“What do you know about football? So I impress you at giving my friend a broken nose? I impress you with playing football with my friends?” asked Mitch, getting defensive.
“Well… To tell the truth… Yes,” said Christy. “Have you ever thought about Rugby?”
“Rugby is for pansies,” said Mitch.
“Pansies? And football isn’t for pansies? Rolling around on the floor pretending to be injured and then the next minute scoring a goal and having your whole team jump on you like some gang bang?” asked Christy, giving Mitch a smart look.
“What did you want?” asked Mitch, changing the subject.
“I’ve lost weight,” smiled Christy.
“Have you?” smirked Mitch.
“Yes. Quite a lot actually, and I did it because you told me to,” said Christy.
“Because I told you to? You do everything a boy you have a crush on tells you?” asked Mitch. “If so then your life must be very… Boring”
“Depends on what you define as boring,” said Christy. “Smoking spliffs, monging out and destroying you liver every weekend sounds pretty boring to me, especially in the long run”
“And spending my weekends starving myself because some boy told me to and reading textbooks to be an absolute psycho boffin is boring to me,” said Mitch. “We’re going to be late for class”
True enough, the corridor was now deserted apart from a couple of stragglers or a handful of students planning on bunking off their upcoming lesson. Mitch began to walk off.
“We’re in the same class,” said Christy, catching up with him and walking by his side to class.
“Hey Mitch, wait up,” shouted Dave, the boy who’s nose Mitch broke, from down the corridor.
“Fuck off, Dave!” Mitch snapped. “Not right now”
“Alright. Fuck you then,” Dave shouted back, Christy looked at Dave and saw him bow his head in disappointment.
Something clicked in Christy’s head.
“Take me to prom!” she said to Mitch.
“What? Why would I want to do something like that?” asked Mitch.
“Because I know that you will,” said Christy. “Especially if you’re blackmailed”
“Blackmailed?” Mitch snorted again. “What have you got to blackmail me?”
“You’re friends might be stupid Mitch, but I’m not,” said Christy. “I know what your little secret is”
Even if she was wrong, she knew that she had his attention. Everybody little secrets, even her. To Christy’s surprise, Mitch’s face was turning red. He didn’t look angry, he looked embarrassed.
“You can’t tell anyone,” said Mitch. “It wouldn’t be fare”
He hadn’t even asked her what she knew, she could have been lying but the fact is, it was so severe and so serious that it must be true.
“So, you’ll take me?” asked Christy, grabbing hold of his arm.
Mitch didn’t respond. He was in deep thought, his eyes were focused ahead and his feet were still moving.
“Mitch? You’re going to walk in to-“
THWAK! Mitch walked head first in to a locker instead of turning right to go to the Maths Department. Christy let go of his arm and Mitch clutched his head.
“Ouch! Jesus Christ that hurt, what happened?” he looked at Christy. “Did you push me? That wasn’t very nice”
“No… I… Are you going to take me or what?” she asked.
“Yeah, I suppose,” said Mitch, wincing as he clutched his forehead still. “Seeing as you’re blackmailing me”
“I’m nice really, maybe you should learn to look with your head and not with your eyes,” said Mitch.
“Maybe you should learn to lose weight and wear some make up,” said Mitch.
“Touché. However, having a narrow mind won’t help you once you leave school,” said Christy.
“Not if I’m a professional footballer,” said Mitch.
Christy held back a snigger, luckily her efforts worked, Mitch didn’t see anything. He was too busy controlling his pain by shutting his eyes tight.
“We’re going to be so late,” said Christy.
“You’re never late, just tell them that you saw me fall over or something,” said Mitch. “Harris would believe you”
To Christy’s amazement her lying to Mr Harris, the Maths teacher, about their lateness actually worked. The worst part was not the guilty feeling of lying to a teacher but the glares that Christy got from the rest of the girls in the class when she followed Mitch over to where they sit. As soon as the work was set and their heads were bowed over their Maths books, whispered ensued and Christy heard prominently the words ‘bitch’ and ‘skunk’ used on several occasions. If this was what it was going to be like for just walking in to class with him, she wondered the amount of talk and stares that would go around when it was announced that Christy Valentine and Mitch Roberts were going to Prom together. A shiver went down Christy’s spine, part of her thought that maybe blackmailing the most popular and good looking boy in the year was a bad idea, but then again maybe it was her time to become desirable.

Christy walked in to school the next morning with a new energy. She was bouncing. Her long dark brunette hair was no longer looking wild, it was still curly but it looked like it had been washed for once, everything looked as though she had washed. She was glowing.
