CHAPTER 5

'You and I have known each other, for what? Over two years now? You come in here, looking knock-out, say the right things, give an old bastard like me a reason to smile. Davey asks you to do this, do that and you do as you're told, all because you know how hard he works, don't you? Because he does. That boy's a fucking grafter, best I've ever had on my patch, I can tell you. What's more, he knows how to run a fucking business. He's discreet and he knows how to make sure all his boys stay discreet. That's why he's successful. He gets up there and does his thing - not that I know fuck all about music, mind you - and he makes sure his boys sell my shit without causing so much as a ripple in the water.'

He wet his lips with one sweep of his tongue.

'So of course, you can understand why I would be very surprised to hear that Davey's girl would put all that at risk?'

I couldn't breathe. I stared at Oscar, wide-eyed, and he just stared right back at me, unflinching, and I thought this is it, this is where the spider binds me up tight, wrapping his web around me until I can't move and then he'll do it, then he'll attack.

'I - I don't know what you mean, Oscar?' I took another swig of rum, but my hand betrayed me as it trembled, making the ice clink around inside the glass.

'Casey, sweetheart.' Patronising charm now, laced with a venom in his eyes that made me want to recoil, shrivel up, dissolve into the fabric of the chair. 'Come on, you're a smart girl. Don't try the innocent thing with me, you've never used it before so don't start now. You know what I'm talking about. The incident . New Year's Eve. Now, I'm an understanding kind of guy. I'm fair. Give any fucker the benefit of the doubt and I've always liked you, you know that. But I'm hearing things, darlin', I'm hearing things I don't like very much. Things that aren't making me happy, and you want me to be happy, don't you?'

I swallowed. The nausea was returning, spreading out into the base of my stomach and suddenly downing the first rum didn't seem such a good idea.

'Of course, Oscar. But listen, whatever you've heard ...'

'Has come from sources I trust. Very trustworthy sources.'

He reached down, his hand finding my bare knee and I cursed the stupid barely-there dress, cursed Davey, cursed myself. Squeezing slightly, he smiled at me, but it was a wolf's smile with too many teeth, too much danger. Any second now he was going to bite. Snap. Swallow me down whole.

'Davey has faith in you, Casey, that's why you're his number one girl. People know your name. They know your face. You fuck up and people know about it. They see you. And we don't want the wrong people seeing you, do we, darlin'? We don't want the wrong people seeing you fuck up, because then they'll connect that with Davey and if they start looking at Davey in the wrong way, well, then that becomes a problem for me.'

His hand slid slowly up my leg to where the hem of my dress skimmed my thigh.

'You're not going to become problem for me, are you, sweetheart? Because I'd hate that, I really would. Say you're not going to become a problem.'

He'd leaned forward to reach further up my leg and his face was so close I could see the broken capillaries in his nose and cheeks, felt choked on the layers of aftershave, baby powder and cigar smoke.

'No, Oscar. I won't be a problem.'

With his other hand, he gently lifted my chin with his thumb and forefinger, studying my face almost as if he'd never seen it before. His gaze lingered too long on my mouth and for one awful, gut-churning moment, I thought he was going to kiss me.

Please don't. Oh, God, please don't fucking kiss me.

'Good girl,' he said, nodding as if he was happy with whatever he saw there. 'I know you won't let me down.' He looked down at the tumbler, which I was now gripping with both hands. 'Go on then, finish that drink and George will sort you out as usual, yeah?'

He pulled back, the hot imprint of his hand still burning on my leg, but he didn't move away from the desk and I raised the glass again to my lips under his intense hard stare and drank, praying that I could hold it in, praying that I wouldn't throw up right then and there. When I was done, I put the glass back down onto the coaster and shot him a smile as I stood up. My legs felt shaky and I wasn't sure my exit in these heels was going to be as masterful as my entrance.

As I reached the door, somehow managing not to crumple, Oscar's voice stopped me in my tracks and my stomach flipped over. I turned to glance back at him and he was still there, standing against his desk, legs crossed casually at his ankles and I noticed how his socks matched the colour of his shirt.

Funny the details you pick up when you're in full-on panic mode.

'By the way, darlin', get Davey to buy you a new dress, for fuck's sake. You're getting skinny, that one doesn't fit you properly anymore.'

He grinned and dismissed me not only with his words, but with one Caesar-like wave of his hand.

Outside his office, with the door closed behind me, I grabbed the bag held out by George the Silverback and let him lead me back through the club, where the music still blared and the girls still danced, knowing all the while that even though I had managed to escape the spider's lair, Oscar Turnbull still had me very much caught in his web.

