Free The Chaos by Rachel Ward Page A

crying out to me, shouting out to be heard. The future of this city’s there in my hands – a terrible, terrible, violent future. All those feelings, those voices, those last cries of agony, they’re inside me, in my ears, behind my eyes, in my lungs. It’s too much. I’m going to burst. Still clutching my book, I bring my hands up to my head, gripping hard, eyes tight shut. I try and do that breathing thing – in through your nose, and out through your mouth – but my throat’s so tight there’s nothing getting through and the noise in my head is so loud I can’t hear myself think. I can’t hear the words. 
    ‘What are you doing, weirdo?’
    I know that voice. I open my eyes, just a bit. There’s four pairs of feet in front of me, four people close up. I don’t need to look up to know who it is. I don’t need to see his number to feel the violence, smell the blood. Junior and his mates. 
    ‘What are you doing here, spaz? What’s in your book?’

Chapter 16: Sarah
    I ’m living in the past here. This is what it must have been like in the old days, the 1970s, before mobile phones and computers and MP5 players. I’ve still got my phone, and that crappy net-palm thing they give you at school, but I can’t use them because they’re traceable, and I don’t want to be traced.
    Vinny and his mates don’t bother with technology, except one antique CD player (CDs?) and an old telly. I don’t even bother with the TV. Whenever you switch it on, it’s always freak shows or re-runs of sad sitcoms which weren’t funny the first time, or the news. And who wants to see the news? Wars all over the world, half the world flooded, the other half dying of thirst. I can’t do anything about any of it, so what’s the point of knowing? Last time I watched, they’d closed the Channel Tunnel, trying to stop all the migrants from Africa. Why would they want to come here? We’ve got problems of our own, floods, power cuts, riots … if they want to come here, let them come, I say. They’ll soon findout it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.
    Maybe more people should live like us. You’d think I’d miss what I used to have, wouldn’t you? Plush house, home cinema and gym. The only thing I miss is the pool, because my bump’s getting huge now. It drags down on me when I’m walking around and the only time I feel really human again is in the bath. So swimming would be lovely. But everything else here is fine.
    There’s two other guys apart from Vinny: Tom and Frank. They’re all smack-heads. You’d think I’d be scared, living here, wouldn’t you? But I’m not. No one’s interested in me, not in screwing me anyway. All they’re looking for is the next fix. And Vinny funds his habit by dealing. He’s got his regulars, like Meg and her thieving mates, and he goes out and about. None of them come here. He keeps them away. There’s a couple of baseball bats in the kitchen downstairs for when there’s trouble, but there hasn’t been any in the few weeks I’ve been living here.
    I pay my way by cooking for them. I never knew I could cook, never needed to before. The first day I wander down to the kitchen. It’s a mess. Like, really bad. So I start clearing up. I don’t have anything better to do. That evening I cook everyone pasta and grate some cheese on top. It’s all I can find in the fridge.
    The next day, Vinny comes home with an armful of fresh stuff.
    ‘You need to eat vegetables, and fruit,’ he says. ‘Lots of green things.’
    ‘Since when were you an expert?’ 
    He shrugs.
    ‘I dunno, you do though, don’t you? Need to eat this stuff when you’re pregnant?’
    ‘Yes, I s’pose, but I haven’t got a clue what to do with it.’
    ‘Soup,’ he says. ‘Chop it all up and bung it in a pan.’ 
    So I do. And it’s beautiful. Everyone has some. They’re not big eaters, my housemates. Sometimes they don’t eat anything all day. But I am. It’s not just eating for two. When you’ve