As she walked past a huddled group of girls she could feel the burning eyes watch her walk from the school bus to the entrance of the school. She had only walked in to class with Mitch. Granted, it was the first time she had ever been late for a lesson and it could look suspicious. Maybe they couldn’t believe that Christy Valentine might have actually lied to a teacher about being late for class when she was late for screwing Mitch Roberts behind the bin sheds or something.
Christy heard them mutter and whisper;
“I knew she’d been losing all that weight for a reason”
“Look at her, how she walks now. Skank. You can’t polish a turd”
They were just jealous, Christy thought. Jealous.
Christy was walking up to her locker when she saw from the corner of her eye someone come out of the open library doors and push her in to a set of lockers opposite. The noise was immense and the pain in Christy’s shoulder was worse, but before she could even think about the pain a hand flew through the air and the palm of it hit her full in the face. Christy put her arms up to block the blows. She saw through the mass of hair that had blown over her face from the impact that it was a girl who had hit her, but she couldn’t recognise her. There must have been a crowd gathering because there was a chant of ‘FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!’ repeated over and over again. Whoever had hit Christy was frantically hitting every part of Christy’s body that she could. Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Christy moved her arms to try and block blows in different place on her body, the girl seized the opportunity and hit her hard in the face. Christy pushed this girl away, grabbing hold of her arm. The girl stopped immediately.
“I’m sorry, I’m really, really sorry,” she started saying.
Christy kept hold of her arm and with the other one she brushed the hair out of her face finally giving her the view to look upon her attacker. Jennifer Gibbs, a girl in her Maths class was staring at her, daily, entranced, dreamy and happy.
“Are you alright?” asked Christy.
“I’m fine,” said Jennifer, letting out a little giggle. “Are you?”
“No, you’ve just tried to beat me to a pulp,” said Christy.
“Yeah,” Jennifer giggled again. “Sorry about that, I didn’t mean to”
Christy looked round at her shocked crowd, all of them staring in disbelief at the change of events. Christy let go of Jennifer’s arm and made a bee line for her locker. As she walked past them, the crowd opened a gap for her, and they moved out of her way like they didn’t want to be touched. To Christy, this was the norm, every pupil in that school did it to her apart from the people she knew, for some reason people thought she might have a contagious disease or they might adopt her intelligent thinking if they touched her. Christy laughed silently through her nose at her amusing thoughts.
Word of Jennifer Gibbs’ attack on Christy spread like wildfire, by the time she had walked to registration Christy was bombarded with questions. Not one of them asking if she was alright, just questions on how it started, who won, what happened in the end and all of them wanted to know why Jennifer had been so submissive at the end of the fight. Christy didn’t know. All she knew was that for the second time in two days she had touched someone’s skin and they had gone weird.
Christy tried to think who’s skin she had touched recently, there was her mother, nothing weird had happened then. Her brother she disliked and he disliked her too so they both didn’t go near each other, let alone for hugs. Last time she had hugged him was when she had been forced to at Christmas in front of the Grandparents by her Mum for a joke, they’d both laughed about it, nothing had happened to him then. The only time she ever touched her friends were when they were upset, she would be a shoulder to cry on, hold their hand and tell them that they were alright, but nothing happened then. But then again, when she had touched these people she had never been angry or scared, just caring. It still didn’t explain what was going on.
“Hey?” Christy said to Mitch outside his locker again.
It was straight after lunch again. Mitch did his double take of excitement finding himself disappointed.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Mitch.
“Yeah,” said Christy, closing her arms around her insecurely.
“What do you want?” asked Mitch, oblivious to his offensiveness.
“To see if you were okay after hitting your head yesterday,” said Christy, sweetly.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Mitch, before slamming his locker door shut and walking away without another word.
“Yeah, I’m fine, just got in a fight with Jennifer Gibbs because she’s jealous that I walked in to class late with you yesterday,” said Christy, talking to herself. Sarcastically responding to a non-existent question which she had been waiting for from Mitch.
“You talk to yourself? Oh my God, how cute,” said a blonde girl coming out of the girls toilets. “What’s your name?”
“Err… Christy”
“Well, Christy. I’m Gemma, this is Courtney,” she pointed to the tall brunette behind her who was applying foundation on her face, then she pointed at the short, big breasted, dark haired girl to her right. “And this little bitch is Tina”
Christy wasn’t sure what reaction Tina might have by being called ‘bitch’ by Gemma. She just stood there, no make up on, just staring at Christy.
“Hi,” Christy waved politely.
“Soooo… I heard about your little crush on Mitch Roberts,” she pronounced crush in a big excited manner. “So, you guys walked in to class late yesterday, you naughty girl you. Tell me… Any good?”