In fact, Oscar Turnbull had me right where he wanted me and only now was I realising just how trapped I really was.

I stood in the alley behind the club, my back against the wall, inhaling deep gasping breaths and desperate to expel the aftershave and baby powder that I was sure was clogging up my lungs.

Oscar had that effect on people. Stay in his company too long and you couldn't breathe. I'd seen it on the faces of others, that strangled look of panic you only get when you know a predator is near, but I'd never experienced it before, not like this.

The air in the alley wasn't that much better than inside Oscar's office, thick with the cloying stench of piss and damp, where the rainwater had infected the base of the walls, but even this tasted better than inside. Close by, water was gurgling out of a broken moss-covered drainpipe, the grate below filled with sodden cigarette packets, remnants of club flyers and cig butts, forcing the water to overflow and stream across the alley towards where I stood. The water reached my feet and I numbly watched as it seeped into the open-toe front of my heeled shoes and I willed it to rise, to become a stream, a river, flood the whole damn alley and carry me under.

In my hand, the bag felt like a leaden weight, tying me down to this place, to Davey, to Oscar. But even then, even after everything Oscar had said and more importantly, not said , I thought take something, reach in and take something, swallow it down and everything will be okay, everything will be alright again. Exhaling, I leant my head back and it was then I spotted it. A security camera fixed right on the entrance where I was standing.

That's right, take a good look, you dirty bastard.

I couldn't stay there, I had to keep moving. Addi would be waiting for me at the pick-up point, although for the first time in ages, I wondered what it would be like to just keep walking and never go back.

With a resigned, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach and wishing I could flip the bird at the camera, I hooked my arm through the bag handles and began to head down the alley towards the street, hearing nothing but the gurgle of the water as it faded behind me and the clicking of my heels on the uneven ground.

I hadn't gone far when I heard the footsteps.

They were faint at first, so faint that I thought it was just my own, echoing along the alleyway, then growing in volume, in urgency, and I had to look. Just had to. Whether it was that morbid curiosity or something else, something that ran darker, deeper, like a sixth sense you never knew you had until that moment, that awful moment when you know - you feel - that something is wrong. And I did feel it. Like the prickle of goose-bumps. Like the whisper of something cold along the back of my neck that made my hair rise. Like the ominous ticking of a counter down to zero.

And this was it, this was my zero and I had to turn. I had to look back.

I remembered then.

That face from New Year's Eve. That terrible, heart-stopping face that had sent me flailing to the ground. All of them, watching me, seeing me like I was seeing them.

How could I have forgotten?

The face was here now, or at least, one like it, because this one belonged to a different man, tall, lithe, a navy coat unzipped to reveal a white tee underneath. On his head, he wore a black baseball cap. Everything about him screamed normal. He could easily have been one of Davey's crew, except for that face and as he came towards me, he grinned and the scarred skin, molten into deep-set valleys, stretched over his prominent, jutting cheekbones.

Gasping, I stumbled backwards, the damp wall stopping me from falling right onto my arse and I watched in stunned horror as he raised his arm, stretching it out in front of him.

He was going to shoot me. He was going to shoot me and I was going to die right here, in this stinking fucking alley, wearing this slutty dress and I wasn't ready. After everything I'd done to push the limits, after every time I'd danced across the line and dared Death to take me, I wasn't ready. Not now. Not like this. The panic surged, rolling under my skin, forcing the air out of my lungs and crushing my heart in my chest.

With his arm outstretched, the man curled his fingers up, almost in a beckoning gesture and it was then I realised that he didn't have a gun at all. In fact, he wasn't holding anything.

Instead, he made a half-fist as if grabbing at the air and he pulled.

In front of him, the air shimmered, undulating like ripples on water and everything between us began to shift, distort, fold inwards as if he'd split the air in two and it was rushing in on either side, being pulled into an invisible abyss that seemed to stretch from him to where I stood. The walls of the alley were bending impossibly, the ground was rolling, almost as if I was looking at everything from under water and I was drowning in it all, feeling the tide rush into my mouth and nose, choking me.

He pulled again, clenching his fist tight and giving a sharp tug and I felt it as if something was sucking on my skin, pulling on my body. I stared, unable to do anything as my arm, now stretched out as if I was reaching for him , jerked and began to dissolve into the air, flesh tugging from bone, melting, just as the world around me had begun to melt.

