Wild

WILD

WILD

NAOMI CLARK

Wild

Copyright © 2011 by Naomi Clark

http://naomiclark.net

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Kindle Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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Dedication

Dedicated to everyone who had to listen to me rant and rave about this novel over the past five years. There are a lot of you!

Acknowledgement

There were so many people involved in making this book what it is, it’s hard to know where to start, and I’m sure I’ll leave someone out by mistake! Firstly, thanks to everyone at CWIL and Different Star, who read several different versions and offered invaluable feedback on each one. Thanks to Pip and Skelly, the brave housemates who had to live with me whilst I was angsting about werewolves, drugs, and whether or not this story needed more plot. Thanks to Molly and Leanne, who offered very opposing but equally important viewpoints on the second-to-last draft. Finally, thanks to Kyle, who must be heartily sick of werewolves by now.

one

L
IZZIE CLOSED HER
eyes as she swallowed the pill, blocking out the slam of music pounding against the toilet walls for a second. The cubicle stank of piss and sweat; the walls and floor were sticky with substances she didn’t really want to think about. She opened her eyes to stare at the crudely scrawled graffiti on the walls while she waited for the Ecstasy to kick in.

2 Slags Crew 4 eva. Pete S is a wanker. I fucked ur fella.

The words started running together, becoming one ugly blur of pen and lipstick under the weird bluish light of the toilets. Hannah told her once that the light was supposed to stop people shooting up, because you couldn’t find a vein in the light. Seriously though, who came to a club to do heroin?

Lizzie wet her lips and took a swig from her water bottle, listening to the shrill voices of girls out by the sinks blend with the music. Harris had pulled out the nu-metal tonight, much to Lizzie’s disgust. She hated that fucking fake-angst bollocks. If she was the DJ, it’d be good old-fashioned punk all the way, and fuck what those teeny Goths wanted.

Someone hammered on the door, shouting her name. “Lizzie, let me in, for God’s sake! What are you hiding in there for?”

Hannah. Lizzie unlocked the door and her friend scooted in, giggling as she pressed up against Lizzie in the small space. “I’m dying for a jack n’ jill, girl. Come on, hand them over.”

“I’ve only got a couple left,” Lizzie complained, digging in her jeans pocket for the tiny bag of pills. She slipped one into Hannah’s extended palm. “Harris is supposed to be getting more tonight.”

Hannah snatched Lizzie’s water and downed the pill. “Need this to make the fucking music tolerable.” Hannah was a raver at heart, offensively bright in her lime green tank top and hot pink mini-skirt. “You coming out, or you staying in here all night?”

“I’m coming.” Lizzie shoved her last pill back in her pocket, hoping Harris really would be getting more later. This was going to be a shitty night otherwise. The Krazy House was always full of posers and students on Saturday nights, filling up the dance floor and shrieking for Linkin Park or whatever shitty emo band was currently besieging the charts. Maybe on the middle floor there might be some Greenday or Good Charlotte, but that was as punk as it got.

Hannah was right; they needed the drugs to make the night bearable.

“I don’t know why we bother coming here anymore,” Lizzie shouted as they elbowed their way past the girls at the mirrors, back into the club. “The music is shit.”

“Harris would never forgive you if you didn’t hang out here to watch him DJ,” Hannah replied. “And it’s cheap.”

Out on the dance floor, dry ice swathed the dancers while flashing blue lights illuminated fishnets and piercings like lightning strikes. Over in the corner, Lizzie could see Harris’ butter-blonde head bopping up and down in the DJ booth as he listened to shrieked requests from drunken students. As usual, girls crowded around him, leaning over the booth to expose their tits as they talked to him. Standing out amongst the girls was a tall, lean boy about Lizzie’s age, dark-haired and sharp-faced. He leaned into the booth to yell in Harris’s ear, and Harris nodded absently.

With a bit of luck, he was a dealer slipping Harris a few pills. Lizzie squinted, trying to see if he passed anything over. As if sensing her scrutiny, the boy looked up, meeting her eyes dead on. Lizzie swallowed hard, embarrassed to be caught staring. He smiled at her, slow and lazy, and she felt her cheeks flush. He was looking at her like … like she was something he’d like to eat. Her heart fluttered, an irrational flare of panic shooting through her. She turned away, confused by her own reaction. God, the pill couldn’t kick in fast enough.

She grabbed Hannah’s arm and dragged her into the queue for the bar. “I need a drink,” she told her friend. Waiting to be served would probably kill the twenty minutes or so it would take the pills to get to work.

Three shots of Aftershock later, Lizzie could feel that sweet tickling twinkle in the back of her head that meant the pill was taking hold. It was distant feeling at first, a guttural sensation like something in her stomach rising up towards her throat. She felt jittery, wanting to move, wanting to dance. Maybe wanting to sit, just wanting to either do something or nothing or both.

Suddenly the people around her weren’t annoying little posers, but people she wanted to talk to, connect with, throw her arms around. She clutched Hannah’s arm, wanted to dance with her, share this sudden rising burst of energy with her. They bounced onto the dance floor as Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” started up. For some reason the song struck Lizzie as hilarious, and she laughed wildly as Hannah spun her around, throwing her into the midst of another group of dancers.