“What do you mean?” asked Christy.
“You don’t need to lie Christy, us girls are all the same. We know what the boys want so we play hard to get which makes them work harder,” said Gemma, looking up at the sky with a smile like she amazes herself with her knowledge.
For a ditsy girl, Gemma was quite clever, Christy thought. But she’d never tell her that through fear of insulting someone she’d only just met.
“I still don’t get what you mean,” said Christy. She did, she just didn’t want to embarrass herself if she didn’t. Understanding people beating around the bush wasn’t Christy’s ballgame.
“Sex?” said Gemma, excitedly. Then her tone dropped to a whisper. “You know what that is, right?”
“Of course I do,” Christy immediately applied.
“So, you’ve done it?”
“What?”
“You’ve had sex?”
“Err…” she didn’t know whether to lie or to tell the truth, if she told them she was a virgin then they’d probably laugh at her but if she told them she wasn’t they’d probably claim that they were virgins and that she was a slag. In fact, why did they want to know anyway, to see if the first time hurt. Why would they come to her to ask. She gambled. “No”
“So, you’re a virgin?”
“Yes”
Christy felt like she was in a corner, especially when the three girls looked at each other and smiled.
“So are we…”
Lies. Lies. Lies. The word was circling Christy’s head like a malfunctioning fruit machine that couldn’t stop.
“… We have boyfriends though, we just refuse to sleep with them,” said Gemma.
“Why?” asked Christy, innocently.
“Why?” repeated Tina, she had a deep, dumb voice for a girl. “Because you could get pregnant”
“Contraception?” suggested Christy.
“Wha’s that?” Tina asked, dumbly.
“Condoms and shit,” whispered Gemma to Tina in a tone that said ‘shut up, I’m doing the talking’.
Tina got the message and piped down.
“So, what are you doing after school?” asked Gemma. “Want to hang out with us?”
This was very sudden. What harm could it do though? Just spending some time with girly girls, maybe Christy could learn a few tricks about looking prettier. It could help with Mitch, maybe if they became good friends then Christy would get a reputation in the last few weeks of actually being cool and then no questions would be asked about her and Mitch going to prom.
“Nothing and yes,” said Christy. She was about to say ‘that would be lovely’ but decided that it sounded too stupid and nice for these girls.
“Okay, we’ll meet you at six at The Wreck?”
It was a half question, it was also a half statement. Christy didm;t get the chance to answer because the three girls, like dogs who had been called by an inaudible whistle, walked away simultaneously to class leaving Christy standing there feeling very surreal and puzzled by what had just happened.

Game. Set. Match. A sports term used in Hockey, Cricket, Tennis, Rugby, Bowls etc. Also used by Mitch Roberts, David Kenny, Gemma White, Courtney Black and Tina Blue as they assembled a prank to shut Christy Valentine up and put her back in to place of the great scheme of things. She was a nerd, she didn’t belong in their social group.

“It’s going to be like ‘Carrie’ isn’t it?” asked Gemma.
“‘Carrie’?” snapped Mitch, with a whisper.
“Yeah, ya know, the pig’s blood,” said Gemma.
“What the fuck are you talking about, babe?” said Mitch, squinting his eyes in annoyance.
Gemma smiled at the word ‘babe’.
“The film, the one where that Carrie girl get’s covered in pig’s blood at prom and goes mental and starts blowing up the town,” said Gemma.
“You mean the book by Stephen King about Carrie White?” asked Mitch.
“It’s a book? And her last name’s White? Bitch stole my name,” said Gemma, shocked.
“You stupid bitch, Stephen King wrote that in the Seventies or something,” said Mitch.
“You read?” asked Gemma.
“No!” said Mitch, looking around him in case anybody heard how unconvincing he sounded. He liked to read books, he just didn’t tell anyone.
The only person in the vicinity to hear was Christy. Blind folded, laying on a tatty old sofa with her hands tied behind her back. A fat wad of paper had been stuffed down her mouth before it had been duct taped shut. The three girls had layer in to her, smacking, scratching and punching every inch of her face. She felt weak. Tears were leaking down her face and mixing with blood from deep cuts made from scratches.
She had met the three girls at The Wreck, the place being a sports centre in their town and a sociable place. The Wreck had it’s wide open spaces that were lit, fields and fields where goalposts could be made out of jumpers and hours could be spend playing football or sitting on the grass and talking to friends whilst pulling up the blades subconsciously, however, there were the woods. The girls had told Christy that they had a secret hide out in the woods, quite an immature thing Christy thought before the girls explained that it was used to take boys to. When Christy said that she thought they were all virgins, the girls had told her that they were but there was no harm in doing everything but have sex. Christy shrugged her shoulder and followed the girls across the field to where the hideout was. The girls suggested that once Christy had Mitch alone and outside of school that she could bring Mitch to the hideout.
