Free Roadkill (LiveWire) by Daisy White Page A

any of the nationals even picked it up.
    No messages, old or new from a mysterious secret admirer either. Maybe he didn’t exist, or if he did maybe he wasn’t linked to LiveWire.
    Deleting messages, I flick back to the last one from Kelly, asking where Rose is, posting a load of stuff from her latest dare. I scroll down the page, and squint at the photos. Blurry as usual, and dark, as usual, but oh!
    Kelly and her mates are scaling a tall derelict building, climbing steadily upwards with no safety harness, one girl even screams as a high heeled shoe drops twenty feet into the street below. I can’t tell which one is Kelly, and you wouldn’t even know it was LA, what with the looming landscape shrouded in darkness, and bad camera work. She seems pretty pleased with her effort though, notching up another star and challenging Rose to crack on and catch up.
    Which is exactly what she is going to do. Matt, Melissa, even Leo are far from my mind as Rose-Farlan returns to LiveWire. Three months after her death. Because you see, it occurred to me when Mum was babbling about moving to Australia. If I was to go too. IF. I would need to make sure I was actually right and Rose’s death was truly an accident. Of course, I would still want to kill the person who did it, but if it really was truly an accident I guess I could leave it. Go to art school, go to Australia, whatever. I don’t have to know who did it anymore, I need to know it wasn’t done deliberately. This must be progress of a sort.
    The Vultures would be proud, I think, as I grab the phone and ring Shona. She’s at hairdressing college (or something) and she is always whinging nobody will let her practice on their hair. I figure she can’t go wrong with what I want done.
    My phone bleeps:
     
    ‘I can explain – meet me 2nite at the bridge - 2230?’
     
    Adrenalin crackles again and I punch viciously at the silver buttons:
     
    ‘See u there.’
     
    I don’t think Ashley is going to kill me……do I? But I do need to know what the hell is going on. I ponder a moment about calling the police, but wince at the thought of them laughing at me, saying, as The Vultures so often have, that I am delusional with grief. Yeah right.

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Ten
     
    As soon as I finish the text my mobile rings.
    “Hi Leo! Hey guess what….”              
    “Are you in a mood with me?” He sounds sulky, like a kid with a broken toy.
    “Leo? Of course not, don’t be crazy! Why would I be anyway?”
    “Well, I just thought when I told you about Matt and Anita…” He trails off uncertainly and I feel guilty for not ringing him earlier.
    “No Leo. Anyway I think you were wrong because Matt followed us out, and he asked me out for tonight. Isn’t it fab?”  I am tapping answers to Kelly on LiveWire as I speak. For some reason I don’t tell Leo what I’m up to. He wouldn’t want me to become Rose, and he’d only be all worried. Plus he thinks I’m being all paranoid about Rose’s death.
    “Hey that’s great. Where are you going?” Normal bubbly Leo is back, with his girly giggle, all excited for me just like a best friend should be.
    “Um, nowhere. I don’t know I need to call him. Mum wants to have this talk about moving to Australia.” I am now scrolling through ‘events’ i.e. dares listed in my area. Wow there are loads, and surprise, surprise I don’t fancy doing any of them. ‘Buried in a box’…. no chance! What would Rose do?
    “AUSTRALIA!” Leo practically bursts my eardrums, “That is so cool, because I was thinking of heading off maybe ditching uni for a year, and doing some travelling, so we could go together. Do a gap year together!”
    I am totally thrown, “I thought you wanted to go to uni as soon as possible and earn pots of money.”
    “Oh well you know, anything can happen.”
    I tell him about Ashley and the ‘lorry’ thing, and he warns me to be careful.
    “Do you want me to come? I bet Matt at least