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illustration: Raphael Achache
“What the bleddy hell’s happened to you two?” Sasha puffed. “Are we not going to the Spiegeltent?”
“You’re not gonna believe this.” I fell into her shoulder, pushing her back onto the tram and spluttering the last blood-soaked hour onto her jumper. Milo stood with his back to the door, arms folded, blankly gazing out of the window as we passed through Market Square and up Goldsmith Street. Blue lights flashed from every angle.
“But you left him alive, right?” Sasha gripped me by the arms.
“Yeah,” I sobbed. “He didn’t even know what he’d done. It was messed up, mate.” Sasha kissed me on the cheek, telling me not to worry. The blurry outside felt clouded and unreal. The innards of the carriage were harsh and sharp, the familiar screeches of the tram lines reminding me that Milo’s place wasn’t too far away.
He moved away from his nest in the corner, and put his hand into the small of my back, pulling us both into his torso.
“It’s gonna be alright, Liv.”
The light snapped on and the smell of fusty weed hit my nose. Milo’s empty IPA cans scattered across the coffee table, drowning the tea-stained Xbox controllers. Me and Sasha slumped into the dust of the sofa simultaneously as Milo rummaged around in the kitchen, bashing the drawers while mumbling angrily to himsen. I dug my nails into my hands. Sasha put her arm around me and stroked my hair – I could feel the tension in my jaw release as my head fell onto her chest.
“Look,” Milo boomed, towering over us from behind the sofa. “We did the right thing. No other fucker was helping.”
“You’re right. We couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”
“You two are crazy.” Sasha shook her head. “Brave. But absolutely fucking loco.”
“It’s not even the fight. It’s the fact that he was eating that girl and didn’t even know what was going off. That guy needs locking up man. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. There was blood everywhere.”
Milo knelt down in front of us, holding both our hands and kissing them. “It’s over now.” We slumped onto the floor and held each other tight as Milo reached over to light a spliff. “I love you two so much.”
“Me too.”
“Me too.”
Both of his hands gartered our thighs. Every muscle in my body fell limp, and the room fuzzed into black.
I woke with a metallic taste in my mouth, drenched. My eyeballs vibrated in my head as I pulled myself up to see a human heart swimming in a lake of blood on Milo’s mattress, the flapping curtain splattered. An empty silence hung from the walls. I looked to the floor. A single hand was at my feet, veins hanging in threads from the butchered wrist. Milo’s sovereign ring clung to one of the fingers.
I threw up all over the floor.
What happens next? Pick up the phone to find out.
A) Call Uncle Bob on 07936842157
B) Call Sasha on 07936842158
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