The girls had used the old fashioned ‘guests first’ when gesturing Christy to go on to the woods where the hideout was. At first Christy thought it was a prank but when the girls followed in after her she breathed a sigh of relief and Gemma walked forward and told her to follow. About a hundred metres in Gemma stopped at an opening. There was a make shift shelter made out of tin roofing and inside the proposed shack was a couple of battered old sofas. Gemma turned to Christy with open arms and said;
“So, what do you think?” she looked behind Christy and nodded.
A great pair of arms had wrapped themselves around Christy and pulled her upwards as she flailed her legs. She heard Gemma answer the question for her;
“It’s a palace for a skank!”
Christy heard the three girls laugh as a blindfold was put over her eyes and bounded tightly from behind her head. She was dragged over to the sofas where she was thrown down, gagged with a ball of paper and a strip of duct tape and beaten by the three girls.
As Christie lay there afterwards she wondered what she had done to deserve this and if it was a regular thing for the three girls. All she had done was talk outside the girls toilets to Mitch and then when he’d walked away she had carried on talking to herself like she was still having a conversation with Mitch, it was meant to be sarcastic. She thought that she was getting on with the three girls. Courtney didn’t talk, at all but Gemma and Tina, she had been laughing with them. She listened as she heard the girls talking, pitch black from the blindfold Christy could only guess what was going on and how close they actually were to her. Out of nowhere Mitch’s voice appeared.
“You didn’t have to do that to her, though. She’s got enough coming her way,” said Mitch.
“Dave told us to,” said Gemma.
“Dave? Why Dave?” asked Mitch.
“Don’t lie to me, Mitch. You know he has the hots for you,” said Gemma.
“The hots?”
“He’s gay, didn’t you know?” said Gemma.
Christy knew that Mitch was trying to cover for himself.
“What? But… I play football with him, I hang out with him,” said Mitch.
Christy tried to speak, but only murmurs came out of her gagged mouth.
“Shut up, Christy,” said Mitch.
“Oh, this… Is this what I think it is? You’re going to ship her off somewhere because… Because you want to protect your friend?” said Gemma. “Well, half the school knows”
If Christy could see, she guessed that Mitch was probably going red around the cheeks.
“The whole school knows what?” came another male voice.
It was Dave, Christy could tell that.
“You’re gay, Dave. Everyone knows that you’re gay,” said Gemma.
“Not everyone knows that he is though, do they?” said Dave, speaking like a child who’s been caught red handed but still blames someone else.
“What are you talking about?” asked Gemma, seriously.
“He’s a faggot, dumby,” said Dave.
“No, he’s not…” said Gemma, sounding defensive but with a tone of uncertainty. “He can’t be”
“Oh, really?” said Dave. “And what makes you say that?”
“We’ve slept together,” said Gemma.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! GEMMA NO!!” shouted Mitch. “DAVE! I swear… I never”
Christy heard a sound like meat being pounded. Screaming began but was soon muffled.
“You get off her,” screamed Tina. “You shouldn’t hit gir-“
SMACK!
More pounding sounds, then a disturbing gurgling sound hit the air followed by heavy breathing and then, after a while, there was silence.
“You fucked her?” asked Dave, calmly, like nothing had happened.
“You killed her?” said Mitch, frightened.
“She fucked my man,” said Dave.
“What about her?” asked Mitch.
“Take her blindfold off”
Christy blinked as the blindfold was gently taken from around her head from shaking fingers. Once her eyes had come in to focus and she had got used to the brightness of the sun beaming through the trees she looked around at the scene in front of her. Half of what she had imagined had happened but there was one thing that scared her, the fact that Courtney was leaning with her back against the tree. She was lazily looking at her phone, whilst chewing gum loudly. To Christy, Courtney looked as though she hadn’t even computed what had happened around her. She was completely oblivious.
As for what had happened around her, Christy saw that Tina was sprawled across the floor with a bloody nose having been knocked out by a single punch, which Christy had guessed had happened, midway through speaking and Gemma, she was laying face down, having drowned in a puddle. Her clothes were slightly torn from the struggle and her fingernails were half hanging off from the amount she had clawed the earth as she struggled to hold on to life. Christy knew though, straight from looking at her, Gemma was dead.
“Hello Christy,” Dave was smiling down on her. “See what your bit of fun has caused?"

