Frantic scraping in the dark to my right and a familiar smell tells me it isn’t Dan. I roll back the way I’ve come in a total panic.

I hit Dan’s legs and manage to bring him down with me.

‘Fuckin’ bitch!’ He grabs at me and gets hold of some of my hair. I keep right on rolling, feeling it wrench from my head. It hurts but who cares. I’ve heard another voice in the dark. One I know.

I keep moving, listening to Dan scramble along after me. ‘Get back here, you little slut!’

He’s as blind as me. I can’t get up and run for fear of wiping out on the walls or a low-hanging stalactite. I hear the voice again and my heart leaps. So close!

‘Gotcha!’ A click and a stream of light cuts through the dark.

Dan is only a few metres behind me with a pen-torch in his hand. One of those tiny LED things that still manages to be intense. I get up and run, but too late.

Grabbing a bigger fistful of my hair he rips my head back, wrapping his other arm around my chest. I struggle against him but he’s a full-grown man who does physical labour for a living; I’m a scrawny, bookish teenager.

He drags me down to the ground, forcing me under him till he’s straddling my hips, his knees trapping my arms at my sides. He leans in and brutally shoves his mouth on mine. Pushing till my teeth split my lip and blood pours into my mouth. He bites down on my bottom lip till I am forced to open my mouth so he can shove his vile tongue inside. I whimper and try to bite him, but he rips my head further back. He digs the torch into my jaw right at the hinge joint. The pain is unbearable.

A groan in the dark makes him pull back. It draws both our eyes and Dan brings the light around to the source. A small ledge drops about a metre down from where he has me. There lies a thin figure, curled in a tight ball. Her hand covers her eyes and she groans again like it hurts.

‘Laney,’ I gasp.

‘Tace,’ she whispers, so quiet but I still hear her. ‘Run.’

A soft growl comes from just beyond her. A shifting in the dark that is all too familiar, the horror inside me builds higher.

‘What the fuck is that?’ Dan swings the light to get a better look and the growls become enraged shrieks. He finally gets scared. Too late. He leans backwards, releasing my head and arms. I fumble in my bra and pull out the necklace. The chain is so long I slip it right over his head without a problem.

‘What the—’