The air opened up, like a giant slavering maw, and I watched, stricken, frozen, as half of my arm disappeared into the void - just

disappeared . I knew it was there, somewhere. I could feel it. The pain was unbearable. Fire raged under my skin, burying deep into flesh and bone. Gathering in fury, it gripped me, tugging, pulling, as if whatever it was might rip my arm clear of the socket.

I opened my mouth to scream and felt the air suck it away, consuming sound, consuming

everything and even as I watched the void swallow up more of my outstretched arm, I thought this is your fault, Casey Brogan, all that shit you shovelled up your nose, all those pills of god-knows-fucking-what and it's finally happened, something in that screwed-up head of yours has finally snapped and all you're going to be left with is this complete fucking madness.

Because this was it. This was madness and chaos and a world turned inside out and upside down, all because I couldn't stop walking the line. All because standing on the edge and just willing myself to jump had been better than everything else in my miserable, pathetic life.

Tears slipped down my face. Everything felt cold and I was struck by that then, struck by how, when my arm felt like it was burning, everything else felt like I'd been plunged into icy, cold water.

I couldn't pull away. I couldn't stop the air from swallowing me up. It was like a bad dream, watching myself disappearing and wishing the whole time that I would just wake up and realise it wasn't real.

Only this was real and it was happening.

My arm had been sucked in right to the elbow now and as the monstrous air pulled it in deeper and I watched more of it disappear, I closed my eyes, too petrified and too stunned to do anything but try and shut it all out.

When I began to be pulled in the other direction, my eyes shot open.

An arm was curled tightly around my waist, a warm body pressed against my back.

'Fucking fight , damn it,' a voice said into my ear, and I looked up and saw another face that had me reeling.

I knew him .

At least, I thought I did. Snapshots flickered through my head as I instinctively sorted through memories, sifting through stored images, but the panic was so overwhelming that I could barely see straight, could barely stand up, let alone think. Where did I know him from?

He reached out with his other arm and I shrieked and turned my head away, terrified that he too was going to twist the air and I was going to be torn apart as my body was grasped from both sides.

A sound cracked in my ears, like the shift in pressure that you get when on a plane, and everything became muted, plunged into an eerie silence that sent goose-bumps ravaging my skin. My arm jerked and I felt the air move, but differently this time, as if its hold on my flesh was weakening. When I looked back, the man clutching my waist had his arm outstretched, but instead of pulling, he looked as if he was pushing back, his palm up, cheek muscles tensed, gritting his teeth with exertion. Minuscule beads of sweat peppered his brow as he pushed outwards and the air in front of me, the air that was seemingly trying to swallow me whole, juddered violently.

Everything seemed to shake as shockwaves rippled back down the alley. A booming shudder rang in my ears and sent nausea rolling through my stomach and up into my throat. Whatever it was seemed to hit the other guy hard and he staggered back, rocked by the force of the wave and the hold on my arm weakened even more.

Without hesitation, the man holding me pushed out again, sending a thunderous wave through the air that felt that it might bring the buildings around us tumbling down, while simultaneously pulling me back. There was a ripping noise and pain - god, so much pain - that for a moment, I thought my arm really had been torn away, but then I was free, my legs collapsing.

Catching me before I fell, he grabbed me by the hand.

'Run,' he said.

Trying to stay upright as I did the proverbial walk of shame out of Oscar's office was one thing, trying to flee from a creature that wanted the air to dissolve me into nothing was another entirely and I struggled to keep up with my mysterious hero as we ran down the alley, back towards the main road. My heels wobbled precariously underneath me and we hadn't gone far when he stopped suddenly, his face twisted with what looked like disgust as he reached down, grabbing each of my ankles in turn and tugging off my shoes. I watched stunned as he threw them to one side.

'You want me to run barefoot?' I could hardly get the words out.

He clutched the back of my neck and pulled my face close to his. 'It's either this,' he said, stabbing his finger in the other direction. 'Or

that.'

I turned to look and gasped a strangled cry. The other man - the thing - was on his feet again, his hands grasping at the air, which was rushing towards him and around him in a violent swirl of black; growing and swelling, like some awful, nightmarish maelstrom.

When he tugged at my hand again, I was already moving, trying to ignore the hard, unforgiving ground beneath my feet as it cut into my soles, trying to ignore the scream of my leg muscles as I ran. Behind me, I felt the air move, heard something like the screech of many birds that prickled the hair on the back of my neck but I didn't turn around.

The alley veered to the left and we followed it, our pace never slowing until up ahead I saw the exit onto the main street. Seeing the cars go by and hearing the traffic brought a rush of reality slamming back into me and I remembered why I'd been there in the first place.