Will hesitated. Then, quicker than she could process what to do, where to go, and how to stop this tsunami rushing towards them, he yanked her to her feet. She winced as her arm pulled at its socket. He was moving her, pushing her toward the door to the hallway. She didn’t fight it, not until he left her.
“Will!” she choked, one hand clinging to the doorway as she looked back at the commotion in the lounge. There were bodies everywhere, and like the moshpit at the venue, limbs were flying. Except there was no fellowship here. When one person fell, another didn’t pick them up. Glasses were smashed, artwork thrown from the walls, bodies slamming into one another as blood spurted from Dante’s face and Sam held him in a death grip. All the while, her boyfriend and, she noticed, her friends were in the thick of it. And for what?
The Sam Robison Show, co-starring Anna Clearwater.
Impatient rage filled Emily as she watched in terror. Only her friends would find themselves in this mess.
Sticks kicked the boot of his Doc Marten into the crotch of an oncoming friend of Dante wielding a broken glass bottle. Bender didn’t back down when approached by a furious-looking preppy who’d had far too many drugs tonight, smacking him with the full force of a bullied teenage boy. Somewhere in the chaos, Jasper shoved Susannah and Tom toward the back of the house. He received a punch to the back of his head. In reply, he swung around and smacked back harder. It was carnage everywhere she looked. And there, fists in the back of Sam’s hoodie, Anna fought. But Emily wasn’t that girl. She feared the pain of a punch or kick, the suffocating pressure of being forced to the ground and stamped on. Her fear was justified. This was no place for her. And as she took one last look at Will, using his training to fight back the brute who wanted to split Sam in two, she made a decision.
She would find Tom and Susannah. With them, she would be safe. She looked to the other kitchen door. It was blocked by a mass of bodies, surging like the flames of a fire. She was shoved toward the front door and knew it was her only option. She had to get out. Will would find her. Her friends would be okay. She just had to run.
Still ushering niceties as she pushed her way toward the now open front door, Emily made it outside, leaving the din of the bass music and the fight inside. Panting for breath, sweat running down the back of her neck, she looked around for her next step when she realised she wasn’t alone.
She’d seen the change of partygoers. From wealthy preppy folk with their Audi car keys and designer clothes to meaner looking attendees with hoodies, jogging bottoms and expensive trainers. They had smelt of cigarette smoke and the cold, eyes full not with judgment but with something else.
How much am I worth?
It was these types of guests she came face to face with now. Door shut behind her like the door to a prison cell, she pressed herself against it, willing it to open. In there, amid the pandemonium, had to be better than out here, on the dark street with three men watching her like lions would a gazelle. She gulped once, then again as she quickly searched the street.
Sam had said he couldn’t find Erika. Was she still in there?
Dominic hadn’t been in the fight. Where was he?
Had they stepped out to smoke?
Were they just metres away?
Or…
Was Emily truly alone? Where did she go? What did she do? For the smartest girl in school, she couldn’t conjure an answer as one of the men spoke.
“Let’s see your phone, then.” He was younger than she’d first thought. Seventeen or eighteen. Hood up, it was hard to see his face. Just his thin grinning lips.
“Pardon?” she squeaked. This made them laugh. Her response, her nervous voice. She’d given herself away with one word. She thought of her phone in her purse slung across her body. She glanced down at it.
“That’s it. Let’s have a look.”
Emily’s trembling hand went to her purse. Anna had warned her to leave it at the hostel. It contained her train tickets, her wallet full of money and debit card, student ID, her dorm keys, those photo booth pictures she and Will had taken earlier that day, and of course, her phone. A cheap thing, one she’d owned since she started HSA. It was worth nothing. Yet in those moments, it was worth everything.
When she didn’t move, the boy looked to his friends; one much larger than the other, and the third a scrawny thing, though she wouldn’t underestimate him. She’d read the news reports of knife crime. Her eyes flicked to his hand stuffed into the pocket of his hoodie. They sniggered, crowding closer. Instinctively, Emily stepped aside from the front door, her eyes darting to the gate just three, four paces away. They were blocking her in. Cigarettes dangling from their mouths, filling up the tense air around them, they laughed some more.
The first one spoke again, “Just give me your phone. And your bag.”
“Why?” she said, unable to believe her audacity.
At once, the laughter died. The young boy approached her, pressing her against the ground floor window where inside she could hear the fighting; the screams and yelps of friends and foes alike. The music droned on. No one would hear if she screamed.
She clutched the bag resting on her stomach. He reached for it with a snatch of his hand. Emily twisted her body away and tried to make a break for the gate, heart in her throat, when she felt an almighty tug at her head. He had a hold of her hair, jerking her backwards. It burned across her scalp, down into her eyes. They stung with tears as she gave a weak whimper. He threw her back, sending her into the wheelie bin where she stumbled to the ground. The shock of the fall rippled up her tailbone, leaving her jarred and confused. She didn’t have a chance to understand what happened, for in the next minute, the boy bundled on top of her. He smacked away her hands raised to protect herself and tore at her bag, ripping it from her body and leaving a burn across her shoulders. She cried out, stuttering for help. She flailed, stuck painfully between those two bins which had toppled aside. This amused the three men, who didn’t bother to run away. Rummaging through her bag, tossing aside the items they didn’t want, they laughed and pointed.
“Stupid fat bitch.”
“She can’t even get up.”
“Look at the state of that!”
Their laughter didn’t last.
At the sound of flesh meeting bone, Emily gave another terrified scream and covered her eyes, scurrying back into the heap of rubbish in an attempt to shield herself as a new fight broke out. Grunts, shouts and a girl’s growl forced her to look up. When she did, what she saw frightened her all the more.
Hillside Academy: October (Volume II) Copyright © 2024 Jodie May Mullen