Chapter 1

Laine

My stupid pumps aren’t cut out for this weather. Cold water squelches

between my toes, and my breath is misty, wet hair like frozen straw against

my cheeks. I can hardly see through the rain.

Damn my birthday for being so late in November.

Damn me for not thinking harder about my wardrobe choices.

I wasn’t planning on being out this late, eighteenth birthday or not. I’m

dressed for a quick coffee on a cloudy afternoon, not for clubbing through a

stormy evening – leggings and a strappy cami under a fluffy teal cardigan

that holds more rain than it keeps out. This stupid scenario is all Kelly

Anne’s fault, insisting it wouldn’t be a proper birthday celebration unless it

involved getting trashed in some sleazy club in the backstreets of Brighton.

We’ll have a great time, she said, just a bus ride and a couple of drinks, she

said. Who knows, you may even meet someone hot and finally ditch the V

card, she said.

I have no intention of trading my virgin status for a drunken fumble in a

back alley with some random who barely knows my name.

And now she’s bailed on me, typical Kelly Anne style. Last I saw of her

she was lip-locked with some vest-top-clad hipster with thick-rimmed

glasses. Then she was gone, off in a puff of tequila-scented pheromones for

some bump and grind at hipster-guy’s pad, no doubt. Regular, except she

still has my phone, purse and keys in her handbag for safekeeping.

My own stupid fault for believing for one single second she’d take care

of them. Nothing is safe with Kelly Anne after a couple of tequilas, despite

what she’ll have you believe.

I root through my sopping pockets, nothing there but a couple of soggy

cigarette papers.

Idiot, I’m such an idiot.

I have no real plan for getting home to Newhaven. It’s the best part of a

ten-mile hike, and the odds of making it back without either succumbing to

hypothermia or stumbling into the sea are slim to nil. I’m sure I should be

more freaked out than I am, but I feel strangely nonchalant. Actually, it’s

more numb than nonchalant. Maybe I’ve had a few too many tequilas

myself, or maybe it’s the sorry knowledge that I have nobody who cares

enough to realise I’m stranded all alone without a penny in my pocket.

The fact that Kelly Anne is my best friend and the only real person who

gave a shit about my birthday says it all. Even if I do make it home tonight,

there’ll be nobody there. Mum’s away again, off in France with her latest

conquest. Denny, he’s called. He works over there, doing up properties for

rich folk, giving Mum the illusion that she’s one of them, and that’s all she’s

ever wanted. That and a man who’ll stick with her longer than it takes to

shoot his load. So far so good with Denny, six months and going strong. At

least she remembered my birthday enough to send a text this year.

I think I’m heading for the sea front, I hope I’m heading for the sea

front. They have bars there that stay open all night, maybe I can find

somewhere to hang out until morning, somewhere vaguely warm to pass the

time until I figure something out – except I don’t have my ID, that’s in

Kelly Anne’s handbag, too. Even if I had any money for a drink, nobody

ever lets me buy one without ID. I still get half-fare on public transport,

that’s how young I look. Kelly Anne says it’s because I’m so blonde. You

look like one of those creepy porcelain dolls, she says, but prettier. I guess

that’s supposed to be a compliment.

Maybe I should try to find a police station, explain my sorry situation

and hope they’ll let me stay until morning. Maybe I could face the ten-mile

hike home when the sun comes up, if it ever stops raining. Maybe I could

find a way to break in at home, or I could head over to Kelly Anne’s and

wait for her to resurface, give her a piece of my mind for leaving me up shit

creek on my own birthday without so much as loose change to my name.

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