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Please remember this story is being written and posted 'live' every day. I am writing today's episode and posting it here without benefit of a read-through, let alone an edit. I don't usually work this way and this experiment is exciting and different for me, not my normal work-ethic at all. To that end, please forgive me any typos, grammar errors and anything that you may think should have been picked up in an edit - it WILL be picked up in the edit.

I've already spoken with a publisher about getting this story published - possibly after Christmas, we'll see how it goes.

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Images from Google (licenced for reuse) and Pixabay

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The newcomer stepped into view, blocking the doorway with his bulky frame. Mike stopped dead, leaned backward momentarily and smiled, he recognised the man.

He turned to Justin with a smile of false bravado. “You clever, devious bastard,” he said.

Justin gave an impression of not knowing what he was talking about. His expression was one of ‘what did I do?’ and combined with shrugged shoulders and hands lifted, palms up, he may have pulled that off with any other audience.

“It’s like you forgot who the brains of the partnership was,” he said, dropping his hands and the expression of innocence.

Robin tucked himself into the corner, keeping out of everyone’s way.

The new guy in the kitchen spoke. “Let’s talk, scumbag,” he said.

Mike turned to the sofa and sat down. The man didn’t move from the doorway.

“So talk,” Mike snarled.

Before the discussion could begin, they heard a commotion from the stairs. It sounded like Ash was falling down them or being chased. Noise of stampeding feet heavier and louder than a little kid should have been able to make heralded her imminent arrival at the door opposite the one to the kitchen and everyone in the room turned to look.

She stopped dead in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the new guy.

Ash looked at Justin and then at Robin. Her eyes were wide and she looked like she’d had the shock of her life – given what she’d been through, Justin wondered what the hell had happened.

Her bald head accentuated her eyes and the bruises stood out against the pale skin. She looked like a battered and terrified elfin creature.

“What’s wrong?” Justin finally said.

Ash looked at the new guy and at Mike.

“ASH!” Justin said, jolting her from the trance-like state she’d settled into.

She looked back to Justin and he could tell something was way-wrong.

“Tell me,” he said.

“It’s… it’s Nigel. That bastard stuck a needle in him while he was up there pretending to be concerned for him. Nigel’s OD’d,” she said, her voice flat, any emotion shocked out of her.

Mike looked at Ash. He stood up. “You lying little bitch!”

Ash shut her eyes tight, screwed them up and flinched, turning her body away as much as she could while still holding onto the door frame.

“Sit down, scumbag,” the new guy said.

Ash opened one eye then the other. She switched her attention from Mike to Justin and back. She ignored the new guy.

Mike glanced at the new guy and sat back on the sofa, leaning forward, ready to move if he had chance.

The new guy put his phone back in his pocket and went to stand at the side of the sofa, closing in on Mike while making sure his escape was still blocked.

Mike stared straight ahead, to the fireplace but he kept glancing to the side to keep an eye on the guy.

Ash, still in the doorway, stood frozen to the spot, terrified. Justin beckoned her over and she shook her head ‘no’. He beckoned again and she took a quick glance at the guy, decided it was worth the chance and ran to Justin. She stood behind his chair, keeping it between her and everything that was going on in the room.

A shadow passed the side window, then another and another two.
Four men walked into the kitchen and filed into the living room. The guy guarding Mike’s escape moved around the back of the sofa and pulled Mike’s shoulder.

He hit Mike at the back of the head as Mike turned to see the four men entering the living room.

Mike went down, falling forward like a sack of spuds.

“Show me,” the better-dressed of the five men said.

No one moved.

“Show me my boy!” he yelled.

Ash jumped and flinched at the shout.

Nigel’s father, Mr Fitz-Stanley saw her and pointed. “You, lad, you show me my boy.”

Ash looked at Justin and he nodded. She moved slowly around the back of the chair.

Out of the shadow, the light showed up her cuts and bruises.

“Fuck, kid, who worked you over?” Mr Fitz-Stanley said.

Ash glanced at Mike and lifted her chin in his direction. “He found out I was trying to help… to help…”

“Did he now…”

“Did he what?”

“Nothing, kid… just musing things over in my mind. It’s a habit,” Fitz-Stanley said and motioned that Ash should take the lead.

“Oh,” Ash said. She went to the door and they followed her into the front room and around to the stairs.

She paused to look back at the men and Fitz-Stanley nodded to her. “Go on, lad,” he said.

Ash led the way up the stairs, slower than ever. The adrenaline dump of before gone, leaving her the same soreness in her muscles and bones as before, but multiplied.

“What’s wrong with you, kid?” Fitz-Stanley said in a more kind tone.

Ash turned at the top of the stairs. She pulled up her sweater and did a full turn for him. The boot-size bruise on her stomach stood out among all the other bruises and Fitz-Stanley pointed at it.

“Mike?” he said.

“Well it’s not mine!” Ash said.

Fitz-Stanley smiled at her attitude.

“Watch your mouth, kid,” one of the goons snarled.

“Leave him alone,” Fitz-Stanley said. “Where now, kid?”

Ash opened the door, let it swing away from her, looked into the room and pointed.

His body leaned against the sink unit, face turned to the room, eyes half-closed and white frothy drool seeping from the corner of his mouth, already drying to form a crust. One arm lay across the worktop of the unit, the other leaned against himself, vein-side out. An empty baggie lay to the side of an empty syringe. The band used to tie-off his vein was trapped between his body and his arm and hung down.