Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) by Helen Black Page B

outside the café. Everything about him frightened her. His voice, his eye, and the way Chika behaved around him. As soon as he left, Chika shrugged her old self back on, like a coat, and suggested they come back to hers before hooking up with the other girls. The swagger was back in her step and the smile back on her face.
    She seems totally relaxed now, blowing smoke rings at her ceiling.
    Demi opens her mouth to speak when the doorbell rings. Chika leans to the window to see who is down below.
    ‘Shit.’
    Demi’s heart leaps. Is it the man with the scar? She hopes to God it’s not. It was bad enough standing next to his car. She wouldn’t want to be in the same room as him with no way to escape. She joins Chika by the window, trying to make out the figure. Definitely a man.
    ‘Who is it?’ Demi’s voice sounds choked.
    Chika takes a deep drag and exhales a plume of smoke. ‘Police.’
    ‘How do you know?’ asks Demi.
    Chika raises her eyebrow to the question.
    Demi gasps. The thought of the man was bad enough, but being caught by the police smoking drugs is a whole lot worse. Gran will explode with fury.
    ‘What are we going to do?’ asks Demi.
    Chika stabs out the roach among twenty others and reaches for a discarded pack of chewing gum.
    ‘I’m going to find out what he wants.’ She pops a stick of gum in her mouth.
    ‘But what if he wants to come in?’ Demi hisses. ‘What if he smells the dope?’
    Chika opens the draw of her bedside table and pulls out a freezer bag full of weed. She hands it to Demi.
    ‘Put this down your trousers.’
    Demi stands there with her mouth open like a fish. Chika sighs, yanks at the waistband of Demi’s jeans and pushes the package down.
    Demi gulps, feeling the plastic wad pushed against her pubic bone.
    ‘What if I get caught?’
    Chika pulls at Demi’s hoodie, smoothing it over the obvious bump. ‘You’re only thirteen, he ain’t gonna strip search you.’
    ‘But what if he does?’ Demi grabs Chika’s arm. ‘What if he arrests me?’
    ‘Listen to me, yeah, he’s not going to touch you.’ Chika puts her hand over Demi’s and looks into her eyes. ‘But if he comes into the house and finds that stuff, he’s gonna haul my ass to jail, innit.’
    Demi can feel the muscles in her nostrils pulsing as they open and close.
    ‘I’ve got a record so they can send me away for a long time, you understand me?’ says Chika.
    Demi feels like she might cry. She’s terrified of being caught, but Chika is her friend. No one has looked after Demi like she does, no one else cares. The doorbell rings again, making Demi jump.
    ‘Are we family?’ asks Chika. ‘Cos you gotta decide.’
    Demi swallows hard, her eyes hot with tears.
    ‘Yes,’ she whispers.
    Chika nods and hands the ashtray to Demi. ‘Flush this while I answer the door.’
    Demi’s hands are shaking as she carries the ashtray carefully to the bathroom. It feels like the time she was one of the wise men in the nativity play at primary school. She had wanted to be an angel like all the other girls, but Mrs Thomas said she had a regal look about her, whatever that meant, and anyway, none of the white dresses would fit. So Demi, Rory Carney and Joel Evanson had been dressed in some old dressing gowns and paper crowns. Demi had been the third wise man and her job had been to carry a box of Ferrero Rocher to the manger, before delivering her only line: ‘I bring you Myrrh.’
    Unfortunately, Demi’s hands were shaking so much she dropped her gift for the baby Jesus, scattering chocolates wrapped in gold paper across the stage. Everyone had laughed and Demi had wet her pants.
    Today she won’t make any mistakes. Her sister is relying on her. She carries the ashtray across the landing to the bathroom with both hands. She doesn’t spill a single flake of ash. Then she shakes it into the bowl and flushes the chain. The sides of the ashtray are covered in a thin film, like a layer of dust. Can the police do