Thicker Than Water

The one at front and centre was almost as skinny as Bic, but he was bracketed between two serious bruisers who might as well have had lapel badges reading ENFORCER. The rest of the gang kept a pace or two behind these three as they marched, knowing their place: it seemed like not much had changed since the days when I ran with the Arthur Street posse. Maybe some things never do.

‘What are you up to?’ the alpha puppy demanded, giving me a stone-faced stare. Then his glance went to Bic and his eyes widened in surprise.

He bent down and hauled the younger boy to his feet, roughly enough that Bic staggered and almost fell again.

‘I’ve fucking told you!’ the bigger kid said severely. ‘You don’t go out after it gets dark. Why the fuck can you never do what you’re told?’

So this was Mrs Daniels’s other son: her John, whom she’d described as an IOU. He reminded me more of one of the small bomblets from a cluster munition: they’re both promises, I suppose, but one’s more likely to be kept than the other.

He turned his attention back to me again, and we played at staring each other out. He was dressed in a Ben Sherman I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-leather jacket, black jeans and the obligatory DMs, and his fists were clenching and unclenching as though he was itching to take a swing at me. His eyes didn’t track together, which I took to be a bad sign. Whatever he was on, if it was taking nibbles out of his nervous system it was bound to be having an effect on his mood, too.

‘Was this fucker copping a feel or something?’ he demanded.

Bic shook his head emphatically, either in disagreement or just to clear it. ‘I was falling, Johnno,’ he said, ‘over—’ He finished the sentence with a graphic gesture, pointing out past the parapet wall. ‘He grabbed hold of me. Pulled me back. I think I was - walking in my sleep or something.’

‘In your sleep?’ The alpha puppy - Johnno - repeated, incredulous.

‘Yeah.’

The answer didn’t seem to satisfy anyone. One of the rank-and-filers pulled Bic away out of the line of fire as the others closed in on me, following their leader.

There was something wrong with all their eyes, now that I was looking for it: they were too wide, and when the light from the lamp caught their faces at the right angle I could see that their pupils were hugely dilated. Methamphetamine? Special K? Or maybe they were just high on life."

"That momentary lapse of attention took me past the point where I could have made a run for it.