About an hour later, Lizzie dropped her second pill and danced her way over to Harris. The dark-haired boy was gone, but a gaggle of girls smeared in facial glitter and sporting fairy wings were blocking her way to the DJ booth. Their outfits screamed “freshers,” and for a second she felt a nostalgic pang for her own student days. Seemed like a long time ago now – but it was only a year or so, wasn’t it? – when she’d been one of them.

She shoved them aside and leaned into the booth to kiss Harris on the cheek. He turned to her with a cheeky grin on his cherubic face. “Alright!” he yelled. “Got a request?”

“Yeah, stop playing this shitty chart crap and put on some real music!”

He snorted. “Sorry, Lizzie, the people here like music from this decade.”

“Fuck off.” She caught the end of the scarf he was wearing and tickled his face with it. It was hers, a long blue and black striped scarf that felt so soft she wanted to bury her face in it. “When are you done? I want to dance!”

“You can dance without me. You got any pills on the go?”

She shook her head. “Just dropped my last one. I thought you were getting some?”

He scowled, boyish face turning dark and ugly, and Lizzie winced inwardly. “You cow, I’ve had nothing all night! I thought you had a whole bag?”

“I had five! We had one each on the way, I’ve had two more and Han had my last one.” She gripped the edge of the DJ booth, the wood hard and cold under her fingers despite the heat in the club. “You said you were getting more or I’d have kept one for you.”

“Well I couldn’t fucking get any, could I?” he snapped, shoving her arm and pushing her away from him. “I can’t believe you, Lizzie.”

Anger flared in her, burning through the start of her high. “Well maybe if you weren’t so busy leering down girls’ tops, you would have scored!”

“Fuck off,” he shouted, prying her fingers off the booth. “You and Han can just go fuck off!”

Some bloke in a fishnet shirt and jeans heavy with chains pushed past Lizzie to shout a request at Harris, and she slipped away, heart skipping and fluttering. She didn’t want to ruin her high by fighting with him. Bollocks. She’d been counting on Harris to get more pills. No way she was staying here without drugs.

She fought her way through the club back to the bar, where Hannah was flirting outrageously with the barman to try and get a free drink.

“… best fucking blow job in Liverpool… Hi Lizzie!” Hannah swung round to hug her. “Did Harris come through for us or what?”

“No, he was too busy chatting up random slags.” Lizzie scowled in the direction of the DJ booth. “I don’t know why I stay with him! He’s such a tosser!”

Hannah patted her back reassuringly. “Well, fuck him then. Let’s have a drink, have a dance, and see if we can score here. Someone’s bound to be carrying some coke or something.”

The thought of cocaine perked Lizzie up a little, as did the rising tide of elation from the pill. “Yeah, alright. Yeah, fuck it, let’s do that. I haven’t had a line in ages.”

Hannah turned back the bar. “Bottle of water and two shots of sambuca,” she ordered. The barman obliged, and a few minutes later they were back on the dance floor, well away from Harris, and soon Lizzie was high enough again to be able to ignore the poison looks he was shooting her anyway.

About midnight, they headed up to the third floor. It was packed with teeny-boppers and chavs, dancing away to a fat-bassed hip-hop tune that made Lizzie’s teeth ache. Up here the outfits veered away from fake fetish and spiked collars into velour and gold chains. Hannah squealed and clapped her hands as the track changed, and she grabbed Lizzie, pulling her onto the dance floor.

“Choooon!” she bellowed at Lizzie, who winced.

“I thought we were looking for drugs?” she called.

Hannah ignored her, twisting and writhing in time to the slap-beat of the music. Lizzie left her to it, retreating to the bright blue plastic seating at the side of the dance floor. She felt fidgety, itchy, and hungry for the coke Hannah had promised. She pushed her damp hair from her forehead, scanning the crowd for anyone who looked like they might be carrying.

While she watched the masses grind away under the red strobe lights, someone came and sat next to her. She glanced at him, and was surprised to see the dark-haired boy Harris had been talking to. Ah. She’d pegged him for a dealer, hadn’t she? “Alright?” she greeted him.

He nodded. “Alright.” He had a thick Irish accent, roughed by cigarettes, she guessed.

She stuck her hand out. “I’m Lizzie. You were talking to my boyfriend earlier. Harris, the DJ.”

“Oh yeah.” He shook her hand. “Nick Doyle. How’s it going?”

“Bit shit, really. We came up here looking to get high, and now my friend has decided she’d rather shake her arse to gangster rap.” She pointed out Hannah, who was bouncing up and down with a group of men in baseball shirts and low-slung jeans.

Nick considered her, his eyes glowing blue in the strobe lights. “What’s your bag then? Pills, coke?”

“Hannah thought she could get us some coke.” Lizzie shifted closer to him so she didn’t have to yell quite as loud. Her throat was raw from screaming over the music all night. “I could go for a line. You know where we can get some?”

Nick smiled, and there was something about the expression that unsettled her, but she ignored the feeling. He could get her drugs. That was the important thing, right? He nodded. “Yeah, I’ve got some stuff on me.” He patted his baggy jeans suggestively. “Grab your friend and meet me in the men’s toilets on the mezzanine floor, okay?”

Lizzie nodded and bounced onto the dance-floor to fetch Hannah. A few minutes later they were sneaking into the toilets. The mezzanine floor was a chill-out area where people sat when their feet ached too much to dance anymore, or their stomachs were in danger of rebelling against their alcohol content. The bouncers didn’t bother patrolling it, since most people sat there were on the verge of passing out, so it was no trouble to get into the men’s toilet unnoticed.