The Chaos by Rachel Ward Page A

nightmare.
    ‘That’s enough, Junior, you said it was going to be fair.’ Someone’s talking, the guy who searched me.
    ‘Shut up.’
    ‘He’s had it, look at him.’
    ‘I said shut the fuck up!’
    ‘Who’s gonna make me?’
    I only half-hear what they’re saying. My head has flopped forward, and my legs have gone. If the guys weren’t holding me up, I’d be on the floor now.
    Junior’s not stopping. He’s got into his stride now. More punches to the stomach, and I vomit up blood. He’s killing me. He don’t need a knife – his fists’ll do the job. 
    ‘Leave him.’ 
    Another punch. 
    ‘I said leave him.’
    I can’t see anything any more. The space behind my eyes has gone red. I’m hanging forward, and then suddenly I’m falling. There’s a cry, a great wail of rage, and someone buts my shoulder and I’m falling to one side. Then grunting, feet scuffling, shouts, voices but not words, and the space behind my eyes turning from red to black.
    The fire sighs as I fall into it. My arms and legs aren’t working. I can’t push myself away. I force my eyes open and see the pinpricks of ash showering upwards, points of light travelling up, up, up around me. Through the flames I see the flash of a blade, the look of surprise in Junior’s eyes, and his number flickering like a fluorescent light on the blink. 
    On, off. On, off, on. Off. 
    Someone’s screaming.
    The flames lick my face, fill my nostrils with the smell of cooking flesh.
    Someone’s screaming. 
    It’s me.

Chapter 22: Sarah
    T he first few days pass in a calm, milky haze. If she cries, I feed her. I have to steel myself to do it, because it hurts like hell when she starts sucking, but after a few seconds the pain eases and the milk works its magic – on her and on me. She gets drunk on it; warm and woozy and happy. Her whole body relaxes, her arms flop down by her sides, and the only movement is her ear wiggling as her jaw moves rhythmically – suck, suck, suck, pause … suck, suck, suck, pause. And I’m drawn down into a place where it’s only me and her, nothing else, a soft, warm, milky world.
    I didn’t know it would be like this. How could I possibly know? That you can love someone so completely from the very first moment you see them.
    Because I do. I love her. She was part of me and now she’s separate – her own person, and I love her. I hated my life, every bit of it. I hated being me. But that’s gone now, my past is gone, how I got here, who I was. I wanted to be a new ‘me’ and I am. I’m Mia’s Mum.

Chapter 23: Adam
    I ’m like a snowman left out in the sun. Everything on one side of my face has melted. The edges have gone. I’ve lost my detail. The first time I see myself in the mirror I don’t cry, I just stare and stare, trying to find myself in that face. I look away and back again, hoping it’ll be different when I look again, hoping some miracle will have happened and I’ll be back to ‘normal’.
    But there’s no miracles. I’m scarred from the fire. I always will be.
    The police come calling, asking all sorts of questions, but I won’t talk. I close my eyes. I keep my mouth shut. And they go away. I keep the curtains round my bed closed. I don’t want to see anyone and I don’t want anyone to see me. When the nurses come in, I don’t look at them. I don’t need to see anyone’s number right now. For a couple of weeks, that works, but one day the nurse don’t draw the curtain properly and now the boy in the bed next to me is watching me through the gap when I hold the mirror up tomy face. He’s younger than me, about eleven, a pale little kid with no hair. I recognise that look. He’s on chemo, like my mum was.
    I catch him watching, but instead of being embarrassed and looking away, his eyes lock onto mine and he says, ‘What happened to you?’
    I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to anyone, but especially not another twenty-seven. Because that’s what he is.