A young boy of fifteen, Alex was short for his age, he looked a few years younger than he actually was. He was sprawled out on a sofa, reading a book. The way his light mousy hair stood on his thin head made him look like he’d cut his hair himself. His dirty grey hooded jumper hung off his malnourished body like a marquee, the long sleeves had been cut halfway up the top of the arm and a blue sleeved t-shirt slightly revealed itself. His sirty, light blue jeans were so baggy that Alex had to use a rope instead a belt to keep them up. On the floor next to him lay a lighter, a tobacco tin and a pencil. He heard the front door, some muttering and then shut.
To his annoyance the living took door opened and Katherine Felix walked in to the room and behind her tailed a young girl of either thirteen or fourteen years old. This did not interest Alex, she was far too young. Again.
“This is Lora Ludgrove, Alex,” began Katherine. “She has the ability to-“
“I neither care, nor have the patience to learn anymore names or powers, Katherine. Just leave me alone to my book,” interrupted Alex.
“Well, that’s a nice way to welcome a newcomer,” Katherine retorted.
“No… A nice way to welcome a newcomer is to tell them to leave this place, return home where they were and where the only worries they had was that they needed to have their homework completed in time otherwise they would get detention,” Alex smiled. “Why are you still her anyway Katherine? Surely you turned Seventeen last week?”
Katherine’s cheeks turned a shade of pink.
“You know w-“
“So you can keep going out and finding people to recruit for this prison? I keep thinking of the day you encouraged me to come here, I wish I had been strong enough to put my powers to full force,” Alex interrupted again. “If you’re any good at that mind reading stuff then you would have known that for a while”
Lora took a look at Alex, noticing that his forearms revealed large circular burns, which looked like he had tried to put out cigarettes out on himself.
“You know I haven’t been able to see what you are thinking, Alex,” muttered Katherine. “Ever since you taught yourself to block your thoughts from me”
Alex laughed to himself like he had told himself a very amusing joke.
“I love the fact that your powers are useless on me, Katherine. I’m even more glad that it annoys you,” Alex smiled menacingly, then his face dropped. “I just wish that were true the day we met. You look uneasy, love”
Alex’s attention had turned to Lora, who looked as though she was very frightened of him and of the things that he was saying. Alex assumed that she had no idea what was going on and what this place was. When Lora realised that Alex’s attention was on her she looked elsewhere immediately, fixing her eyes uncomfortably around the room. Noticing how unkept it was, how grimy the walls were. The old sofas and armchairs gave off an old musty kind of smell, the ceiling was a yellow tinge and Lora could only guess that someone spent most of their time in here smoking, looking at the lighter and tobacco tin at the foot of the sofa that Alex was laying on, she could only guess that it was him.
“I… I… What is this place… Exactly?” Lora asked, finally piping up but sounding very frightened.
Alex stood up suddenly, sprung out his arms comically and shouted with a huge grin on his face;
“Welcome to Thew Road Hostel, the place to find a future, meet new friends and most importantly…” Alex’s face fell from a cheesy grin to misery. “Do what the fuck you like”
Alex sat back down on the sofa and then laid back down looking at Lora’s puzzled face the whole time.
“This place is a hostel. Not an ordinary hostel, but it’s still a hostel,” he said, calmly.
“Not an ordinary hostel? What do you mean?” asked Lora.
“You talk way too much, Alex,” said Alex, out of the blue. “You know that, right?”
“Oh yeah, I like annoying people, it’s kind of my job,” Alex said, smiling to himself. He was still looking at Lora though, and she was looking at him too.
“You really are a-“
“Just fuck off, Katherine. You’re really beginning to piss me off, take your minion with you as well, I can’t be bothered to do the talk right now,” said Alex, not moving his eyes away from Lora. “She looks like she needs sleep anyway, she can sleep in my room. Lora? When you wake up, come and find me. I’ll most likely be in here, I hope you sleep well”
The last part of Alex’s sentence that was directed at Lora was in a completely different tone to the way he had been speaking to Katherine. It made Lora feel at ease and that Alex was actually a nice person. She smiled at him and muttered “Thank you”.
Katherine made a short angry sound before storming out of the room without even looking at Lora. Lora followed her, moving her eyes away from Alex’s and to the floor like a child who felt bad for doing something wrong.
Alex always says that he should have been killed at birth but his mother forbade it, she said that Alex was to be who he was. She decided to give him a life full of torture instead of letting him die and start afresh. Bloody bitch. She should never have allowed it. She threw him out when he turned bad, told him that her little boy wasn’t her little anymore. She chose a different life and decided to leave him to the one she had chosen for him. Like Alex always says, he should have been killed at birth but his mother forbade it.